Digital Commons Network^™

Three Essays On Social Justice Issues: Health, Gender, And Policing, Travis B. Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation empirically examines three pressing social justice issues in the United States. In the first chapter, titled "Black Lives Matter's Effect on Police Lethal Use-of-force," I explore the influence of Black Lives Matter protests on police lethal use-of-force. A difference-in-differences design finds census places with protests experienced a 15% to 20% decrease in police homicides from 2014 through 2019, around 300 fewer deaths. This decrease was prominent when protests were large or frequent. Potential mechanisms behind the reduction include police agencies obtaining body-worn cameras to curtail force and depolicing following a so-called `Ferguson Effect.' Fewer property crimes, but more …

“We Feminine Foresters”: Women, Conservation, And The Usda Forest Service, 1850-1970, Rachel D. Kline

Doctoral Dissertations

The traditional narrative of the Forest Service places the mythic “two-fisted” male ranger as the focus of its history. The reality is that without women he would not have gotten the job done. Women’s work as advocates, foresters, rangers’ wives, clerks, information and education specialists, scientific researchers, and lookouts reveals that although women were excluded from the male domain of forestry, they created a distinct female tradition within the Forest Service—what one called a “feminine forestry” that proved without women, the Forest Service would not have achieved its accomplishments or growth throughout the twentieth century. Throughout their work, women spread …

The Historical And Legal Creation Of A Fissured Workplace: The Case Of Franchising, Brian Callaci

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the consequences of institutional change in capitalist firms, focusing on vertical dis-integration, the legal boundaries of the firm and what David Weil has called workplace "fissuring," in which corporations place intermediaries (subcontractors, temp agencies, or franchisees) between themselves and workers, often with negative consequences for workers. It focuses specifically on franchising, a type of fissured workplace in which one firm outsources retail operations to smaller, legally independent franchisees. The first chapter uses archival sources to identify the legal and policy changes driving workplace fissuring in the franchising context: specifically the relaxing of antitrust prohibitions on vertical restraints …

Upkeep: Maintenance In American Representations Of Work, 1945-Present, Brandon Benevento

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates maintenance as an under-theorized component of social criticism in American novels, 1945 to the present. In this, it contributes a literary argument to growing interdisciplinary study of maintenance. “Upkeep” argues that authors of novels use maintenance, often unconsciously, to link representation of characters working in discreet settings to larger systemic and structural critique. At the same time, authors often elide forms of maintenance, for example the upkeep of domestic space. As such attention to representation of maintenance offers a critical reading tool which illuminates a text’s political and cultural commitments and literary agenda.

After establishing a range …

The State Of The Union? Transnational Manufacturing And The Us Labor Movement, Zachary Joseph Mckenney

Doctoral Dissertations

The process of globalization has fundamentally altered the relationship between states, corporations, and trade unions. The increased mobility of capital combined with the desire among state actors to attract foreign direct invest has led to an unprecedent decline in trade union density in nearly every developed nation. This decline is concerning because numerous studies have indicated that trade union density is a key factor in mitigating the impacts of globalization and combatting economic inequality. As a result, states and state actors should increasingly look for ways to facilitate the expansion of trade union density. One promising avenue for doing so …

Three Essays On Sustainable Development In China: Social, Economic And Environmental Aspects, Ying Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

The first essay focuses on the role of the hukou (i.e. Household Registration System) with full awareness of the economic system it operates under, and the development model it assists. I find that hukou’s main role in the planned economy was to assist socialist industrialization while averting the Lewis development model, a development strategy based on unlimited supply of labors from the rural sector, largely adopted in developing countries. In the market reform period, hukou performed exactly the opposite function, which is to assist the Lewis model based on the unlimited supply of rural surplus labor “released” from the …

Three Essays On The Costs And Economic Implications Of Health Limits, Peijingran Yu

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation considers the influence that the arrival of work limiting health conditions has on labor market activity but also on broader social behavior of those that experience them. The primary data source used in the analysis is the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

The first chapter examines demographic correlates of the evolution of work limiting health conditions in the United States. Beyond a basic description of the onset and incidence of specific health conditions and their association with common demographic covariates, a set of specific health conditions that arrive largely unexpectedly are identified. The primary method …

Spatial Aspects Of Infant Mortality And Informal Workers: The Case Of Ceara State -Brazil, Ricardo Soares

