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Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Thanks to Joseph McCartin for advancing this debate with an insightful critique of the workers’-rights-as-human-rights framework and for his generous treatment of the series of Human Rights Watch reports in which I had a hand. McCartin so fairly presents the human rights case, even while disagreeing with it, that it’s hard to respond without simply borrowing from his framing of my own views. But I’ll try.
Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore
Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore
Nick Salvatore
[Excerpt] This is a social biography of Eugene Victor Debs. It is a traditional biography in that it emphasizes this one individual's personal and public life as far as the evidence allows. But the book is also a piece of social history that assumes individuals do not stand outside the culture and society they grew in and from. I have stressed each aspect of Debs's story in order to present both the importance of the man and a more complete picture of the political and cultural struggles his society engaged in during his lifetime. Neither in his time nor in …
Introduction To The Pullman Strike And The Crisis Of The 1890’S, Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist, Nick Salvatore
Introduction To The Pullman Strike And The Crisis Of The 1890’S, Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist, Nick Salvatore
Nick Salvatore
The strike of Pullman carshop employees and the subsequent boycott that disrupted rail traffic throughout the territory west of Chicago in June-July 1894 marked the culmination of nearly two decades of the most severe and sustained labor conflict in American history. Yet until very recently little new scholarship has focused on the meaning of the Pullman strike and its historical context. By offering a close reading of contemporary perceptions of the strike and by examining the organizational and political continuities and discontinuities the Pullman conflict reveals, these essays resituate the strike in its historical context. They demonstrate that Pullman played …
Building Social Movement Unionism: The Transformation Of The American Labor Movement, Lowell Turner, Richard W. Hurd
Building Social Movement Unionism: The Transformation Of The American Labor Movement, Lowell Turner, Richard W. Hurd
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] In the United States, the renewed energy displayed by the labor movement is particularly promising. From organizing drives to strike victories to legislative campaigns, labor's renewed influence in the American political economy is clearly seen. A labor movement that was left for dead by many in the Reagan era has developed new leadership and innovative strategies for rank-and-file mobilization and political clout. In a global economy dominated to a large extent by American-based multinational corporations, the world needs a strong American labor movement. The goal of the new activists, young and old, who drive today's labor campaigns, is the …
Rank-And-File Participation In Organizing At Home And Abroad, Lowell Turner
Rank-And-File Participation In Organizing At Home And Abroad, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] We know that we need labor law reform. But it is also clear that this is not all we need; nor can we expect to achieve legal reform simply by electing Democrats. That strategy did not work in 1978-79 or in 1993-94, and it will not work in the future. In the face of inevitably powerful and well-organized business opposition, even the most well-financed and articulate lobbying campaign for labor law reform can fail. What was missing in 1978-79 and in 1993-94 and is urgently needed now is the pressure of a massive social movement, mobilized to transform and …
[Review Of The Book Values And Assumptions In American Labor Law], Nick Salvatore
[Review Of The Book Values And Assumptions In American Labor Law], Nick Salvatore
Nick Salvatore
[Excerpt] Reading this book it is difficult not to think that the intent of the author was less to understand the origins and developments of the values and assumptions that gild the practice of labor law than it was to 'prove' that labor law in America is really capitalist law and thus it invalidates itself. This is not only circular reasoning, but it is unfortunate as well. For there is another book to be written that would analyze these questions through a serious and sustained reading in the history of industrial relations and then apply that knowledge to specific case …
Gerechtigkeit Ohne Gewerkschaft Und Betriebsrat? Konfliktschlichtung In Gewerkschaftsfreien Betrieben In Den Usa, Alexander Colvin
Gerechtigkeit Ohne Gewerkschaft Und Betriebsrat? Konfliktschlichtung In Gewerkschaftsfreien Betrieben In Den Usa, Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
