Labor Relations Commons^™

Hello Girls On Strike: Telephone Operators, The Fort Smith General Strike And The Struggle For Democracy In Great War Arkansas, Kyra Schmidt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In September 1917, Fort Smith telephone operators formed a local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Soon after, company leaders dismissed two of the women who were instrumental in the formation of the union. After many attempts to meet and negotiate with the company leaders, the remaining operators walked out and began striking on September 19. This strike lasted almost four months and brought chaos into the city including the indictments, trials, and convictions of the mayor, J. H. Wright, and chief of police, Jim Fernandez. The election after Wright’s conviction saw the first female votes in Arkansas history. …

Invisible Hand Or Collective Command: Unionized Effect On State Wages, Michael Felix

Business and Economics Presentations

No abstract provided.

Un Análisis Histórico De La Respuesta De Organizaciones Sindicales A La Pandemia De Covid-19, Rachel Hodes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La historia social de los últimos ciento cincuenta años de Ecuador ha contribuido únicamente a las acciones de organizaciones sindicales durante la pandemia del COVID-19. Un análisis de los medios sociales de varios sindicatos durante la pandemia y las protestas del 1 de mayo 2020 revela desarrollos claves en cuatro áreas: la afiliación política, la construcción de solidaridad con el movimiento indígena, el enfoque en la educación, y la lucha contra la corrupción gubernamental. Patrones mayores incluyen la priorización continua de la educación por obreras incluso cuando enfrentan nuevos desafíos, la unidad de centrales sindicales contra el neoliberalismo y la …

Maine Afl-Cio: Charles O'Leary Records, 1904-1993, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Finding Aids

In 1968, Charles J. "Chick" "Charlie" O'Leary, Jr. joined the AFL-CIO labor movement eventually serving as president of the Maine AFL-CIO from 1978 until 1999. In 1972, O'Leary became director of the University of Maine Bureau of Labor Education, a position he held until his retirement.

The collection includes documents related to O'Leary's time as president of the AFL-CIO including publications, legislative materials, and correspondence.

Google Has A Labor Problem, And It’S Not Just Coming From Its Employees, Daniel Whateley

Capstones

For decades, technology companies have used temporary and contract workers to lower costs, creating a shadow workforce of thousands of indirect employees. That business model is now under threat.

In September 2019, 80 contract workers at Google’s Pittsburgh office voted to unionize with the United Steelworkers, the first time that white-collar tech workers in the U.S. have successfully organized with a union. These contractors are employees of HCL Technologies, an Indian multinational IT and consulting company that partners with Google around the world.

Tech and office workers face a different set of workplace issues from blue-collar and factory employees, which …

Contextualizing Filipina/O Experiences Through The Life And Lens Of Virgil Duyungan, Benjamin Huff

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper serves a dual purpose: to examine the world of Filipina/o immigrants and Filipina/o Americans during the 1930s in the Puget Sound region, as well as look at the life and death of Filipina/o labor leader Virgil S. Duyungan. Incorporating these two different aspects into one paper reveals how Duyungan’s experiences contextualize and highlight key issues of the greater Filipina/o community in the region at the time, such as racial identity and tensions, labor rights, corruption and exploitation, and socio-economic conditions. By utilizing a body of primary and secondary sources, such as books, journal articles, government documents, images and …

As The Hourly Minimum Wage Moves Toward $15 Across New York State, Some Say The Fight For A Decent Living Is Far From Over., Barbara Prempeh

Capstones

This capstone projects examines the coming of the fight for a $15 minimum wage across New York State and beyond its borders. In 2012, the Fight for $15 organization took the streets of NYC to begin their fight only raising the wages for low income earners who work in different industries such fast- fast, hospitality, and even retail. For years now, the government has yet raise the minimum wage for all Americans which has caused several families to feel a crunch in affording a normal lifestyle. Since the start of this fueled fight, New York City is one of the …

The Effect Of Organizational Tenure, Bargaining Unit Status, And Union Membership On Local Government Employee Public Service Motivation, Ty Ryburn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two of the largest challenges public organizations face in motivating their workforces are the aging workforce and the strong union influence (Lavigna, 2014). On June 27, 2018, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Janus vs. AFSCME to abolish agency fees, and gave public service employees in bargaining units the right to choose whether they want to pay union dues or pay no fees at all.

In examining the unique motivational factors of employees in the public sector, Perry and Wise (1990) developed a theory called Public Service Motivation (PSM). Later, Perry (1996) developed a survey instrument which despite criticism, …

Academic Collective Bargaining: Status, Process, And Prospects, Daniel J. Julius, Nicholas Digiovanni Jr.

