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Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Starbucks Workers United And The Future Of American Labor Activism, Sophia Drake Braymen
Starbucks Workers United And The Future Of American Labor Activism, Sophia Drake Braymen
Honors Projects
This essay explores the goals, motivations, and methods of Starbucks Workers United (the campaign of the labor union Workers United that is aimed at organizing Starbucks employees), as well as the Starbucks Company’s response to it. The analysis is informed by the author’s interviews with both a Workers United organizer and a Starbucks corporate employee. This essay explores the position of Starbucks Workers United within the broader history of American labor activism and our current epoch of union decline, as well as what the recent breakthrough in cooperation between Workers United and Starbucks means for American workers going into the …
Beyond The Bottom Line: Unionization In The Nonprofit Sector, Grace M. Brody
Beyond The Bottom Line: Unionization In The Nonprofit Sector, Grace M. Brody
Senior Projects Spring 2024
My argument entails broadening the scope of the labor union model in order to apply it to nonprofits. Currently, many unions have been approaching unionization in nonprofits as if it were any other workplace. Specifically, unions are upholding the model of prioritizing monetary, short-term gains. I believe that this is not a sustainable model and will not bring about the significant, long-lasting change that nonprofit workers need to experience. Nonprofit workers experience issues that are more structural in nature, thus monetary union strategy is less effective.
Immigration In Regard To Economic Labor And Reform, Will Ross, Maryella Mccown, Dylan Stone
Immigration In Regard To Economic Labor And Reform, Will Ross, Maryella Mccown, Dylan Stone
Immigration Scholarship: History, Trends and Development in Global Immigration
In the last two presidencies, the United States economy has gone through much development regarding immigration and labor. Many key factors of growth in the economy can be identified pertaining to immigration, such as job fulfillment, innovations, and more productivity. Immigrants arrive in the United States with impressive skills that are needed for many occupations. They also run many of their own businesses and provide food and hospitality services for everyone. A common question that many US citizens wonder is “How do immigrants advantage the United States economy?” By bringing in new skills and ideas that had not been discovered …
“The New Pinkertons”: Anti-Union Consultants And Surveillance Tech Thwart Organizing, Jo Constantz
“The New Pinkertons”: Anti-Union Consultants And Surveillance Tech Thwart Organizing, Jo Constantz
Capstones
In 2020, just 6.3% of U.S. private-sector workers were union members, despite the fact that 68% of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest since 1965, and nearly half of non-union workers say they would join.
After World War II, wage growth kept pace with GDP growth, but then began to diverge in the 1970s, according to a study by the RAND Corporation. After 1975, incomes of the bottom 90% rose more slowly than the economy as a whole, while incomes of the top 10% grew faster. The declining wage growth coincided with and is closely related to a drop-off …
Toward Fair And Sustainable Capitalism: A Comprehensive Proposal To Help American Workers, Restore Fair Gainsharing Between Employees And Shareholders, And Increase American Competitiveness By Reorienting Our Corporate Governance System Toward Sustainable Long-Term Growth And Encouraging Investments In America’S Future, Leo E. Strine Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
To promote fair and sustainable capitalism and help business and labor work together to build an American economy that works for all, this paper presents a comprehensive proposal to reform the American corporate governance system by aligning the incentives of those who control large U.S. corporations with the interests of working Americans who must put their hard-earned savings in mutual funds in their 401(k) and 529 plans. The proposal would achieve this through a series of measured, coherent changes to current laws and regulations, including: requiring not just operating companies, but institutional investors, to give appropriate consideration to and make …
Anticompetitive Mergers In Labor Markets, Ioana Marinescu, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Anticompetitive Mergers In Labor Markets, Ioana Marinescu, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
All Faculty Scholarship
Mergers of competitors are conventionally challenged under the federal antitrust laws when they threaten to lessen competition in some product or service market in which the merging firms sell. Mergers can also injure competition in markets where the firms purchase. Although that principle is widely recognized, very few litigated cases have applied merger law to buyers. This article concerns an even more rarefied subset, and one that has barely been mentioned. Nevertheless, its implications are staggering. Some mergers may be unlawful because they injure competition in the labor market by enabling the post-merger firm anticompetitively to suppress wages or salaries. …
Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper
Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper
Catherine Fisk
No abstract provided.