Zu den Faktoren, die in jüngster Zeit in mehreren Ländern – insbesondere in den USA – zu einem Rückgang der Mitgliederzahlen der Gewerkschaften geführt haben, zählen Strategien des Human Resource Managements wie „nonunion arbitration“ (gewerkschaftsfreies Schiedsverfahren“. Arbeitgeber in nicht tarif- und gewerkschaftsgebundenen Betrieben führen solche „neuen Verfahren der Konfliktschlichtung“ (NVK) mit dem Ziel ein, einen Teilersatz für die gewerkschaftliche Interessenvertretung zu gewähren. Sie stellen eine besondere Herausforderung für die Gewerkschaften dar und machen die Anpassung ihrer Interessenvertretungsstrategien erforderlich. Zwei alternative Handlungsmöglichkeiten bieten sich an. Eine Möglichkeit besteht darin , solche NVK einfach mit dem Argument abzulehnen, dass es sich um …
Das Amerikanische Arbeitsrecht Aus Der Perspektive Historischer Und Zukünftiger Entwicklungen, Alexander Colvin, Katherine V. W. Stone
Das Amerikanische Arbeitsrecht Aus Der Perspektive Historischer Und Zukünftiger Entwicklungen, Alexander Colvin, Katherine V. W. Stone
Alexander Colvin
In den vergangenen 15 Jahren ließen sich im amerikanischen Kollektiv- und Individualarbeitsrecht sowohl eine Fortsetzung der früheren Trends als auch die Entstehung neuer Themenfelder beobachten.Das System des kollektiven Arbeitsrechts, das die gewerkschaftliche Interessenvertretung und die Beziehungen zwischen den Beschäftigten und dem Management regelt, hat sich in seiner grundlegenden, auf die Zeit der Great Depression und die Jahre unmittelbar nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zurückgehenden Rechtsstruktur kaum verändert. Das amerikanische Individualarbeitsrecht hat dagegen mit der Einführung zusätzlicher individueller Arbeitnehmerrechte eine beträchtliche Dynamik entwickelt. Die Veränderungen in der Arbeitsorganisation und die Entwicklung neuer Formen von Arbeitsverträgen bedeuten eine zusätzliche Herausforderung für die traditionelle …
[Review Of The Book Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism And The Public Workplace], Alexander Colvin
[Review Of The Book Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism And The Public Workplace], Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
[Excerpt] In this splendid book, Paul Johnston applies his broad understanding of contemporary social theory to an analysis of a series of carefully matched field research cases to achieve genuine theoretical insights. His analysis addresses such fundamental issues as the nature of public sector unionism—its goals and the weapons it uses to achieve them, the ways it differs from private sector unionism—and the dynamics of social movement unionism. This work is an important contribution to the resurgent body of inductive theory development in industrial relations research that has emerged in recent years.
[Review Of The Book Unions And Workplace Change In Canada], Alexander Colvin
[Review Of The Book Unions And Workplace Change In Canada], Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
[Excerpt] Some leading unions in Canada are notable for the diversity of their responses to workplace change. These unions' policies and strategies, which range from the Steelworkers' (USWA) bold experiment in employee ownership and co-determination at Algoma Steel to the Autoworkers' (CAW) activist response to the pressures of the Japanese production and management systems at the CAMI auto plant, have produced significant variation in change processes and outcomes. This range of activity by Canadian unions in response to workplace change provides a fertile area for study by industrial relations researchers, as well as important challenges for policy makers and practitioners …
[Review Of The Book What Do Unions Do? A Twenty-Year Perspective], Alexander Colvin
[Review Of The Book What Do Unions Do? A Twenty-Year Perspective], Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
[Excerpt] The 1984 publication of Richard Freeman and James Medoff’s What Do Unions Do? was a landmark event in research on labor unions. It challenged existing negative economic conceptions of the role of unions by presenting a two-faced model of unionism in which the negative monopoly face of unions was counter-balanced by a positive collective voice face. For those in the labor movement, this book became a powerful source of academic support for their value to society and the economy. Among academics, WDUD was equally influential, as it encouraged a renewed, more data-intensive and methodologically sophisticated approach to research on …
A War Against Organizing, Kate Bronfenbrenner
A War Against Organizing, Kate Bronfenbrenner
Kate Bronfenbrenner
[Excerpt] Unless Congress passes serious labor law reform with real penalties, only a small fraction of the workers who seek union representation will succeed. If recent trends continue, there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain. Our country cannot afford to make workers defer their rights and aspirations for union representation any longer.