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

The authors provide a perspective, as scholars and practitioners, of the organizational, demographic, legal and contextual variables that inform the past and the future of faculty unions in U.S. colleges and universities. They ask, how best to conceptualize and evaluate the impact of faculty unions; from the inception of academic unionization in the 1960’s to the present, and further, what is known and not known about collective bargaining. Issues examined include: factors that influence negotiation processes, governance, bargaining dynamics, the institutional and demographic factors associated with faculties who vote in unions, compensation and the legal status of graduate student unions. …

Intergroup Solidarity And Collaboration In Higher Education Organizing And Bargaining In The United States, Daniel Scott, Adrianna J. Kezar

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

For too long in higher education, different worker groups have conceived of themselves as separated by distinct, even competing interests. The isolation between groups reduces communication, fosters unawareness of common interests, and hinders their ability to effectively collaborate in solidarity, as does the divided and largely independent structure of the unions and bargaining units representing them. Without greater collaboration and solidarity, members of the higher education community are less able to resist the harmful trends that have been transforming the sector over the previous decades, subjecting them to increasingly similar working conditions and distancing higher education from its student learning, …

Jewish Time Jump: New York, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Jewish Time Jump: New York (Gottlieb & Ash, 2013) is a place-based mobile augmented reality game and simulation that takes the form of a situated documentary. Players take on the role of time traveling reporters tracking down a story “lost to time” to bring back to their editor at the Jewish Time Jump Gazette. The game is played in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York City. Players’ iPhones become their time traveling device and companion. Based on the player’s GPS location, players receive digital images from their location from over a hundred years in the past as well …

Working For The Worker? A Study Of The Union Générale Tunisienne Du Travail (Ugtt), Ava Erfani

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study attempts to explore the nature of the Tunisian national trade union, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), as it operates in Tunisia today. This was achieved by conducting in-depth interviews with Tunisians living in the greater Tunis area in the fall of 2019. Through the lens of both those affiliated with the UGTT and those who have no ties to the organization, an image of the UGTT is able to be revealed as a conspicuous entity. Is its aim to hold power in government? Or rather stay outside of the sphere of national politics to effect change? …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

The Oppressive Pressures Of Globalization And Neoliberalism On Mexican Maquiladora Garment Workers, Jenna Demeter

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The international economic trends of globalization and neoliberalism have exposed and enabled the exploitation of Mexican workers, especially women in the maquiladora garment industry. During the 1950s, globalization gave rise to the new international division of labor and transnational corporations (TNCs) that have offshored labor-intensive phases of production to developing countries, many of which have pursued export-led industrialization. Export processing in Mexico was encouraged in the 1960s by Item 807 of the U.S. Tariff Code and Mexico’s Border Industrialization Program. Especially following the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, advanced capitalist countries and International Financial Institutions foisted neoliberal structural …

An Empirical Study Of Fast-Food Franchising Contracts: Towards A New "Intermediary" Theory Of Joint Employment, Kati L. Griffith

Kati Griffith

The “Fight for Fifteen and a Union” movement among fast-food workers and their allies has raised awareness about wage inequality in the United States. Rather than negotiating for better wages and working conditions with economically weak restaurant-level franchisees, the movement aims to affect the practices of what they view as the all-powerful brands—the franchisors. Few would dispute the notion that the franchisor brands, not their franchisees, set industry-wide standards and, thus, have the ability to offset rising wage inequality and improve working conditions. And yet, the movement has raised controversial law and policy questions about the legal responsibilities of these …

César Chávez And Egalitarian Ethics: Lessons From A Contradictory Legacy, Jeremy V. Cruz

Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology

No abstract provided.

Did Hollywood Take Theatre "By Hook Or By Crook?", Catherine S. Wright

MSU Graduate Theses

Hollywood and Theatre have been partners in producing entertainment for over 100 years. The relationship was fruitful for both parties, but Hollywood moguls and playwrights battled over ownership of the work and crafting of its creative nucleus, story and character. Theatre was the dominant entertainment right before the rise of motion pictures. Once Hollywood’s talkies closed the curtain on silent films, playwrights had a high creative worth to movie makers. In the cinema, story and dialogue were essential for its survival and growth. Playwrights were courted by the Hollywood studio heads but were not offered equal partnership as they were …

Academic Librarians And Labor Unions: Attitudes And Experiences, Ian Mccullough

Research, Publications, and Presentations

This research project investigates librarians’ attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining through data collected from a nationwide survey of 359 academic librarians in the United States. We found that academic librarians have a generally positive view of unions and collective bargaining agreements, a notable result in a national political atmosphere that is demonstrably anti-union. Union membership is strongly bound to faculty status. Our research results imply that unionization and collective bargaining provide stronger job protections and higher wages than faculty status alone, and suggest that discussions of faculty status in academic libraries may not have provided best possible way to …

Invisible Labour: Support-Service Workers In India’S Information Technology Industry, Indranil Chakraborty

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The dissertation investigates the life, working conditions and urban experience of support-service workers in the Information Technology (IT) sector of India: the janitors, security guards, fast food delivery service professionals and car pool drivers who work in and around technology parks that develop software applications for a world-market. The common experiences of these employees are migration from rural contexts to a radically modern employment setting, where they work long hours with minimal benefits in informal conditions that often violate basic labour laws. The thesis draws on quantitative and qualitative research, and in particular on analysis and interpretation of hundred and …

