Work, Economy and Organizations Commons^™

The Political Ramifications Of Judicial Institutions: Establishing A Link Between Dobbs And Gender Disparities In The 2022 Midterms, Udi Sommers, Or Rappel-Kroyzer, Amy Adamczyk, Lindsay Lerner, Anna Weiner

Publications and Research

In the American system of government, courts are designed to operate within the legal sphere, with limited political interference. Is it possible, though, that a behavior that is at the heart of the political process can be influenced directly by a judicial decision? Focusing on voter registration big data for the universe of voters in North Carolina around the time of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the authors assess the roles of gender, political party affiliation, and age in voter registration. North Carolina is the only state whose voter registry has the necessary granularity over time and information needed. …

Hyperemployment: Alienated Activity, Aestheticized Precarity, And Disillusioned Techno-Optimism, Julie K. Smitka

Publications and Research

This brief reflection aims to typify hyperemployment in the digital economy as social reproduction via alienated activity, illustrate its aestheticization of precarity, and elucidate its perpetuation by techno-optimism.

Employment Experiences Of Nigerian Immigrant Women In The United States And Canada, Maryam A. Oguntola

Student Theses

African immigrants come to the United States and Canada for a better life; most come for the sake of job opportunities and professional advancement. Nigerian immigrant women are one of these groups of African immigrants. While it is likely that they experienced discrimination in the workforce in Nigeria, research has shown that African immigrants, African immigrant women, and Nigerian immigrant women, in particular, experience more discrimination in their host countries. Researchers have also shown that these groups may experience discrimination based on national origin, race, gender, educational background, and sometimes even religion. However, there is a gap in the research …

The State Of The Unions 2022: A Profile Of Organized Labor In New York City, New York State, And The United States, Ruth Milkman, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

New York City leads the recent uptick in private-sector union organizing at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. A new report released by the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, State of the Unions 2022: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, analyzes new union membership and union election wins across the nation’s major cities. The report also details the geographic, demographic, and occupational makeup of union membership in New York City, New York State, and the nation.

Happiness And Policy Implications: A Sociological View, Sarah M. Kahl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The World Happiness Report is released every year, ranking each country by who is “happier” and explaining the variables and data they have used. This project attempts to build from that base and create a machine learning algorithm that can predict if a country will be in a “happy” or “could be happier” category. Findings show that taking a broader scope of variables can better help predict happiness. Policy implications are discussed in using both big data and considering social indicators to make better and lasting policies.

Perceptions Of Economic Vulnerability And Public Opinion In The United States: A Theoretical, Historical, And Quantitative Approach, Cody R. Melcher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation combines three related essays that analyze the effect of the perception of economic vulnerability on the social and political attitudes of Americans. Through a heterodox reading of W.E.B. Du Bois’s intellectual work and political career in the latter half of his life, the first essay develops the theoretical thrust of the dissertation. It is argued that Du Bois primarily grounds white supremacy in an elementary feature of capitalism: the fact that survival under capitalism presumes the successful engagement, either directly or indirectly, with the labor market. Due to the historical legacy of slavery, however, labor market competition in …

Diversion: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion And The Nonprofit Organization, Leah E. Glass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work is a billion-dollar industry that companies across all industries utilize to “transform” their workplaces and for many, increase profit. Despite the resources invested, there is, unfortunately, little to show for it. This qualitative case study draws on three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews at a national nonprofit, Education for All (EFA), to examine how DEI, coupled with organizational culture and structure, works to engrain inequality, rather than lessen it.

This research is based on 49 interviews with employees at Education for All, supplemented with observations and analyses of organizational artifacts. This study uncovers …

The Economic And Demographic Dynamics Of Pretrial Justice, Christopher Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars since Rusche (1978 [1933]) have tried to explain the observed relationship between changes in punishment patterns and changes in local labor markets, most recently framing the criminal justice system as a racialized labor market institution. In an era of bail and jail reform, this dissertation contributes to the literature on the causes and consequences of changes in one especially salient form of punishment, pretrial detention. In particular, it focuses on the macro relationship between pretrial detention and local labor markets. Prior research in this tradition has examined how changes in labor markets lead to changes in penality, as reflected …

Assessing The Benefits Of College Internships At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Amy Adamczyk, Katheryn Crawford, Yuna Kim

Publications and Research

Few studies have investigated the usefulness of internships at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI). Focusing on a 4-year public university (HSI), this study examined differences between the internship and the non-internship students, and changes across the semester for development. A structured internship appears to have some value; including increased interaction with faculty outside the classroom, confidence in verbally expressing ideas, and class presentations.