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Vernon M Briggs Jr
[Excerpt] Over its long and often turbulent evolution, the American labor movement has confronted few issues as persistently and as difficult has those related to subject of immigration. By definition, immigration affects the size of the labor force at any given time as well as its geographical distribution and skill composition. These vital influences, in turn, affect national, regional and local labor market conditions. Most immigrants directly join the labor force upon entering the country, as do eventually most of their family members. Hence, organized labor never has ignored immigration trends. As Samuel Gompers, one of the founders of the …
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Vernon M Briggs Jr
[Excerpt] Over its long and often turbulent evolution, the American labor movement has confronted few issues as persistently and as difficult has those related to subject of immigration. By definition, immigration affects the size of the labor force at any given time as well as its geographical distribution and skill composition. These vital influences, in turn, affect national, regional and local labor market conditions. Most immigrants directly join the labor force upon entering the country, as do eventually most of their family members. Hence, organized labor never has ignored immigration trends. As Samuel Gompers, one of the founders of the …
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs
Vernon M Briggs Jr
[Excerpt] Over its long and often turbulent evolution, the American labor movement has confronted few issues as persistently and as difficult has those related to subject of immigration. By definition, immigration affects the size of the labor force at any given time as well as its geographical distribution and skill composition. These vital influences, in turn, affect national, regional and local labor market conditions. Most immigrants directly join the labor force upon entering the country, as do eventually most of their family members. Hence, organized labor never has ignored immigration trends. As Samuel Gompers, one of the founders of the …
Legal Protection Of Workers’ Human Rights: Regulatory Changes And Challenges In The United States, Lance Compa
Legal Protection Of Workers’ Human Rights: Regulatory Changes And Challenges In The United States, Lance Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] In a 2002 study, the US Government Accountability Office reported that more than 32 million workers in the United States lack protection of the right to organise and to bargain collectively. But since then, the situation has worsened. A series of decisions by the federal authorities under President George Bush has stripped many more workers of organising and bargaining rights. The administration took away bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of employees in the new Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department.18 In the years before the 2009 change of administration, a controlling majority of the five-member National …
Free Trade, Fair Trade, And The Battle For Labor Rights, Lance A. Compa
Free Trade, Fair Trade, And The Battle For Labor Rights, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Labor rights advocacy is the most direct challenge to the primacy of a marketplace ideology in which efficiency and profit are the highest values. Labor rights advocates promote values of fairness, justice, and solidarity in global commerce. The battle to achieve enforceable hard law that protects workers' rights in the global economy is an important contribution to the labor movement's revitalization. Can a beleaguered movement take on multinational companies and the governments that appease them on these varied international grounds when there is so much still to do on organizing, collective bargaining, and domestic political action? There really is …
U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused, Lance A. Compa
U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] The 200-page Human Rights Watch report is based on case studies across a range of industries, occupations and regions of the United States. The report recognizes that U.S. workers generally do not confront gross human rights violations where death squads assassinate union activists or collective bargaining is outlawed. But the absence of systematic government repression does not mean that workers have effective exercise of the right to freedom of association. The case studies in the Human Rights Watch report uncover a distressing pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system …
[Review Of The Book Advancing Theory In Labour Law And Industrial Relations In A Global Context], Lance A. Compa
[Review Of The Book Advancing Theory In Labour Law And Industrial Relations In A Global Context], Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] The ideas and insights in Advancing Theory are an important contribution to the on-the-ground social justice movement challenging corporate rule in the global economy. It can even help rescue labor law and industrial relations as intellectual disciplines and career trajectories for a new generation of students and practitioners excited about thinking globally and acting locally.
Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions Hear A Different Drummer, Lance A. Compa
Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions Hear A Different Drummer, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] What remains to be seen is whether the labor movement's study of military spending will uncover the unions' material self-interest in reducing it, and in conveying that interest to the membership. For besides its general damage to the economy, which is now recognized even by many conservatives, the big, endless military buildup also threatens to inflict fatal damage on the trade union movement and its individual unions—not just indirectly but directly and concretely, in the form of fewer members, fewer contracts, fewer organizing victories, and less political power for working people. In effect, the Reagan Administration's plan to boost …
Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom Of Association In The United States Under International Human Rights Standards, Lance A. Compa
Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom Of Association In The United States Under International Human Rights Standards, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Human Rights Watch selected case studies for this report on workers’ freedom of association in the United States with several objectives in mind. One was to include a range of sectors - services, industry, transport, agriculture, high tech – to assess the scope of the problem across the economy, rather than to focus on a single sector. Another objective was geographic diversity, to analyze the issues in different parts of the country. The cases studied here arose in cities, suburbs and rural areas around the United States. Another important goal was to look at the range of workers seeking …
[Review Of The Book We Can’T Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard], Richard W. Hurd
[Review Of The Book We Can’T Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard], Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] In 1988 the fifteen-year campaign to organize office and laboratory workers at Harvard University ended with an NLRB election win. We Can't Eat Prestige is the most comprehensive examination to date of this compelling story, offering new detail and sufficiently bold assertions to re-ignite a smoldering debate about what this victory means for the future of unions. The author is a highly regarded journalist with thirty years of experience reporting on labor issues. Predictably, the book is extraordinarily well written, weaving a fascinating story of the union's evolution.
Organizing And Representing Clerical Workers: The Harvard Model, Richard W. Hurd
Organizing And Representing Clerical Workers: The Harvard Model, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The private sector clerical work force is largely nonunion, simultaneously offering the labor movement a major source of potential membership growth and an extremely difficult challenge. Based on December 1990 data, there are eighteen million workers employed in office clerical, administrative support, and related occupations. Eighty percent of these employees are women, accounting for 30 percent of all women in the labor force. Among private sector office workers, 57 percent work in the low-union-density industry groups of services (only 5.7 percent union) and finance, insurance, and real estate (only 2.5 percent union). With barely over ten million total private …
Beyond The Organizing Model: The Transformation Process In Local Unions, Bill Fletcher, Richard W. Hurd
Beyond The Organizing Model: The Transformation Process In Local Unions, Bill Fletcher, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The ideological foundations of traditional U.S. trade unionism have been called into question by world and domestic events. The post-World War II labor movement, founded on a social truce with capital and the apparent inevitability of a rising living standard, has hit a bulkhead-piercing iceberg of dramatic proportions. The global economy, economic restructuring, deregulation, and privatization have wrought destruction on U.S. unions. In the wake of this devastation, it has become common, even for union leaders, to define unionism in objectively negative terms (e.g., without a union, you have no protection from arbitrary management). As a movement, we have …
Patterned Responses To Organizing: Case Studies Of The Union-Busting Convention, Richard W. Hurd, Joseph B. Uehlein
Patterned Responses To Organizing: Case Studies Of The Union-Busting Convention, Richard W. Hurd, Joseph B. Uehlein
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] In June 1993, the Industrial Union Department (IUD) of the AFL-CIO initiated a project to gather cases from affiliated unions that would highlight aspects of the National Labor Relations Board process deserving attention from those shaping labor law reform proposals. Based on the cases submitted, we conclude that in its current form the National Labor Relations Act serves to impede union organizing. Particularly problematic are NLRB policies that allow employers to wage no-holds-barred antiunion campaigns. Even where there are legal restrictions on specific actions, the penalties for violations are so meager that they serve no deterrent effect. The cases …
