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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations

How Demanding Should Equality Of Opportunity Be, And How Much Have We Achieved?, Valentino Dardanoni, Gary S. Fields, John E. Roemer, Maria Laura Sánchez Puerta Dec 2009

How Demanding Should Equality Of Opportunity Be, And How Much Have We Achieved?, Valentino Dardanoni, Gary S. Fields, John E. Roemer, Maria Laura Sánchez Puerta

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This chapter proposes tests of various notions of equality of opportunity and applies them to intergenerational income data for the United States and Britain. Agreement is widespread that equality of opportunity holds in a society if the chances that individuals have to succeed depend only on their own efforts and not on extraneous circumstances that may inhibit or expand those chances. What is contentious, however, is what constitutes "effort" and "circumstances." Most people, we think, would say that the social connections of an individual's parents would be included among circumstances: equality of opportunity is incomplete if some individuals get …


Household Income Dynamics: A Four Country Story, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse Nov 2009

Household Income Dynamics: A Four Country Story, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] In this paper, we analyse the dynamics of household per capita incomes using longitudinal data from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain and Venezuela. We find that in all four countries reported initial income and job changes of the head are consistently the most important variables in accounting for income changes, overall and for initially poor households. We also find that changes in income are more important than changes in household size and that changes in labour earnings are more important than changes in other sources of household income.


Capital Mobility And Job Loss: Corporate Restructuring, Production Shifts, And Outsourcing, Stephanie Luce, Kate Bronfenbrenner Oct 2009

Capital Mobility And Job Loss: Corporate Restructuring, Production Shifts, And Outsourcing, Stephanie Luce, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] This chapter examines the impact of corporate restructuring and global outsourcing on employment in the Commonwealth and the shifts in production from workplaces in Massachusetts to other countries. In particular we focus on global outsourcing, the shifting of work from Massachusetts offshore to countries in Europe and Asia, and nearshore to Canada and countries in Latin America. Given the huge media attention that outsourcing and nearshoring have garnered, and the increasing trend they represent toward corporate restructuring and capital mobility with lasting repercussions for workers, families, unions, and communities in the Commonwealth, it is important to assess their relative …


Should Labor Defend Worker Rights As Human Rights? A Debate, Jay Youngdahl, Lance A. Compa Jul 2009

Should Labor Defend Worker Rights As Human Rights? A Debate, Jay Youngdahl, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

The authors debate the relative merits and drawbacks of defining the labor movement under the umbrella of human rights, and the virtues of the rights of the individual versus the solidarity of the community.


Bridging Cultural Differences, Ken Margolies Jun 2009

Bridging Cultural Differences, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] How you say it can matter as much as what you say.


Stop Sending Mixed Signals To General Pinochet, Lance A. Compa May 2009

Stop Sending Mixed Signals To General Pinochet, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] We should not apologize for U.S. enforcement of the new labor rights laws against Chile. Critics have attacked them as "backdoor protectionism" aimed at keeping out foreign products. U.S. unionists, though, report a genuine enthusiasm among their rank-and-file members, not for the prospect of shutting out foreign goods but the hope of better pay and working conditions for their foreign counterparts.


An Assessment Of The Singapore Skills Development System: Does It Constitute A Viable Model For Other Developing Nations?, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Christopher L. Erickson, Alvin Hwang Apr 2009

An Assessment Of The Singapore Skills Development System: Does It Constitute A Viable Model For Other Developing Nations?, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Christopher L. Erickson, Alvin Hwang

Sarosh Kuruvilla

In this paper, we briefly describe the institutional background to Singapore’s successful national skills development model. We devise a tentative framework to evaluate national level skills development efforts, and we use it to assess the Singapore model. We argue that the model has the potential to constantly move towards higher skills equilibria, and in those terms, it is successful. However, we question the long-term sustainability of the model, and whether it is transferable to other developing nations. We outline several useful principles that other nations might use in organizing their own skills development systems.