"Our Strength Is Unity:" Delivery Bikers In Their Own Words, Connor W. Zaft

Capstones

"Our Strength Is Unity" is a year-long photographic essay on food delivery workers and their attempts to self-organize during the pandemic.

A New Morning In Higher Education Collective Bargaining, 2013-2019, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

This book chapter appears in Julius, D. J. (ed.), Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: Best Practices for Promoting Collaboration, Equity, and Measurable Outcomes (Routledge, New York and London). The chapter analyzes and contextualizes data concerning the growth in unionization and collective bargaining involving faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate assistants from 2013 to 2019, the period between the economic fallout from the Great Recession and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the democratic values underlying collective bargaining and the historical and legal development of unionization at public and private institutions over the decades. It identifies three significant new trends …

Graduate Student Employee Unionization In The Second Gilded Age, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

In debates on the future of work, a common theme has been how work became
less secure through the denial of employee status. Though much of the attention
has focused on other industries, precarity has also affected those working in
higher education, including graduate student employees, contributing to what is
now called the “gig academy.” While universities have reassigned teaching and
research to graduate assistants, they have also refused to recognize them as
employees. Nevertheless, unionization has grown considerably since 2012, most
significantly at private institutions. Utilizing a unique dataset, this chapter
demonstrates that between 2012 and 2019, graduate student …

The State Of The Unions 2021: A Profile Of Organized Labor In New York City, New York State, And The United States, Ruth Milkman, Stephanie Luce

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns generated vast job losses across the United States. The New York City metropolitan area, where the pandemic’s impact was felt earlier than elsewhere in the country, suffered severe job losses in 2020. The decline in employment among women workers was greater than among men — in sharp contrast to the Great Recession, which hit men’s employment harder. The State of the Unions 2021, A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, presents data on gender, union membership, and job losses in the COVID-19 economic downturn …

Dream City: Post-Millennials And Millennials Navigate School, Work, And Housing In New York City, Omar Montana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the experiences of the “Post-Millennial” (those born after 1996) and “Millennial” (those born between 1981 - 1996) generations, as they pursue their dreams of studying, working and living in New York City. According to Karl Mannheim’s (1923) classic formulation, a “generation” can be perceived as a particular type of social location typified by common “patterns of experience and thought”. Through seventy-five in-depth interviews, the qualitative data revealed a social location characterized by a common pattern of “time is money” – as the German theorist Georg Simmel (1903) postulated more than a century ago – and stress as …

Which Way South? A Chronicle Of The Autoworkers’ Ill-Fated Quest For A Land Route From Detroit To Chattanooga (With A Brief Sojourn In Germany), Abraham Walker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Declining unionization rates in the private sector have long been a major object of research across the social sciences and among students of the labor movement. Nowhere is this issue felt more acutely than in core productive sectors of the American South, where employers have beaten back nearly every significant organizing effort, even as the region continues to attract mass industry. These problems are epitomized by the United Autoworkers Workers’ 2014 defeat at the hands of German automaker Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it failed to win an election despite management’s ostensible neutrality. Though various competing explanations have been offered, …

The Case For Public Investment In Higher Pay For New York State Home Care Workers: Estimated Costs And Savings, Isaac Jabola-Carolus, Stephanie Luce, Ruth Milkman

Publications and Research

This report explores one potential solution to the mounting home care labor shortage in New York State: substantially raising wages for the state's home care workers. The analysis presents detailed projections, based on the best available data, of the economic effects of such an intervention, estimating the costs and benefits that would result. We find that public funding to raise home care wages would require significant resources, but those costs would be surpassed by the resulting savings, tax revenues, and economic spillover effects. The net economic gain would total at least $3.7 billion. Lifting wages would also help fill nearly …