Introduction: The Context For The Reform Of Labor Law, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Introduction: The Context For The Reform Of Labor Law, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] It has become increasingly clear that the U.S. system of collective bargaining is no longer a realistic option for a large and growing proportion of American workers, and the situation will continue to worsen absent a major redirection of public policy. The decline in union density rates in this country is alarming to those who value and promote unionization. The extent to which this decline is due to management resistance and the failure of the law to promote collective bargaining is an important question that requires continued study and debate. Opinion polls reveal that for millions of nonunion American …
Political Will, Local Union Transformation, And The Organizing Imperative, Bill Fletcher, Richard Hurd
Political Will, Local Union Transformation, And The Organizing Imperative, Bill Fletcher, Richard Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] As part of its ongoing commitment, SEIU has devoted increasing attention to the challenge of getting local unions to embrace organizing and to allocate sufficient resources to the task. In this context, the unions 1992 national convention adopted two key resolutions: one to affirm the centrality of organizing, the second to assist leadership development with targeted educational programs. In the months following the convention, a discussion unfolded among national staff regarding appropriate steps required to assist local union leaders committed to change. Although internal organizing and initiatives to develop leadership skills among women and people of color were encouraged, …
Wege Zur Transformation Gewerkschaftlicher Organisationsstrukturen, Martin Behrens, Richard W. Hurd, Jeremy Waddington
Wege Zur Transformation Gewerkschaftlicher Organisationsstrukturen, Martin Behrens, Richard W. Hurd, Jeremy Waddington
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] Bei einer länderübergreifenden Betrachtung erweist sich die Neubelebung der Arbeiterbewegung als ein komplexer Prozess des Wandels, der je nach soziopolitischem und ökonomischem Kontext variiert.Zwar lassen sich zahlreiche, vielfältige Gewerkschaftsstrategien und Ergebnisse beobachten, aber dennoch sind in den meisten der untersuchten Länder (Deutschland, Italien, Spanien, Großbritannien, USA) verschiedene Formen der strukturellen Anpassung, wie Zusammenschlüsse und Übernahmen, sowie eine „Rationalisierung“ der internen Gewerkschaftsstrukturen übliche Elemente der Revitalisierungsbemühungen. Auch wenn viele Ansätze zur Veränderung der Gewerkschaftsstrukturen auf der Strecke blieben, so bleiben doch noch eine Reihe von Fällen bei denen Reformen zu den positive Ergebnissen führten,welche die Arbeitnehmerschaft dringend benötigte.
Revival Of The American Labor Movement: Issues, Problems, Prospects, Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, Richard W. Hurd
Revival Of The American Labor Movement: Issues, Problems, Prospects, Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The purpose of this book is to examine union revitalization efforts: to identify central developments, to analyze strengths and weaknesses in the new initiatives, and to assessprogress made and prospects for the future. We ask questions such as: Can union decline be reversed? Are there serious indications of revitalization beyond new leadership and publicity? What accounts for successes and failures so far, and what strategies have shown the most promise for future success? Can innovations in areas such as vocational training consortia contribute to labor movement revitalization? Are there ways to reconcile the contradictions between an "organizing model" of …
Building Social Movement Unionism: The Transformation Of The American Labor Movement, Lowell Turner, Richard W. Hurd
Building Social Movement Unionism: The Transformation Of The American Labor Movement, Lowell Turner, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] In the United States, the renewed energy displayed by the labor movement is particularly promising. From organizing drives to strike victories to legislative campaigns, labor's renewed influence in the American political economy is clearly seen. A labor movement that was left for dead by many in the Reagan era has developed new leadership and innovative strategies for rank-and-file mobilization and political clout. In a global economy dominated to a large extent by American-based multinational corporations, the world needs a strong American labor movement. The goal of the new activists, young and old, who drive today's labor campaigns, is the …