Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Business
New Deal Labor Policy And The Containment Of Radical Union Activity, Richard Hurd
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 …
Progressive Union Organizing: The Seiu Justice For Janitors Campaign, Richard Hurd, William Rouse
Progressive Union Organizing: The Seiu Justice For Janitors Campaign, Richard Hurd, William Rouse
Richard W Hurd
[Excerpt] The Justice for Janitors campaign was conceived during a bitter labor dispute with Pittsburgh's Mellon Bank which started late in 1985. Mellon Bank, having just renewed an Service Employees International Union collective-bargaining agreement, replaced their former cleaning contractor with a nonunion company. The new contractor refused to honor the Mellon-SEIU labor accord and was willing to hire only half of Mellon's 80 janitors on a part-time basis with a substantial pay cut and no benefits. Mellon disclaimed any responsibility, stating that the dispute was strictly between the new cleaning contractor and the janitors. In response the SEIU called a …
Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Solidarity And Rights: Two To Tango: A Response To Joseph A. Mccartin, Lance Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Thanks to Joseph McCartin for advancing this debate with an insightful critique of the workers’-rights-as-human-rights framework and for his generous treatment of the series of Human Rights Watch reports in which I had a hand. McCartin so fairly presents the human rights case, even while disagreeing with it, that it’s hard to respond without simply borrowing from his framing of my own views. But I’ll try.
U.S. Labor 2006: Strategic Developments Across The Divide, Richard Hurd
U.S. Labor 2006: Strategic Developments Across The Divide, Richard Hurd
Richard W Hurd
The AFL-CIO and Change to Win have learned to co-exist without debilitating acrimony. The AFL-CIO has established Industry Coordinating Committees to facilitate cooperative bargaining and organizing ventures. On the political front, the AFL-CIO took the lead in labor’s 2006 electoral operations and conducted an extensive, efficient, and unified campaign. Change to Win unions worked together to build strategies for a growth agenda. The success of UNITE-HERE’s Hotel Workers Rising Campaign indicates the potential of this approach. Difficult challenges remain, but the strategic developments show signs of life and offer hope that labor may find a path to the future.
Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore
Introduction To Eugene V. Debs: Citizen And Socialist, Nick Salvatore
Nick Salvatore
[Excerpt] This is a social biography of Eugene Victor Debs. It is a traditional biography in that it emphasizes this one individual's personal and public life as far as the evidence allows. But the book is also a piece of social history that assumes individuals do not stand outside the culture and society they grew in and from. I have stressed each aspect of Debs's story in order to present both the importance of the man and a more complete picture of the political and cultural struggles his society engaged in during his lifetime. Neither in his time nor in …
Regional Integration And Transnational Labor Strategies Under Nafta, Maria Cook
Regional Integration And Transnational Labor Strategies Under Nafta, Maria Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
[Excerpt] This paper argues that while the internationalization of the economy has tended to weaken national labor movements, the internationalization of domestic politics may expand the traditional arenas for strategic action for labor unions. In particular, the North American Free Trade Agreement has been portrayed by some of its many critics as representing the consolidation of a neoconservative or neoliberal project that will not only shape the future economic development of the region, but also constrain its social policies and limit its political options (Grinspun and Cameron 1993: Chapter 1). However, these same critics have also noted that the debate …
Reviving The American Labor Movement: Institutions And Mobilization, Richard Hurd, Ruth Milkman, Lowell Turner
Reviving The American Labor Movement: Institutions And Mobilization, Richard Hurd, Ruth Milkman, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[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 …
Reviving The Labor Movement: A Comparative Perspective, Lowell Turner
Reviving The Labor Movement: A Comparative Perspective, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] In recent years, the long-declining U.S. labor movement has refocused in new and promising ways on rank-and-file mobilization, in organizing drives, collective bargaining conflicts and political campaigns. Such efforts are widely viewed as the best hope for revitalizing the labor movement: breathing new life into tired old unions, winning organizing drives and raising membership levels, increasing political influence, pushing toward the power necessary to reform labor law and ineffective labor institutions. The stakes are high and the goals ambitious: to close the "representation gap" at the workplace, reverse growing economic and social inequality, and build new coalitions for expanded …
Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance Compa, Lowell Turner
Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance Compa, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] For American proponents of global justice, social Europe appears distant yet inspirational, with all its weaknesses still a "vanguard" model for the social regulation of the global economy. We believe that a great deal can be learned by other countries, regions and the global economy as a whole from the ongoing experience of European economic and social integration. We also believe, however, that American experiences with NAFTA as well as with contemporary labor movement revitalization and coalition building offer positive lessons for Europeans and other actors in the global North and South. As much as we admire the European …