The ‘Global South’ In The Study Of World Politics: Examining A Meta Category, Sebastian Haug, Jacqueline Braveboy-Wagner, Günther Maihold

Publications and Research

This introductory contribution examines the ‘Global South’ as a meta category in the study of world politics. Against the backdrop of a steep rise in references to the ‘Global South’ across academic publications, we ask whether and how the North–South binary in general, and the ‘(Global) South’ in particular, can be put to use analytically. Building on meta categories as tools for the classification of global space, we discuss the increasing prominence of the ‘Global South’ and then outline different understandings attached to it, notably socio-economic marginality, multilateral alliance-building and resistance against global hegemonic power. Following an overview of individual …

2020 Supplementary Directory Of New Bargaining Agents And Contracts In Institutions Of Higher Education, 2013-2019, William A. Herbert, Jacob Apkarian, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

The 2020 Supplementary Directory is an analysis of data for the period 2013-2019 of new bargaining units, bargaining agents, and contracts in higher education following publication of our last directory in 2012. The 2020 Supplementary Directory includes a listing of all new bargaining relationships concerning faculty, department chairs, librarians, postdoctoral scholars, academic researchers, and/or graduate student employees. It also includes data about bargaining units that existed prior to 2013 but did not appear in the last directory such as postdoctoral scholar and academic researcher bargaining units. Unlike prior directories, the 2020 Supplementary Directory includes a detailed unit composition description for …

2020 Supplementary Directory Of New Bargaining Agents And Contracts In Institutions Of Higher Education, 2013-2019, William A. Herbert, Jacob Apkarian, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

The 2020 Supplementary Directory is an analysis of data for the period 2013-2019 of new bargaining units, bargaining agents, and contracts in higher education following publication of our last directory in 2012. The 2020 Supplementary Directory includes a listing of all new bargaining relationships concerning faculty, department chairs, librarians, postdoctoral scholars, academic researchers, and/or graduate student employees. It also includes data about bargaining units that existed prior to 2013 but did not appear in the last directory such as postdoctoral scholar and academic researcher bargaining units. Unlike prior directories, the 2020 Supplementary Directory includes a detailed unit composition description for …

Unprotected On The Job: How Exclusion From Safety And Health Laws Harms California Domestic Workers, Isaac Jabola-Carolus

Publications and Research

Since its creation in 1973, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Act has excluded an entire class of workers—those employed in private households as nannies, housecleaners, home health aides, and home attendants. This report documents the human cost of their exclusion at a time when COVID-19 and ecological disaster compound typical workplace hazards. Based on a recent survey of over 700 domestic workers across the Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas, the report offers a large-scale snapshot of safety and health challenges faced by this workforce. Findings demonstrate that job-related injuries, illness, and violence are common; that employers rarely provide …

You've Been With The Professors: An Examination Of Higher Education Work Stoppage Data: Past And Present, William A. Herbert, Jacob Apkarian

Publications and Research

This law review article analyzes work stoppage data in calendar years 2012-2018 involving academic and non-academic employees at higher education institutions. It contextualizes the recent data through a review of the history of unionization and strikes in the field of education along with faculty strike data for the period 1966-1994. The study contributes to the literature concerning unionization and collective bargaining in higher education and will be of value to those who study or are engaged in labor relations at colleges and universities. We find that there was a total of 42 strikes and one lock-out involving faculty, graduate assistants, …

Shadow Standards And The Logic Of Costs: Care, Stewardship, And Data In U.S. Community Health, Margarite J. Whitten

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the delegation of responsibility for providing health care to particular categories of marginalized populations in the United States in the absence of a uniform and universal health care system. It explores how the U.S. federal government governs patient populations at a distance by mandating that healthcare providers collect, produce, and report on patient data. Drawing from eighteen months of ethnographic research in Massachusetts clinics for the homeless and the frail elderly between 2014-2015, I argue that when marginalized patients are unable to satisfy the neoliberal ideal of self-governance to maintain their health in cost-effective ways, providers are …

