Labor Relations Commons^™

Discourses That Undermine Union Movements: A Multimodal Analysis Of Union-Busting Videos, Theresa A. Catalano, Julia Schleck

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Labor unions in the United States have experienced decades of decline, but recent years have seen a rebirth of union campaigns and successes. Because unions are once again becoming a threat to large companies, it is reasonable to assume that efforts to discourage organizing efforts will increase and become even more robust in the near future. Although traditionally, companies have worked to suspend union organizing through captive audience meetings in which unions were discussed via verbal or written modes, more recent means of reaching workers with anti-union messages incorporate a variety of communication strategies to get the message across. As …

Remote Work Is Not Going Away: How Can Rural Communities Take Advantage Of This Opportunity?, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel

Cornhusker Economics

Since the COVID-19 pandemic as of 2020, are we looking at a national remote work “new normal” with a hybrid office and remote work combination as an additional option? This is an important question for rural areas. Discusses remote work trends and steps needed to leverage remote work in the rural context.

Workforce Trends To Watch In 2023, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel

Cornhusker Economics

The rise of quiet quitters, digital nomads, and shaky employee trust are some of the major workforce trends that need watching in 2023, according to a recent article published by the Harvard Business School. Coupled with an uncertain economy and a tight labor market, business owners can view these potential trends as either challenges that pull their business down or opportunities that offer a competitive advantage. To leverage these toward business growth and increased productivity, it takes an understanding of how these trends emerged and how they could be an asset in an ever-changing business environment.

Covers: quiet quitters, digital …

Different Perspectives On Engagement, Where To From Here? A Systematic Literature Review, Hadas Wittenberg, Gabriel Eweje, Nazim Taskin, Darryl Forsyth

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Engagement has emerged as a significant focus in contemporary management research, widely acknowledged for its positive impact on wellbeing and performance. However, over 30 years since its introduction, the concept of engagement remains fractured with multiple definitions, ongoing theoretical debates, and inconsistent empirical evidence of practical value. This review addresses the evolving nature of work-related engagement, recognizing the need for fresh perspectives to better understand this complex phenomenon. To facilitate progressing the research agenda beyond current debates, we used a meta-narrative review as a systematic approach for synthesizing our findings and problematizing techniques to generate innovative ideas. Our review identified …

Creating Meaningful Work For Employees: The Role Of Inclusive Leadership, Azadeh Shafaei, Mehran Nejati

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Meaningfulness is a fundamental psychological need and can result in numerous positive outcomes for employees and organizations. However, little is known about how inclusive leadership can promote employees' sense of meaningful work. Drawing upon self-determination theory, we posit that inclusive leadership enhances meaningful work through creating psychological safety and fostering learning from errors. Inclusive leadership improves work meaningfulness as it contributes to better job attributes. Study hypotheses were tested using a multiple-study research design, including a two-wave field study of 317 full-time employees (Study 1) and a randomized experimental vignette methodology with 440 participants (Study 2). Findings from both studies …

Unlovable Labour: Rejecting The "Do What You Love" Ideology, Trey Dykeman

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Miya Tokumitsu’s article ‘In the Name of Love’ is polemic against what she refers to as the DWYL (Do What You Love) movement that has been most recognisably popularised and transformed by Steve Jobs. She denounces this movement as an insidious ideology cleverly disguised as an uplifting lifestyle which has as its tenets labour, profit, and individualism; through her analysis of these tenets, she unveils them as alienation, erasure, and precarity, respectively. Her insights aid her in her aim to demonstrate that these ideological pillars do not support the wellbeing of the proletariat but rather reinforce the rugged structure of …

Preferences For Paid Paternity Leave Availability, Lengths Of Leave Offerings, And Government Funding Of Paternity Leaves In The United States, Chris Knoester, Qi Li

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This study analyzes 2012 General Social Survey data (N = 1,089) about preferences for paid paternity leave availability, lengths of leave offerings, and government funding of leaves. It highlights gender and gendered parenting role attitudes as predictors of leave preferences. Descriptive results revealed sizable (i.e., 53 percent) support for leave availability and moderate (i.e., 33 percent) support for some government funding; still, only modest (i.e., five weeks) lengths of leave offerings were desired. Regression results indicated that women were typically more likely than men to support more generous leave offerings. Consistently, dual-earner expectations were positively associated with preferences for more …

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. …

Labor Unions And Occupational Safety: Event-Study Analysis Using Union Elections, Ling Li, Shawn Rohlin, Perry Singleton

