Labor Relations Commons^™

Worker Centers: Labor Policy As A Carrot, Not A Stick, Kati L. Griffith, Leslie C. Gates

Articles and Chapters

Worker centers empower communities of workers that are challenging for labor unions to organize. This includes immigrant workers and other vulnerable workers in high turnover jobs. These centers often organize workers that fall within the definition of “employee” under the Depression-era laws designed to protect some forms of collective worker activity from employer retaliation. Although employees associated with these centers can benefit from labor law’s carrot, worker centers are not “labor organizations” subject to labor law’s vast reporting requirements and restrictions on associational behavior (labor law’s stick). We use an original study of worker centers’ filings to ...

Union Leadership Development As Driver Of Equity And Inclusion, Sally Alvarez, Jose F. Alvarez

Articles and Chapters

Analysis generated for the research project on Young Workers and the Labor Movement highlighted the need for innovative leadership development if young workers are to be integrated into an increasingly diverse workers’ movement, and unleashed to provide leadership in established institutions that face a radically changing economy and workforce. We examine one successful leadership development program: the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute. We look at the theoretical underpinnings, development, and outcomes of this multi-union, multi-sector program over the past 17 years, note its impact on the New York regional labor movement, and analyze the key factors accounting ...

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

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

No abstract provided.

Management Whipsawing: The Staging Of Labor Competition Under Globalization, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier

Ian Greer

The authors examine management whipsawing practices in the European auto industry based on more than 200 interviews and a comparison of three automakers. They identify four distinct ways in which managers stage competition between plants to extract labor concessions: informal, hegemonic, coercive, and rule-based whipsawing. Practices at the three auto firms differed from one another and changed over time because of two factors: structural whipsawing capacity and management labor relations strategy. In the context of economic globalization, whipsawing is an effective means for managers to extract concessions, to loosen national institutional constraints, and to diffuse employment practices internationally.

Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper

Catherine Fisk

No abstract provided.

Garment Workers In Kentucky Oral History Project (Fa 865), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 865. Interviews conducted by Lisa Karen Miller containing details about the lives of garment workers in Kentucky and Tennessee. Some of the topics included were technological changes, job layoffs, and labor unions.

To Collect And Preserve: The State Of State-Level Cba Collections In The U.S., Aliqae Geraci, Jim Delrosso

Articles and Chapters

In order to evaluate the preservation and accessibility of public sector collective bargaining documentation in the United States, the authors conducted a fifty-state survey of public sector CBA collections. The study generated relevant data in four key areas: the presence of such collections, the scope of existing collections with regard to covered employees, the depth of those collections when compared to historical collective bargaining in a given state, and the relationship between a perceived legal mandate for collection and the presence of such collections. The authors discuss the public policy implications of their findings, and areas for further study, action ...

Member-Union Relations And Union Satisfaction, Paul Jarley, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Douglas Casteel

Sarosh Kuruvilla

This paper examines the importance of various facets of satisfaction with union representation in determining overall satisfaction with the union. Samples of union members from Iowa and Sweden are used in the analysis. The results clearly support the view that member-union relations is a major determinant of overall satisfaction with union representation.

Worker Centers And Labor Law Protections: Why Aren't They Having Their Cake?, Kati Griffith

Kati Griffith

[Excerpt] As private sector labor union membership in the United States dwindles, the number of worker centers continues to grow. In 1985, there were just five worker centers in the United States.' Today there are more than 200 such centers. Worker centers are often broadly defined as "community-based mediating institutions that organize, advocate, and provide direct support to low-wage workers." Given worker centers' focus on low-wage workers largely engaged in service sectors of our postindustrial economy and their relatively recent entrance into the field of United States labor relations, scholars and commentators are increasingly debating the applicability of the eighty-year-old ...

Management Whipsawing: The Staging Of Labor Competition Under Globalization, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier

Articles and Chapters

The authors examine management whipsawing practices in the European auto industry based on more than 200 interviews and a comparison of three automakers. They identify four distinct ways in which managers stage competition between plants to extract labor concessions: informal, hegemonic, coercive, and rule-based whipsawing. Practices at the three auto firms differed from one another and changed over time because of two factors: structural whipsawing capacity and management labor relations strategy. In the context of economic globalization, whipsawing is an effective means for managers to extract concessions, to loosen national institutional constraints, and to diffuse employment practices internationally.

Disability Rights And Labor: Is This Conflict Really Necessary?, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Indiana Law Journal

In this Essay, I hope to do two things: First, I try to put the current labor-disability controversy into that broader context. Second, and perhaps more important, I take a position on how disability rights advocates should approach both the current contro-versy and labor-disability tensions more broadly. As to the narrow dispute over wage-and-hour protections for personal-assistance workers, I argue both that those workers have a compelling normative claim to full FLSA protection—a claim that disability rights advocates should recognize—and that supporting the claim of those workers is pragmatically in the best interests of the disability rights movement ...