A Moral Contractual Approach To Labor Law Reform: A Template For Using Ethical Principles To Regulate Behavior Where Law Failed To Do So Effectively, Zev J. Eigen, David S. Sherwyn
A Moral Contractual Approach To Labor Law Reform: A Template For Using Ethical Principles To Regulate Behavior Where Law Failed To Do So Effectively, Zev J. Eigen, David S. Sherwyn
Faculty Working Papers
If laws cease to work as they should or as intended, legislators and scholars propose new laws to replace or amend them. This paper posits an alternative—offering regulated parties the opportunity to contractually bind themselves to behave ethically. The perfect test-case for this proposal is labor law, because (1) labor law has not been amended for decades, (2) proposals to amend it have failed for political reasons, and are focused on union election win rates, and less on the election process itself, (3) it is an area of law already statutorily regulating parties' reciprocal contractual obligations, and (4) moral means …
Labor And The Bank: Investigating The Politics Of The World Bank's Employing Workers' Index, Suzan Kang
Labor And The Bank: Investigating The Politics Of The World Bank's Employing Workers' Index, Suzan Kang
Publications and Research
For many years, trade unions have pressured international financial organizations such as the World Bank to better incorporate protections for workers. A recent development in this contestation was the World Bank’s 2009 announcement regarding its controversial “Employing Workers Index” in its widely circulated Doing Business report. Trade unions had argued that the index, which promoted flexible labor market policies, did not respect the international norm of worker protections, and urged the World Bank to change the index. As a result, the Doing Business Group pledged to reform the Employing Workers Index and to create a new index on protecting workers. …
The Myth Of Equality In The Employment Relation, Aditi Bagchi
The Myth Of Equality In The Employment Relation, Aditi Bagchi
All Faculty Scholarship
Although it is widely understood that employers and employees are not equally situated, we fail adequately to account for this inequality in the law governing their relationship. We can best understand this inequality in terms of status, which encompasses one’s level of income, leisure and discretion. For a variety of misguided reasons, contract law has been historically highly resistant to the introduction of status-based principles. Courts have preferred to characterize the unfavorable circumstances that many employees face as the product of unequal bargaining power. But bargaining power disparity does not capture the moral problem raised by inequality in the employment …
International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma
International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma
Sarosh Kuruvilla
[Excerpt] In this article, we briefly describe the different approaches to the regulation of international labor standards, and then argue for a new role for national governments based on soft rather than hard regulation approaches. We argue that this new role shows potential for significantly enhancing progress in international labor standards, since it enables governments to articulate a position without having to deal with the enforcement issues that hard regulation mandates. We justify this new role for governments based on the increasing use of soft regulation in the international arena. Of course, this approach is not without its own problems, …
The Economic Costs And Benefits Of Self-Managed Teams Among Skilled Technicians, Rosemary Batt
The Economic Costs And Benefits Of Self-Managed Teams Among Skilled Technicians, Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
This paper estimates the economic costs and benefits of implementing teams among highly-skilled technicians in a large regional telecommunications company. It matches individual survey and objective performance data for 230 employees in matched pairs of traditionally-supervised and self-managed groups. Multivariate regressions with appropriate controls show that teams do the work of supervisors in 60-70% less time, reducing indirect labor costs by 75 percent per team. Objective measures of quality and labor productivity are unaffected. Team members receive additional overtime pay that represents a 4-5 percent annual wage premium, which may be viewed alternatively as a share in the productivity gains …
Labor Struggles, New Social Movements, And America's Favorite Pastime: New York Workers Take On New Era Cap Company, Victoria Carty
Labor Struggles, New Social Movements, And America's Favorite Pastime: New York Workers Take On New Era Cap Company, Victoria Carty
Sociology Faculty Articles and Research
Contemporary economic globalization, which is driven and regulated primarily by multinational corporations, has a direct impact on workers' lives. Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tend to be controlled by corporate interests in the wealthy, industrialized nations. Those countries set the agenda to protect the interests of foreign investors and facilitate the mobility of capital, but they do little to protect the interests of labor. In response, workers in both the global North and South have been forced to rely on their own individual efforts to protect themselves against unfair labor practices. This article presents …
Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper
Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Organizing In The Garment Industry In Mexico: Implications For New Social Movement Theory, Victoria Carty
Organizing In The Garment Industry In Mexico: Implications For New Social Movement Theory, Victoria Carty
Sociology Faculty Articles and Research
This paper examines attempts to improve workers' rights in the Maquila Industry in Mexico by using two case studies. It analyzes the struggles that recently occurred at the Kukdong and Duro plants. The underlying question of the research is how to balance the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate conditions for workers, and most importantly, ensuring their right to freedom of association. Under recent forms of global economic restructuring, the state is often unwilling or unable to uphold workers' rights. To combat the present form of corporate-driven global capitalism, workers in the South, in solidarity with …
New Social Movements And The Struggle For Worker’S Rights In The Maquila Industry, Victoria Carty
New Social Movements And The Struggle For Worker’S Rights In The Maquila Industry, Victoria Carty
Sociology Faculty Articles and Research
"Campaigns to improve worker’s rights in export processing zones (EPZs), also referred to the maquila industry in Latin America, is an important topic analytically and politically. On theoretical and practical levels, the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate working conditions for workers is a critical question. Underlying the issue is a vigorous debate regarding how the global economy should be governed; who or what should govern it, and whose interest is should serve (Faux, 2002)."
Labor Relations In Maine 1971-1982, Bureau Of Labor Standards
Labor Relations In Maine 1971-1982, Bureau Of Labor Standards
Maine Collection
Labor Relations in Maine 1971-1982
Prepared by the Bureau of Labor Standards, Research & Statistics Division,
William A. Peabody, Director, April, 1983.
Contents: Authorization / Introduction / Narratives / Tables / Appendices
Veterans In Maine - A Report, Maine Department Of Manpower Affairs - Manpower Research Division
Veterans In Maine - A Report, Maine Department Of Manpower Affairs - Manpower Research Division
Maine Collection
Veterans in Maine : A Report.
"Labor Market Information Publication" Maine Department of Manpower Affairs, Employment Security, Manpower Research Division, 20 Union Street, Augusta, Maine 04330.
December 1978
Labor Contracts And The Taft-Hartley Act, Charles H. Livengood Jr.
Labor Contracts And The Taft-Hartley Act, Charles H. Livengood Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.