Work–Family Conflict In Low-Income Households, Maritza G. Hiciano Ramos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The United States is the only country not offering paid parental leave. Paid leave is left at the discretion of employers and only a few states offer Paid Family Leave benefits. The FMLA was established to protect workers from losing their jobs in case they needed to care for an elderly person or for their children. However, since value is not placed in family structures there has not been much development in that area. The FMLA fails to account for the grand majority of people in the U.S., especially those of lower socioeconomic status. Moreover, the vast inequalities that exists …

A Different Set Of Rules? Nlrb Proposed Rule Making And Student Worker Unionization Rights, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

This article presents data, precedent, and empirical evidence relevant to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to issue a new rule to exclude graduate assistants and other student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The analysis in three parts. First, the authors show through an analysis of information from other federal agencies that the adoption of the proposed NLRB rule would exclude over 81,000 graduate assistants on private campuses from the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Second, the article presents a legal history from the past half-century about unionization of student employees …

A Different Set Of Rules? Nlrb Proposed Rule Making And Student Worker Unionization Rights, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

This article presents data, precedent, and empirical evidence relevant to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to issue a new rule to exclude graduate assistants and other student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The analysis in three parts. First, the authors show through an analysis of information from other federal agencies that the adoption of the proposed NLRB rule would exclude over 81,000 graduate assistants on private campuses from the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Second, the article presents a legal history from the past half-century about unionization of student employees …

Goals, Power, And Culture: The Effects Of School Organizational Features On Parental Involvement, Vandeen A. Campbell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing on organizational theory and the school effectiveness literature, this project incorporates new methodological approaches to the analysis of a national longitudinal data set (ECLS-K: 2011) in order to investigate ways in which school goals around parental involvement, distribution of power, and culture affect parental involvement in children’s education, especially in schools serving large proportions of lower socioeconomic status families.

Parental involvement is widely accepted among researchers and policymakers to be essential for students’ academic success; however, parents with lower socioeconomic status exhibit less participation in both home-based and school-based activities compared to those of higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

Many recent …

The Hispanic Urban Child, Iris Ofelia Lopez Dr.

Open Educational Resources

This course examines the social, historical and cultural roots and life experiences of Latinx community in urban America. It focuses on Latinx families and youth in global cities. The course situates the Latinx diaspora in the United States within a colonial/transnational and global context.

Comments From The National Center For The Study Of Collective Bargaining In Higher Education And The Professions In Response To Proposed Nlrb Rule Concerning Graduate Assistants And Other Student Employees, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

These are public comments submitted by National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College, City University of New York in response to a proposed NLRB rule that would exclude student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The comments include information and data showing that the proposed rule would exclude from NLRA coverage 81,390 graduate assistants working at 518 private institutions in occupations that other federal agencies treat as distinct from the classification of graduate student. The comments also present a half-century of history and legal precedent concerning collective …

The Mere Mention Of Asians In Affirmative Action, Jennifer Lee, Van C. Tran

Publications and Research

Presumed competent, U.S. Asians evince exceptional educational outcomes but lack the cultural pedigree of elite whites that safeguard them from bias in the labor market. In spite of their nonwhite minority status, Asians also lack the legacy of disadvantage of blacks that make them eligible beneficiaries of affirmative action. Their labor market disadvantage coupled with their exclusion from affirmative action programs place Asians in a unique bind: do they support policies that give preferences to blacks but exclude them? Given their self- and group interests, this bind should make Asians unlikely to do so. We assess whether this is the …

Rich In Needs: The Forgotten Radical Politics Of The Welfare Rights Movement, Wilson Sherwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Situated temporally between the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement, the Welfare Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s distinguished itself by its militant critique of waged labor. Returning to the movement’s archives I examine how the mostly poor, Black, female participants developed their “antiwork politics”, how they asserted their right to live not only meager but occasionally luxurious lives—demanding not only bread but also roses. In the courts, streets, welfare offices, department stores, policy proposals, and numerous internal debates, these women waged national battles to assert full autonomy over their families, consumption, sexuality, and their own time.

As …