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[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 …
Patterned Responses To Organizing: Case Studies Of The Union-Busting Convention, Richard W. Hurd, Joseph B. Uehlein
Patterned Responses To Organizing: Case Studies Of The Union-Busting Convention, Richard W. Hurd, Joseph B. Uehlein
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] In June 1993, the Industrial Union Department (IUD) of the AFL-CIO initiated a project to gather cases from affiliated unions that would highlight aspects of the National Labor Relations Board process deserving attention from those shaping labor law reform proposals. Based on the cases submitted, we conclude that in its current form the National Labor Relations Act serves to impede union organizing. Particularly problematic are NLRB policies that allow employers to wage no-holds-barred antiunion campaigns. Even where there are legal restrictions on specific actions, the penalties for violations are so meager that they serve no deterrent effect. The cases …
Introduction: The Context For The Reform Of Labor Law, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Introduction: The Context For The Reform Of Labor Law, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] It has become increasingly clear that the U.S. system of collective bargaining is no longer a realistic option for a large and growing proportion of American workers, and the situation will continue to worsen absent a major redirection of public policy. The decline in union density rates in this country is alarming to those who value and promote unionization. The extent to which this decline is due to management resistance and the failure of the law to promote collective bargaining is an important question that requires continued study and debate. Opinion polls reveal that for millions of nonunion American …
Organizing To Win: Introduction, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Organizing To Win: Introduction, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The American labor movement is at a watershed. For the first time since the early years of industrial unionism sixty years ago, there is near-universal agreement among union leaders that the future of the movement depends on massive new organizing. In October 1995, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, and Linda Chavez-Thompson were swept into the top offices of the AFL-CIO, following a campaign that promised organizing "at an unprecedented pace and scale." Since taking office, the new AFL-CIO leadership team has created a separate organizing department and has committed $20 million to support coordinated large-scale industry-based organizing drives. In addition, …
The Failure Of Organizing, The New Unity Partnership And The Future Of The Labor Movement, Richard W. Hurd
The Failure Of Organizing, The New Unity Partnership And The Future Of The Labor Movement, Richard W. Hurd
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The New Unity Partnership (NUP) has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in union circles. Its inception can be traced to the July 4th holiday in 2003 when five national union presidents gathered for a candid private discussion about the future of the labor movement. The motivation for the summit was concern about the collective inability of unions to reverse their fading fortunes. At this and subsequent meetings the unions considered structural and strategic options to promote union growth, ultimately committing to a form of mutual aid pact to pool resources for coordinated organizing initiatives and to support each …
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, …