Unions Commons^™

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Examining Past, Present, And Future Of Agricultural Labor: From The Bracero Program To The Coalition Of Immokalee Workers, Francesca Paradiso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is a comparative study that examines the Bracero Program and the work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The Bracero Program brought Mexican workers into the United States on temporary work visas from 1942-1964. The CIW is an organization of Mexican workers that was founded in 1992 as a response to the horrible working conditions that Mexican tomato pickers faced in Immokalee, Florida. In this thesis, I show that by putting these programs side by side, we can see the exploitation of Mexican farmworkers has relied on changing government tools—different forms of visas, different immigration regimes, different …

Limpieza De Asbestos En La Ciudad De Nueva York, Ariana G. Perez-Castells

Capstones

This is the story of how asbestos is removed in New York City, and who carries out the work. It's unclear how much more asbestos abatement is left in the county, and the U.S. has not completely banned the dangerous material, unlike over 50 other countries across the world. Both of these things could change soon. A new study that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will carry out by December 2024 would give us a better picture of how much asbestos there is still in buildings and how much more removal work is to be done. At the same time, …

Coming Together: The Street Vendors Of Corona Plaza, Hannah Bottum

Capstones

Of New York City’s 20,000 street vendors, nearly all of them are immigrants, and most are unlicensed. This makes them vulnerable to harassment, fines, and even arrest. In Corona Plaza in Queens, vendors are coming together to push for change. This is their story.

De los 20,000 vendedores ambulantes de la ciudad de Nueva York, casi todos son inmigrantes y la mayoría no tienen licencia ni permiso. Esto los hace vulnerables al acoso, multas e incluso la detención. En Corona Plaza, en Queens, los vendedores se están organizando para impulsar el cambio. Esta es su historia.

Interest Groups, Local Politics, And Police Unions, Daniel Disalvo

Publications and Research

Police unions raise issues of great importance for political scientists. Yet, the field has neglected them. This essay argues that political scientists should see police unions as important interest groups, empowered by state collective bargaining laws, that are important players in local politics and shapers of the criminal justice system in America. The organizational properties that make police unions important interest groups are described. The important political questions that arise once we consider police union as interest groups are examined. The existing research on police unions—especially their impact on government costs and police behavior—is detailed. Ultimately, the study of collective …

Will Unions Get Out The Vote For Mayor In 2021?, Caroline Leddy

Capstones

Labor unions have played an important role in New York City politics for decades--with the 2021 mayoral election approaching, will they be able to motivate their membership to vote for the candidate they endorse, or will their members vote for whomever they want without taking into account who their union recommends? Link here: https://caroline-leddy.medium.com/will-unions-get-out-the-vote-for-mayor-in-2021-a85388813d2d

Fed Up, Desperate And Daring Enough To Unionize, Suzannah C. Cavanaugh

Capstones

This is a long-form story that outlines the hazards of restaurant work that predated the pandemic, among them wage theft, racism and sexual harassment. The story focuses on three restaurant workers pushed to unionize after Covid-19 worsened working conditions by cutting take-home pay and creating new safety hazards for employees. Legislation and employer resistance are stacked against them, but for many workers organization is the only solution.

Link to Capstone: http://fedup.tilda.ws/

Google Has A Labor Problem, And It’S Not Just Coming From Its Employees, Daniel Whateley

Capstones

For decades, technology companies have used temporary and contract workers to lower costs, creating a shadow workforce of thousands of indirect employees. That business model is now under threat.

In September 2019, 80 contract workers at Google’s Pittsburgh office voted to unionize with the United Steelworkers, the first time that white-collar tech workers in the U.S. have successfully organized with a union. These contractors are employees of HCL Technologies, an Indian multinational IT and consulting company that partners with Google around the world.

Tech and office workers face a different set of workplace issues from blue-collar and factory employees, which …

As The Hourly Minimum Wage Moves Toward $15 Across New York State, Some Say The Fight For A Decent Living Is Far From Over., Barbara Prempeh

Capstones

This capstone projects examines the coming of the fight for a $15 minimum wage across New York State and beyond its borders. In 2012, the Fight for $15 organization took the streets of NYC to begin their fight only raising the wages for low income earners who work in different industries such fast- fast, hospitality, and even retail. For years now, the government has yet raise the minimum wage for all Americans which has caused several families to feel a crunch in affording a normal lifestyle. Since the start of this fueled fight, New York City is one of the …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

The Politics Of Shorter Hours And Corporate-Centered Society: A History Of Work-Time Regulation In The United States And Japan, Keisuke Jinno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shorter working hours drew much attention as a means of fighting unemployment and crisis in capitalism during the first half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, shorter work-time is rarely considered a policy option to fix economic or social issues in the United States and Japan. This dissertation presents a history of work-time regulation in the United States and Japan to examine how and why its developments and stalemate took place.

In the big picture, developments of work-time regulation during the first half of the twentieth century were a part of concessional modifications of class relations, a common phenomenon in many …

A Tale Of Two Campaigns: City Tech’S ‘No More 24!’ And Psc-Cuny’S Strike Authorization Vote, Carole Kennedy Harris

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Fate Of $15, John S. Spina

Capstones

The Fight for $15 is reinvigorating the labor moment in ways people never thought possible. In just over three years it spanned the nation and won increased minimum wages in major cites across the country. Governor Cuomo now prepares to pass the nation's first state wide $15 minimum wage in New York, but not without strong opposition.

Mother Jones, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

Mother Jones was a union organizer and activist in the U.S. labor movement. She fought to alleviate the misery of workers in mines, railroad yards, factories, and mills across the country. Her reform efforts led to the abolition of child labor, acceptance of the eight-hour workday, and implementation of Social Security and the minimum wage.