“A Seat At The Table”: 2015 Union Review, Sarah Barriage

Sarah Barriage

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing Labour Union Revitalization, Martin Behrens, Kerstin Hamann, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] Unions have engaged in revitalization efforts in all five country cases that form the basis of comparison of this book, though they differ in the strategies they have pursued and the level of success they have had. Some of the strategies have been promising or even successful in terms of their immediate outcomes; others are still waiting to be fully implemented; and still others have failed to live up to the original expectations. While in many countries union activists are eagerly developing strategies to turn their fate, they are also facing some doubt or even resistance by politicians and ...

How Does Restructuring Contribute To Union Revitalization?, Martin Behrens, Richard W. Hurd, Kerstin Hamann

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] As we look cross-nationally at labour movement revitalization, we see a complex process of change that varies depending on the socio-political/economic context. Although we observe a diverse set of union strategies and outcomes, we find that structural adjustment is a common element of revitalization efforts. The mere presence of restructuring does not, of course, assure positive results. In this chapter we define various forms of restructuring, outline factors that shape and promote restructuring, and discuss the likelihood that restructuring leads to union revitalization by using examples from our cross-country comparison.

How Does Market Making Affect Industrial Relations? Evidence From Eight German Hospitals, Ian Greer, Thorsten Schulten, Nils Böhlke

Ian Greer

The introduction of market mechanisms matters for industrial relations. In the German hospital sector, national liberalization policies have put immense pressure on local management and worker representatives and led to the growth of a low-wage sector. In case studies of eight hospitals, we find some locales where market making has led to union revitalization and mobilization, but this effect varies. Using an eight-way comparison, we infer a configuration of three aspects of the local political economy – labour markets, politics, and codetermination rules – that together provide a well fitting explanation for both variation and change.

Analysing Social Partnership: A Tool Of Union Revitalization?, Michael Fichter, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] Recently, much has been written about social partnership. Especially in Europe, the spread of national social pacts, the introduction of tripartite institutions to the Central and Eastern European accession countries, and the implementation of the Social Dialogue in the European Union have created a new interest in the effects and effectiveness of such arrangements. In the United States, the meaning of labour-management partnership is developing further, as revitalized unions of service and construction workers have applied this instrument to extend and consolidate gains (Mills 2001; WAI 2002). This chapter focuses on one issue among many with regard to social ...

Tale Of Two Cities, Barbara Pokryszka

International Publications

[Excerpt] I am Barbara Pokryszka - cartoonist, painter, scupltor, poet, Room Attendant in Hilton hotel from 19.05.2008 to 03.06.2012 - I cleaned at least 15 rooms a day which is 3.750 rooms per year, whilst being bullied and extremely harassed.

The majority of workers were too scared to defend our rights with fear of losing their jobs. Myself and some of my workmates tried to defend our rights with some minor success with the help of Unite Hotel Workers Branch. After more than four years working at the Hilton without a complaint against me, I was suspended ...

Worker Centers And Labor Law Protections: Why Aren't They Having Their Cake?, Kati L. Griffith

Articles and Chapters

[Excerpt] As private sector labor union membership in the United States dwindles, the number of worker centers continues to grow. In 1985, there were just five worker centers in the United States.' Today there are more than 200 such centers. Worker centers are often broadly defined as "community-based mediating institutions that organize, advocate, and provide direct support to low-wage workers." Given worker centers' focus on low-wage workers largely engaged in service sectors of our postindustrial economy and their relatively recent entrance into the field of United States labor relations, scholars and commentators are increasingly debating the applicability of the eighty-year-old ...

Labor, Management, And Government Interactions, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, Alexander Colvin

Articles and Chapters

[Excerpt] Labor, management, and government engage in complex interactions in emerging countries, and these interactions strongly influence the evolution of labor relations in those countries. For example, unions and other workers’ movements in some countries have aligned with a particular political party or in some cases are the core constituents of a labor party that is active in the political arena. This chapter will discuss cases where particular unions were aligned with the governing leaders or party. Another way unions and workers have influenced governments is through their involvement in protests or other political actions that are part of democratization ...

Economic Development And Sectoral Unions In China, Eli D. Friedman

Articles and Chapters

Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in China’s Guangdong and Zhejiang Provinces, the author asks how post-socialist unions respond to worker unrest and why the development of sectoral-level bargaining has been uneven in different regions of China. While Zhejiang has had relative success in establishing the organizational infrastructure for sectoral bargaining, Guangdong has had little success despite ongoing attempts by unions. The author explains variation in sectoral-level bargaining through an analysis of the different models of economic development, which are characterized as local entrepreneurialism and global integration for Zhejiang and Guangdong, respectively. Despite having different organizational forms, unions in both places ...