Context, Coalitions, And Organizing: Immigrant Labor Rights Advocacy In San Francisco And Houston, Shannon Gleeson, Els De Graauw

Shannon Gleeson

[Excerpt] In the pages that follow, we first situate immigrant labor rights struggles in scholarship on the “right to the city.” We then present San Francisco and Houston, focusing on their immigration histories, current demographic profiles, and contexts for advancing immigrant labor rights. We next describe the parallel types of organizations that have advocated for stronger wage and labor rights in San Francisco and Houston and the similar principles that have motivated them to advocate with local government. In discussing the wage and labor rights campaigns in each city, we draw out key differences in the policy changes that advocates …

From Rights To Claims: The Role Of Civil Society In Making Rights Real For Vulnerable Workers, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This article examines the contextual factors driving legal mobilization of workers in the United States through an analysis of national origin discrimination charges under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (2000-2005). Consistent with previous studies, this analysis confirms that high unemployment levels and weak labor protections promote legal mobilization. The findings also highlight the positive role that civil society may play in promoting claims-making. I argue that nongovernmental organizations fill the gap in places where organized labor is weak, and may help support claims-making particularly in places with a larger vulnerable workforce. The article concludes by offering suggestions …

Digital Media And Unionization In The “Guilded" Age: How Labor Organizations In The Entertainment Industry Are Swimming Against The Current Of Streaming New Media And Technology, Jacqueline G.H. Kim

Prize Winning Papers

No abstract provided.

Social Partnership And Its Continuities, Brian Sheehan

Irish Business Journal

Social partnership has long been pronounced ‘dead’ and buried, lamented by few. But thirty years on from the watershed Programme for National Recovery of 1987, the underlying influence of the 22-year construct is stronger than it might seem. How pay formation in the private and public sectors works today; how management-union disputes are resolved; how employers and trade unions engage; and how the social partners manage key industrial relations issues, all suggest important continuities with the partnership era.

Academic Librarians And Labor Unions: Attitudes And Experiences, Ian Mccullough

Ian McCullough

Workers Of The Word Unite!: The Powell's Books Union Organizing Campaign, 1998-2001, Ryan Thomas Wisnor

Dissertations and Theses

The labor movement's groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers' pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while …

Saying Goodbye To Unions In Higher Education: The Yale Hunger Strike In Perspective, Raymond L. Hogler

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

No abstract provided.

Complementary Or Conflictual? Formal Participation, Informal Participation, And Organizational Performance, Adam Seth Litwin, Adrienne Eaton

Adam Seth Litwin

Most studies of worker participation examine either formal participatory structures or informal participation. Yet, increasingly, works councils and other formal participatory bodies are operating in parallel with collective bargaining or are filling the void left by its decline. Moreover, these bodies are sprouting in workplaces in which workers have long held a modicum of influence, authority, and production- or service-related information. This study leverages a case from the healthcare sector to examine the interaction between formal and informal worker participation. Seeking to determine whether or not these two forces—each independently shown to benefit production or service delivery—complement or undermine one …

The Politics Of Shorter Hours And Corporate-Centered Society: A History Of Work-Time Regulation In The United States And Japan, Keisuke Jinno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shorter working hours drew much attention as a means of fighting unemployment and crisis in capitalism during the first half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, shorter work-time is rarely considered a policy option to fix economic or social issues in the United States and Japan. This dissertation presents a history of work-time regulation in the United States and Japan to examine how and why its developments and stalemate took place.

In the big picture, developments of work-time regulation during the first half of the twentieth century were a part of concessional modifications of class relations, a common phenomenon in many …

Still A Coordinated Model? Market Liberalization And The Transformation Of Employment Relations In The German Telecommunications Industry, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

This paper examines recent changes in collective bargaining and employer strategies in the German telecommunications industry following market liberalization in the late 1990s. Germany’s distinctive co-determination and vocational training institutions encouraged large firms to adopt employment systems in technician and call center workplaces that relied on high levels of worker skill and discretion. However, organizational restructuring is undermining these gains, as firms use outsourcing and the creation of subsidiaries to escape or weaken company-level collective agreements. These trends have substantially weakened unions and contributed to the further disorganization of coordinated bargaining structures. Findings are based on interviews with union and …

Introduction: Institutional Change And Labor Market Segmentation In European Call Centers, Virginia Doellgast, Rosemary Batt, Ole H. Sorensen

Virginia Doellgast

This article examines the dynamics of workplace change in European call centers. Survey data and case studies from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain show large national and sectoral differences in institutional inclusiveness and labor market segmentation. These reflect variation in the institutional constraints and resources available to employers and unions as they adjust to market changes. However, union strategies to organize new groups and close gaps in existing regulations are becoming increasingly important as restructuring undermines traditional forms of bargaining power.