Center for Policy Research

This study examines the dynamic relationship between union elections and occupational safety among manufacturing establishments. Data on union elections come from the National Labor Relations Board, and data on workplace inspections and accident case rates come from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The results indicate that union elections improved occupational safety. First, workplace inspections trended upwards before the election, then decreased immediately after the election, due almost entirely to employee complaints. Second, accident case rates were relatively stable before the election, then trended downwards after the election, due to accidents involving days away from work, job restrictions, and job …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

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 Work More Or Less? The Impact Of Taxes And Life Satisfaction On The Motivation To Work In Continental And Eastern Europe, Orkhan Nadirov, Khatai Aliyev, Bruce Dehning

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

Using country-level data from 2000-2013, we test the relationship between life satisfaction (measured as how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings) and the motivation to work (measured as aggregate hours of work). Our hypothesis is that even after controlling for average labor income tax rates in countries with high and low average hours worked, there is a significant negative association between the motivation to work and life satisfaction. The main findings of this paper are that the increase in the motivation to work per employee comes at the expense of life satisfaction, and differences …

Bob’S Red Mill: For The Employees By The Employees, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Putting people before profits is more important than accumulating ever-increasing amounts of possession

Annapurna’S Porters: Labor Conditions And The Factors That Shape Them, Ari Grant-Sasson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project sought to determine what the labor conditions of porters working in Annapurna are and the factors both immutable and human-influenced that shape them. To do so, I interviewed government bodies, national and regional trekking organizations, unions, agencies, guides and porters to ascertain what issues a broad term such as “labor conditions” encompasses. Participants highlighted the importance of insurance, wages, weight carried, equipment, access to employment, job training and topography as important factors. I will argue that large advocacy organizations shape these issues, and therefore the porter market, at a national level. Discrepancies in employment experiences between porters are …

Powerlessness Within A Budget-Driven Paradigm: A Grounded Theory Leadership Study From The Perspective Of Michigan Corrections Officers, Timothy Michael Eklin

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the lived-experiences of 15 correctional officers and 5 sergeants working in adult state-operated prison facilities in Michigan. In particular, this qualitative grounded theory study revealed the impact that budget driven decision-making had on the lives of correctional officers: its effect on institutional custody, security, and safety. The study finds that many recent policy changes resulted in a sense of powerlessness expressed by the participants of the study. Participants found themselves in a precarious position, situated in between the prison population and the administration. Having an understanding of how correctional officers make meaning of their work in relation …

Reflections On The Metamorphosis At Robben Island: The Role Of Institutional Work And Positive Psychological Capital, Wayne F. Cascio, Fred Luthans

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners from South Africa were imprisoned on notorious Robben Island from the mid-1960s until the end of the apartheid regime in 1991. The stark conditions and abusive treatment of these prisoners has been widely publicized. However, upon reflection and in retrospect, over the years, a type of metamorphosis occurred. Primarily drawing from firsthand accounts of the former prisoners and guards, it seems that Robben Island morphed from the traditional oppressive prison paradigm to one where the positively oriented prisoners disrupted the institution with a resulting climate of learning and transformation that eventually led to freedom …

An Alternative To Temporary Staffing: Considerations For Workforce Practitioners, Linda Kato, Françoise Carré, Laura E. Johnson, Deena Schwartz

Center for Social Policy Publications

As the national economy inches toward recovery, risk-averse employers are increasingly turning to temporary workers to fill their hiring gaps. In fact, the temporary staffing industry has been a fixture of the US economy for decades. But the industry added a striking 557,000 jobs from June 2009 to November 2011 — more than half of the jobs created during that period. Growth is likely to continue: A 2011 McKinsey survey of 2,000 firms of differing sizes and across various sectors found that more than a third foresaw their companies increasing their use of temporary workers over the next five years. …

Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations.Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities.

The Emergence Of A Standards Market: Multiplicity Of Sustainability Standards In The Global Coffee Industry, Juliane Reinecke, Stephan Manning, Oliver Von Hagen

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

The growing number of voluntary standards for governing transnational arenas is presenting standards organizations with a problem. While claiming that they are pursuing shared, overarching objectives, at the same time, they are promoting their own respective standards that are increasingly similar. By developing the notion of ‘standards markets,’ this paper examines this tension and studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas. Based on an in-depth case study of sustainability standards in the global coffee industry, we find that the ongoing co-existence of multiple standards is being promoted by …

Why Use The Services Of Alternative Staffing Organizations: Perspectives From Customer Businesses, Françoise Carré, Brandynn Holgate, Risa Takenaka, Helen Levine

Center for Social Policy Publications

Organizations that aim to improve the experiences and employment chances of job seekers who face barriers to employment have, over the years, had to contend directly with potential employers and their requirements. This is particularly true for community-based job brokers that use a temporary staffing model, offering job access and immediate work to their service population.