Doctoral Dissertations

High levels of infant mortality and high participation of informal workers in the labor market are living conditions faced by many developing countries. In Ceara State - Brazil, their trends during the last three decades have followed opposite directions. Whereas infant mortality has decreased substantially since the 1980s, suggesting that the country is on the right path to development, the labor market has presented increasing levels of informality, which challenges traditional theories of development. The essays of this thesis aim to investigate some aspects of these two phenomena. In particular, the first essay offers an approach to analyze if the …

Money, Output And Real Wages In A New Keynesian Framework With Heterogeneous Labor And Monopsonistic Firms, Robert J. Martel

Doctoral Dissertations

Representative agent models do not match up well with three stylized facts of the business cycle: a money-output connection, countercyclical markups, and acyclical real wages. This thesis investigates whether a New Keynesian model which departs from the representative agent assumptions and models heterogeneity and imperfect competition in the labor market is more consistent with these stylized facts.

One possible explanation of countercyclical markups and acyclical real wages is that labor markets are monopsonistic and monopsony power is weaker during expansions than in recessions, This would require that the elasticity of labor supply be procyclical. This is not possible if worker …

The Role-Set Of The Truck Driver: Issues Of Worker Autonomy, Ideology, And Identity, Bruce Patrick Day

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore occupational socialization and identity formation within the context of work, the workplace, and work practices. The workers presented in this study are long-haul, freight carrying truck drivers. The components of this study include: (a) a socio-historical analysis of the trucking industry, and (b) how characteristics of the truck drivers' work influence his identity, and how this influence is different for various types of drivers.

I have reviewed changes in the trucking industry from its beginnings at the start of this century to its current status in 1996. This includes looking at organizations developed in response …

Information Technology, Employee Participation And The De-Skilling Thesis, Jay Charles Lacke

Doctoral Dissertations

While the de-skilling of work may involve many facets, including task simplification and the degradation of manual skills, this dissertation focuses specifically on the loss of control by workers over the organization and direction ("conception") of their own work. This focus is consistent with Harry Braverman's (1974) seminal argument that the "pivot" of capitalist management, and the core of the de-skilling thesis, is the separation of the conception of work from its execution.

Employee participation strategies whereby workers exercise discretion over the organization and conduct of work are contrary to the de-skilling thesis. But their existence is compatible with post-Braverman …

Bilateral Monopoly In The Shipbuilding Industry: A Study Of Wage-Rate Determination, Gregory Woodhead

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary goal of this dissertation is to explicate the dynamic factors that influence the outcome of collective bargaining when a strong union with monopoly power over the supply of labor faces an employer exercising monopsony power over the demand for labor. A significant characteristic of the bilateral monopoly model is the indeterminacy of both the wage level and the quantity of labor employed. Each party sets bounds on the range of possible outcomes, but the final outcome is determined by the process of collective bargaining. The research methodology requires an examination of wage-rate determination in the U.S. shipbuilding industry …

The Impact Of Occupational Segregation On The Net Black-White Male Earnings Gap, Michael Greene

Doctoral Dissertations

Even after controlling for racial differences in human capital characteristics, a black-white male earnings gap continues to persist. There have been very few attempts, however, to empirically assess the extent to which occupational segregation can explain this remaining earnings differential.

Drawing on the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample (1/1000 C-Sample), multiple regression equations are estimated and employed to identify the impact of occupational segregation on the net black-white make earnings differential. The empirical evidence shows that, after controlling for racial differences in personal characteristics, a black-white male earnings gap of 10.6% continues to persist. Occupational segregation is found to explain almost …

The Management Response To Union Organizing Of Registered Nurses, Jill Kathleen Kriesky

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent decades, employment in the service sector has swelled while the number of jobs in manufacturing has declined. Simultaneously, the percent of the workforce belonging to labor unions has fallen to about seventeen. It is the organization of service industry workers which unions expect to reverse the latter trend. However, a major obstacle facing union organizers of service workers is management's increasing use of labor-management consultants to resist organization.

In a growing, predominantly female, service occupation, registered nurses (RNs) in hospitals represent the type of workers unions must organize to increase membership. While dissatisfaction with job conditions makes nurses …

The Organization Of Work In Residential Construction (New Hampshire), Kent Alan Klitgaard

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses upon the relations of work in the housebuilding sector of the New Hampshire economy. While changing technology is integrated into the analysis, the primary concentration is upon the organization of work, which includes the development of the technical division of labor, supervision and structures of control, and the degrees of dependence or independence afforded the worker. The study is located within the theoretical context of the subordination of labor to capital. Analysts of the labor process have asserted that the formal subordination of labor to capital exists when private ownership and the relations of wage labor and …