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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement's Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd
Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement's Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] As labor contests the dinosaur image it will find no easy answers. Hard work, careful assessment of options, and a willingness to take risks are all required. Without widespread experimentation and a significant reallocation of resources to organizing, extinction awaits.
Automobile Workers Strikes, Ian Greer
Automobile Workers Strikes, Ian Greer
Ian Greer
Automobile workers' strikes occurred in essentially four eras: the lost strikes by the industry's craft unions in the early twentieth century, the dramatic sit-down victories of the 1930s, the mixture of wildcat and authorized strikes during the postwar economic boom from the 1940s through the 1970s, and the decline of strikes that accompanied the policy of "jointness' between company and union after J9S0. Autoworkers' strike strategies reflected, in part, the particular structure of the industry, which took shape in the 1920s. Auto production is a complex process of interdependent operations to produce parts and assemble vehicles, each containing tens of …
An Overview Of Collective Bargaining In The United States, Lance A. Compa
An Overview Of Collective Bargaining In The United States, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] American history reflects a long cycle of trade union decline and growth. Analysts routinely predict the death of the labor movement. (Yeselson 2012). Heralds of labor’s demise often argue that unions were needed in the past, but modem, enlightened management and the need for economic competitiveness make them obsolete. (Troy 1999). But then, workers fed up with employers’ exploitation decide to find new ways to defend themselves. History does not repeat itself, and conditions now are not the same as those spurring the great organizing drives of the 1930s and ‘40s. Still, American workers have shown deep resourcefulness over …
Reviving The American Labor Movement: Institutions And Mobilization, Richard W. Hurd, Ruth Milkman, Lowell Turner
Reviving The American Labor Movement: Institutions And Mobilization, Richard W. Hurd, Ruth Milkman, Lowell Turner
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The reawakening of the American labor movement under new leadership with new strategic orientations is a remarkable chapter in late 20thcentury American economic and political history. Given up for dead by so many at home and abroad, under relentless attack from American employers and with government supports disappearing, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFLCIO) and a core of key member unions have re-emerged since the mid-1990s as prominent workplace, community and political actors. With both strategic reorientation and new local mobilization, these unions have fought to reverse decline and re-energize the movement. While the …
Telecommunications: Collective Bargaining In An Era Of Industry Reconsolidation, Jeffrey Keefe, Rosemary Batt
Telecommunications: Collective Bargaining In An Era Of Industry Reconsolidation, Jeffrey Keefe, Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
[Excerpt] In this paper, we examine the reconsolidation of the industry, between 1995 and 2001, focusing on the merger, acquisition, and business strategies of the major corporate players; union responses to those strategies; and the resulting evolution of union-management relations and collective bargaining outcomes. We argue that the nature of the industry and technology, coupled with its institutional legacy, provides incentives for consolidation and recentralization of the ownership structure. In this process over the last decade, former Bell affiliates have sought union support before regulatory commissions, and the unions have leveraged their political power to make important gains in collective …
The Politics Of The Labor Movement Revitalization: The Need For A Revitalized Perspective, Lucio Baccaro, Kerstin Haman, Lowell Turner
The Politics Of The Labor Movement Revitalization: The Need For A Revitalized Perspective, Lucio Baccaro, Kerstin Haman, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] Unions everywhere are struggling. Globalization, with its supporting neo-liberal ideology, encourages employers and governments to push vigorously against the constraints of employment regulation. Unions have to fight to protect past gains, resist decline and find new allies. To some extent, labor is always on the defensive in a capitalist economy, where ownership and economic decision-making lie largely beyond the reach of workers and unions. Yet the competitive pressures of today's increasingly global capitalism accentuate the pressure. Firms have new options and increasing mobility, far beyond those that most workers and unions can claim. One response is common to all …
A Strange Case, Lance A. Compa
A Strange Case, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] The disconnect reflected in Bosch's action at the Wisconsin plant between promise and performance is the theme of a new Human Rights Watch report titled A Strange Case: Violations of Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States by European Multinational Corporations. The report details ways in which European firms have exploited weak US labour laws to carry out aggressive campaigns against workers' organising and bargaining in the United States. "A Strange Case" comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's famous The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
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 …
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 …
Unionization Of Professional And Technical Workers: The Labor Market And Institutional Transformation, Richard W. Hurd, John Bunge
Unionization Of Professional And Technical Workers: The Labor Market And Institutional Transformation, Richard W. Hurd, John Bunge
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] Established institutions that serve the interests of white-collar workers find themselves at a critical juncture. On the one hand they can foresee the potential to augment membership and influence. On the other hand, they confront the reality of reconfigured labor markets. Growth (and indeed survival) is contingent upon being able to adapt to the changing needs and interests of professional and technical workers. The combination of technological advances and alterations in the functioning of white-collar markets suggests strategic reconceptualization and institutional transformation. This chapter explores the attitudes of professional and technical workers toward their jobs and labor market organizations …
Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement’S Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd
Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement’S Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] But the increased effectiveness of labor's political activities has not resulted in major improvements legislatively, and now there is a hostile President who opposes nearly every aspect of the union policy agenda. The promise for the future lies in the demonstrated ability to mobilize at the grassroots. But there are recent signs that national unions are breaking ranks and pursuing narrow self interest. The USWA joined with the steel industry to persuade the Bush administration to restrict imports, and even hinted at a possible endorsement for his reelection in 2004 (Murray). The UMWA has praised the president's energy policy, …
Significant Victories: An Analysis Of Union First Contracts, Tom Juravich, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Robert Hickey
Significant Victories: An Analysis Of Union First Contracts, Tom Juravich, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Robert Hickey
Kate Bronfenbrenner
[Excerpt] After two decades of massive employment losses in heavily unionized sectors of the economy and exponential growth of the largely unorganized service sector, the U.S. labor movement is struggling to remain relevant. Despite new organizing initiatives and practices, union organizing today remains a tremendously arduous endeavor, particularly in the private sector, as workers and their unions are routinely confronted with an arsenal of aggressive legal and illegal antiunion employer tactics. This vigorous opposition to unions in the private sector does not stop once an election is won, but continues throughout bargaining for an initial union agreement, all too often …
Ensuring A Decent Global Workplace: Labor Rights Belong In Trade Agreements, Lance A. Compa
Ensuring A Decent Global Workplace: Labor Rights Belong In Trade Agreements, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Linking workers' rights to international trade is an idea whose time has come and stayed, despite the best efforts of free trade ideologues to chase it away. In looming congressional debates about "fast track" negotiating authority, the Bush administration and Congress confront powerful demands from workers, trade unionists and a wider public for rules protecting human rights and labor rights, not just corporate investments, in trade agreements.
Letter To The Editor, New Labor Forum, Jeffrey Grabelsky
Letter To The Editor, New Labor Forum, Jeffrey Grabelsky
Jeffrey Grabelsky
[Excerpt] Bill Fletcher and Rick Hurd have shined a critical light on a vital issue facing the labor movement. They have asked, but not yet answered, how the AFL-ClO's "Organizing for Change, Changing to Organize" program will help us build vibrant and democratic unions committed to inclusion and ready to grapple with the tough issues of race and gender. If their essay provides an excuse for some unions to avoid the challenge of organizing while debating these issues, it would be most unfortunate. But if their piece provokes a more serious and candid dialogue about external organizing and internal transformation, …