Alternative staffing organizations (ASOs) are worker-centered, social purpose businesses that place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, and charge their customers a markup on the wage of the position. These fee-for-service organizations can help job seekers who face labor market …

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

The Alternative Staffing Work Experience: Populations, Barriers And Employment Outcomes, Helen Levine, Brandynn Holgate, Risa Takenaka, Françoise Carré

Center for Social Policy Publications

This paper presents results of a three-year study of workers and former workers at four Alternative Staffing Organizations (ASOs). ASOs are fee-for-service job brokering businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits whose objective is to gain access to temporary and “temp to permanent” opportunities for workers facing barriers to employment. The paper looks specifically at the relationship between the personal characteristics of workers, their temporary work experiences through the ASO, and the subsequent employment status of former ASO workers, determined through a follow-up survey conducted by telephone six to eight months after workers had left the ASO. We found …

Informality And Labor Market Dynamics During Economic Downturns: Evidence From Egypt, Rania Roushdy, May Gadallah

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This working paper investigates the evolution of the Egyptian labor market during the world financial crisis period. There has been a mild decline in unemployment, combined with a slight increase in both labor force participation and employment to population ratio. Some subgroups of workers have been more vulnerable than others during the crisis period. The results of this paper concur with the historical experience, which suggests that young, old, unskilled and female workers are more likely to bear the brunt of an economic downturn.

Finding The Right Fit: How Alternative Staffing Affects Worker Outcomes, Françoise Carré, Brandynn Holgate, Helen Levine

Center for Social Policy Publications

This report reviews our findings from two and one-half years of monitoring and evaluating the activities of four alternative staffing organizations (ASOs). ASOs are worker-centered, socialpurpose businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits. These fee-for-service organizations use the model of temporary staffing services to help job seekers who face labor market barriers access work experience and potential employers. They place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, charging their customers a wage-based markup fee. This field of practice first emerged in the 1970s and grew rapidly in the 1990s; it now includes over 50 ASOs. Alternative …

Working Alone: Protecting And Building Solidarity In The Workplace Of The Future, Charley Richardson

Labor Resource Center Publications

This paper explores the foundations of solidarity in the workplace and the challenges to building solidarity in the modern day workplace. The author identifies eight workplace trends that are increasing individual isolation and destroying workplace-based social networks. After comparing two models of social networks, the author suggests specific steps workers and unions can take to protect solidarity at work.

Domesticating The Diaspora: Memory And The Life Of Sister Katie, Caroline Waldron Merithew

History Faculty Publications

Three shrines in Illinois honor heroes of the working class: one for the legendary Mother Jones; one for the Virden martyrs, who died for coal mining unionism, and whose memory is kept alive by labor organizers around the world; and one for Catherine (Katie) Bianco DeRorre. Katie's monument, unlike the others, draws few visitors today. But when it was dedicated in 1961, men and women — on the floor of the U.S. Congress, in the neighborhood where Katie grew up, at American universities, in union halls, on the streets of New York City, and in Milan — took notice and …

Case Studies: Employment Data Systems: Florida's Agency For Persons With Disabilities, Allison Cohen Hall, Jean Winsor, John Butterworth

Case Studies Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

The increasing emphasis on government accountability at the state and federal levels has increased interest in and use of outcome data. Moreover, research has found that high performing states in integrated employment generally have a clear and visible data collection system that provides individual outcome data (Hall et al, 2007). But what are the most important elements in designing and using a system? Stakeholders have raised questions regarding creating effective data collection systems, identifying variables with the most utility for influencing policy, and using data as a strategic planning tool. This series is intended to shed light on the successes …

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 …

Nepali Female Migrants And Informalization Of Domestic Care Work: Service Or Servitude?, Shobha Hamal Gurung

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

Nepali female migrants are among the fastest-growing immigrant workforces in the South Asian community, particularly in service and domestic work in big cities of the United States. However, there has not until now been a study investigating the work experiences of Nepali immigrants/migrants employed in the service and domestic sectors in these cities. This article investigates the work experiences of Nepali female migrants who work in service and domestic/child care work in Boston and New York, focusing on examining the type and nature of women's work, labor practices, work and living conditions, women's experiences and views about their work, and …