An Introduction To Labor Law, Michael Evan Gold

Book Samples

[Excerpt] The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to the federal law of unions and employers. This law is composed of two major elements. The first element is the National Labor Relations Act and the amendments to it. The second element is the decisions of the National Labor Relations Board and of the federal courts; these decisions interpret and apply the statutes.

The statutes are long and complex, and the decisions of the Labor Board and of the courts number in the hundreds of thousands. As a result, this book cannot cover all of the law. Only ...

New Labor In New York: Precarious Workers And The Future Of The Labor Movement, Ruth Milkman (Ed.), Ed Ott (Ed.)

Book Samples

[Excerpt] This book includes thirteen case studies of recent efforts by both unions and worker centers to organize the unorganized in the New York City metropolitan area. Home to some of the first U.S. worker centers and to thirty-seven of the 214 that exist nationwide at this writing, New York has the single largest concentration of this new form of labor organizing.1 In recent years, as part 4 of this volume documents, New York also has become a launching pad for efforts to expand the scale of worker centers by building national organizations, such as the TWAOC. However ...

Las Funciones Del Sindicato En Un Mundo Globalizado, Antonio Ojeda-Avilés

Global Scholarship Collection

In these times national unions seem to be out of breath under the wave of globalization, on which multinational firms surf quite well. But this is a false perception nowadays, when global unions begin to appear everywhere discussing, orienting and bargaining with their counterparts. The essay reflects about several types of unions’ intervention in the global scenario: international coordination of a global counterpart; transnational solidarity; incorporation to a judicial solution; transnational collective bargaining; and transnational mediation and arbitration. All five types of activities become presented under a significant case, not always finished with a unions victory.

Showing Solidarity: 2014 Union Review, Sarah Barriage

Sarah Barriage

No abstract provided.

“The Union Can’T Sit Idly By”: 2013 Union Review, Sarah Barriage

Sarah Barriage

No abstract provided.

New Deal Labor Policy And The Containment Of Radical Union Activity, Richard Hurd

Richard W Hurd

New Deal labor policies were designed with the stability of the capitalist economy in mind. Their pro-union provisions responded to labor militance and served to head off the formation of a radical working-class movement. The National Labor Relations Act established procedures which encouraged unions to pursue peaceful collective bargaining rather than a more activist course. Although the enforcement of pro-union policies was weak, the fact that they were adopted gave the impression that the state was sensitive to worker interests. When the crisis ended with the onset of World War II, the state reverted to an approach which more directly ...

Learning From Clerical Unions: Two Cases Of Organizing Success, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

This paper summarizes two successful clerical organizing campaigns. The first case describes the District 65 campaign to gain representation rights and contract protection for the clerical employees of Columbia University. The discussion reviews the tactics employed to win a representation election, to maintain rank and file involvement during an extended legal battle, and to conduct a successful strike for a first contract. The second case describes a campaign by Teamsters Local 364 to achieve recognition and bargaining rights for public school secretaries in South Bend, Ind. Already members of an employee association, the secretaries sought to affiliate with the Teamsters ...

Charting Their Own Future: Independent Organizing By Professional Workers, Richard W. Hurd, Elisabet Tenenholtz

Richard W Hurd

In 2000 a group of about 100 physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists, most of whom are employed on a contingent basis in the home care division of a Virginia-based health care corporation, performed a remarkable feat. They organized an independent union and won an NLRB election in the face of stiff employer opposition. The story of the Organization of Home Care Professionals (OHCP) is intriguing in its own right because these professionals initially and explicitly steered clear of affiliation with any established union, preferring to chart their own course aimed at blending aspects of unions and professional associations ...

Structural Change And Union Transformation, Richard W. Hurd, Martin Behrens

Richard W Hurd

Analysis of the role of structural change in labor movement revitalization is presented as part of a multicountry comparative project. There are two interrelated causal chains that explain successful union restructuring. First, there must be sufficient environmental pressure to overcome institutional inertia. Second, unions J need a clearly articulated vision that provides a basis for strategic decision making. Three viable motivations for restructuring are identified: aggressive, defensive, and strategic. Aggressive restructuring strengthens union leadership; defensive restructuring attempts to stabilize the union to assure survival. If the restructuring is merely aggressive or merely defensive, however, it will not contribute to a ...

Strategic Diversity In Union Political Action: Implications For The 1992 House Elections, Richard W. Hurd, Jeffrey E. Sohl

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The purpose of this paper is to explore labor's strategic options in the 1992 elections. We will focus on House races because the diversity in political strategies among unions is most apparent there. However, our conclusions will have broader implications for union activity in elections at all levels of government. In evaluating the situation we will consider the impact of redistricting on labor's alternatives. We should note that recent developments have made many union political operatives more optimistic. The upset victory by populist Democrat Harris Wofford in the special Senate election in Pennsylvania, the eventual compromises on ...