Labor Relations Commons^™

The Impact Of Sars-Cov-2 On The Consolidated Meatpacking System In The United States, Judith R. Solomon

Anthós

The Sars-Cov-2 virus has had a particularly intense impact on the meatpacking industry in the United States. In this paper I provide a brief introduction to the social, economic, and political realities that lead to mass deaths of meatpacking workers from COVID, and the impact of a consolidated meatpacking system on disease mitigation. These workers are considered expendable due to a lack of power.

Police Union Contracts And Impediments To Accountability: A Case Study Analysis Of Ppa Bargaining Agreements, Elizabeth Ott

University Honors Theses

Despite a growing widespread recognition that police unions represent a major component of policing and have major influences on aspects of policing such as disciplinary procedures, day-to-day management, and police-community relations, they have until recently been largely ignored by police scholars. In light of significant gaps in knowledge regarding police unions and the impacts that they have on law enforcement behavior and police accountability, this paper utilizes a case study approach to analyze all existing union contracts between the Portland Police Association (PPA) and the City of Portland in order to explore the prevalence of particular contract provisions that critics …

Trailblazing Transformation: Pioneering Transformative Peacebuilding In Academic Labor Conflicts, Sam Frazier Hediger

Dissertations and Theses

Unionized contingent faculty in the United States face an increasingly difficult economic landscape in their labor-management conflicts with university administrations. These unions, comprised of graduate student employees and adjunct instructors, won significant victories for their members but have failed to shift the broader patterns of casualization, unsustainable compensation, and job precarity, stemming from the systemic debasement of higher education institutions and the American labor movement, both of which pose significant challenges to conventional conflict resolution strategies. To find a path forward, this thesis explores the nature and possibility of transforming of the academic labor conflict, using a transformative peacebuilding approach …

The Geographies Of Intermediation: Labor Intermediaries, Labor Migration, And Cane Harvesting In Rural Western India, Pronoy Rai

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, I explain the role of labor intermediaries in the weaving of capital–labor relations in capitalist agro-business. I do so by focusing on migration infrastructure or the vertical network of labor intermediaries who facilitate labor recruitment from migrant home villages and migrant labor disciplining on cane fields in rural western India, where the laborers are brought seasonally to harvest sugarcane. I show how the role of labor intermediaries cannot be understood by containing them within the villainous stereotypes associated with brokers. Intermediaries are embedded within the labor geographies of commodity production where capital accumulation requires the downward transferring …

"Poverty Wages Are Not Fresh, Local, Or Sustainable": Building Worker Power By Organizing Around (Re)Production In Portland's "Sustainable" Food Industry, Amy Katherine Rose Coplen

Dissertations and Theses

Although conscious consumers flock to sustainability-branded restaurants and grocery stores to "vote with their forks" for environmental sustainability and vibrant local economies, workers in these industries face the same poverty wages, discrimination, and exploitative labor practices that plague the food service and retail industries at large. Despite rapid growth and labor degradation, low-wage workers in these industries have largely been left behind by the mainstream labor movement and the alternative food movement. Whereas in the past, progressive social movements worked to alter power relations between labor and capital through collective action, today's mainstream labor movement focuses on servicing its dwindling …

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 …

Cross-Cultural Understanding, Sajjad Haider

Student Research Symposium

This case-study is about the cross-cultural management and how it affects the employee relations and ultimately impacts their performance, if not handled properly. The case delves into different situations where understanding of the other cultural values, norms, work practices and human behavior is critical for foreign managers to succeed.

The case entails how a foreign FMCG company faced with the difficult and challenging situation in China. In order to fix the problems, the corporate headquarter sent three of their bright personnel; Janet, Peter and William to China. They were tasked to improve the HR, marketing & sales and distributions channels. …

Converging Divergences In Formal And Informal Work: Longitudinal Evidence From Mexico, Diana Denham, Chris Tilly

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Analyses of neoliberal labor market restructuring debate whether neoliberalism is homogenizing jobs or polarizing them. Analyses of informal employment debate whether such employment is inferior, and if so, if it is typically a transition or a trap. This paper speaks to both debates, using a three time-point (2006, 2007, 2008) longitudinal survey of retail workers in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, to contrast workers’ experiences across the spectrum of formal and informal work. Using the longitudinal data, the paper compares workers’ trajectories, exploring how they make choices and navigate transitions between more formal and more informal work. A qualitative portion …

A Comparative Study Of Administrator And Special Education Teacher Perceptions Of Special Education Teacher Attrition And Retention, Danielle Angelina Sheldrake

Dissertations and Theses

This mixed methods study identifies perceived causes of and solutions to the attrition of special education teachers. Researchers have documented that special education teaching positions encounter higher attrition rates than their general education peers (Katsiyannis, Zhang, & Conroy in Olivarez & Arnold, 2006; Mitchell & Arnold, 2004; Otto & Arnold, 2005; Stempien & Loeb, 2002). More than 66 administrators and 200 special education teachers/Teachers on Special Assignment (TOSAs) employed in the Portland, Oregon metro area (Washington, Clackamas, and Multnomah counties) completed a survey on special education teacher attrition and retention and identified what they believed are the causes of high …

The Response To Left-Wing Radicalism In Portland, Oregon, From 1917 To 1941, Andrew Nils Bryans

Dissertations and Theses

In the early twentieth century industrial, political, and social conflicts occurred throughout the United States during a period of rapid industrialization and modernization. Examples of these disputes, such as labor strikes and political struggles, have frequently been the subjects of scholarly investigations. Yet certain aspects of these conflicts remain relatively unknown, particularly on the community and local levels. The purpose of the present study was to explore and provide the context for a better understanding of the motives behind the responses of antiradicals to left-wing radicalism. What were some of the social, cultural, and economic motivations of local antiradicals in …