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Full-Text Articles in Business
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.
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Sarosh Kuruvilla
In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …
Working Through The Past: Labor And Authoritorian Legacies In Comparative Perspective, Teri L. Caraway (Ed.), Maria Lorena Cook (Ed.), Stephen Crowley (Ed.)
Working Through The Past: Labor And Authoritorian Legacies In Comparative Perspective, Teri L. Caraway (Ed.), Maria Lorena Cook (Ed.), Stephen Crowley (Ed.)
Maria Lorena Cook
[Excerpt] Democratization in the developing and post-communist world has yielded limited gains for labor. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on the effect of economic crisis and globalization on the capacities of unions to become influential political actors and to secure policies that benefit their members. In contrast, the contributors to Working through the Past highlight the critical role that authoritarian legacies play in shaping labor politics in new democracies, providing the first cross-regional analysis of the impact of authoritarianism on labor, focusing on East and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Legacies from the predemocratic era shape labor’s …
Performance And Growth In Entrepreneurial Firms: Revisiting The Union-Performance Relationship, Rosemary Batt, Theresa M. Welbourne
Performance And Growth In Entrepreneurial Firms: Revisiting The Union-Performance Relationship, Rosemary Batt, Theresa M. Welbourne
Rosemary Batt
[Excerpt] A substantial body of research has examined the relationship between unions and firm performance. It generally has found a positive relationship between unions and productivity and a negative relationship between unions and financial performance (Freeman & Medoff, 1984; Addison & Hirsch, 1989; Belman, 1992; Freeman, 1992). The exit/voice model is most commonly used to explain this paradox (Freeman & Medoff, 1984). Freeman and Medoff argued that the “monopoly power” of unions leads to high union wages and restrictive work rules, both of which raise the costs of production and lower profit margins. The presence of unions, however, also lowers …
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Eli D Friedman
In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …
Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman
Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman
Eli D Friedman
Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi's theory of the countermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined "moments": the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus …
Do I Have To Cross The Picket Line?, Bureau Of Labor Education. University Of Maine
Do I Have To Cross The Picket Line?, Bureau Of Labor Education. University Of Maine
Bureau of Labor Education
Refusing to cross a lawfully established picket line is protected by the National Labor Relations Act. You have the legal right not to cross a picket line in solidarity with your own union, out of sympathy for workers from another union, or just to avoid confrontation. By refusing to cross a picket line while on duty you are essentially engaging in a strike in sympathy with the picketing workers. Refusing to cross a picket line is a legally protected act. When you approach a picket line you may be asked to honor the picket line. Politely asking someone not to …
Bad Math: How Non-Union Employees Are Unconstitutionally Compelled To Subsidize Political Speech, Shirley V. Svorny, Melanie S. Williams
Bad Math: How Non-Union Employees Are Unconstitutionally Compelled To Subsidize Political Speech, Shirley V. Svorny, Melanie S. Williams
Melanie S. Williams
Employees’ right to organize and be represented by unions is in tension with the right of other employees not to join organizations as a condition of employment. Current law permits unions to assess agency fees from represented non-members, reflecting the cost of representational activities (for example, contract negotiation). Unions may not, however, assess non-members for the cost of political activities, since this would infringe on the constitutional rights of such employees by requiring them to subsidize political speech. The method of calculating agency fees, however, has been almost uniformly mishandled, resulting in overcharging non-union members. In this paper, we examine …