Labor Unions Research Articles

COVID‐19 and the power of indigenous, Mexican‐origin farmworker families in the US Pacific Northwest

AbstractOver the last several years—in the context of US political upheaval, ongoing crises related to climate change, the COVID‐19 pandemic and an economic downturn—indigenous, Mexican‐origin farmworker families in Washington State have engaged more intensely in class struggle through acts of solidarity and forms of collective action, in part through independent labour unions, worker cooperatives and mutual aid. This article chronicles the labour struggles that led to a notion of class rooted in family units of production and that strengthened transnational solidarity in resistance to racist forms of exploitation in the agricultural sector. Class organization rooted in family and solidarity has allowed indigenous agricultural workers in Washington State to face COVID‐19 and incidents driven by climate change, which syndemically compounded existing community health crises, from a place of power. Focusing on the experience of farmworker families in Washington State, I outline agricultural employers' exploitation of workers during this period of increased vulnerability and the strength of farmworkers' resolve to take their health and well‐being into their own hands.

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE VIEWED FROM ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, WORK ENVIRONMENT, AND TRAINING (Study at Sahid Hotel) SURAKARTA

This study looked into how training, work environment, and organizational culture affected employee performance at Hotel Sahid Jaya Solo. The classical assumption test, hypothesis testing, coefficient of determination, and multiple linear regression tests are among the data analysis methods used in this quantitative study. 80 employees made up the study's sample. 40 permanent employees of the Hotel Sahid Jaya Solo make up the sample. Purposive sampling was the method of selection employed in this study since there were various requirements for selection, one of which was that only permanent employees with a minimum of one year of employment were included in the samples. The results of this study show that organizational culture has positive and significant effects on employees' work lives, as do labor unions and work environments, while training has negative and insignificant effects on employees' work lives. The average coefficient of determination for each variable has a contribution of 81.9%, and the average coefficient of determination for each additional variable in this study is 18.1%.
 
 Keywords: Organizational Culture, Work Environment, Training, Employee Performance

Unions and Automation Risk: Who Bears the Cost of Automation?

Abstract Automation creates winners and losers. By examining establishment-level panel data, we explore how labour unions affect labor adjustment associated with automation. Although automation can increase new hires of junior and unskilled production workers, the presence of labour unions neutralizes these effects. The results suggest that labour unions have incentives to protect incumbent workers negatively affected by automation.

Trade union strength, business power, and labor policy reform: The cases of Argentina and Chile in comparative perspective

In this article, I explain why pro-labor reforms succeed or fail. Focusing on the cases of Argentina and Chile, I show that labor reforms are more successful in extending trade union rights when unions successfully build associational power and employers are less able to do so. Consistent with this argument, a quantitative analysis of time-series cross-sectional data from 78 countries suggests that the level of class power disparity is negatively correlated with the extension of workers’ collective rights. At the end of the article, I discuss how these results have implications for the study of labor reforms and power resources.

Policy dissonance when wearing the “employer hat”: The practice of governmental vehicle reimbursement among public sector employees

Transport-related benefits can have a significant impact on employees’ vehicle ownership and use. Policy implemented by governments, which are often both large-scale employers and models for the private sector, are especially important in determining travel behavior. The research focuses on the Israeli practice of providing substantial subsidies for public sector employees to own cars, through the salary benefit of “vehicle reimbursement”. The benefit, originally created to circumvent salary caps, today provides a substantial income supplement for more than half of the country’s public sector workers, translating to 10% of all Israeli employees (in addition to 10% of employees who receive a company car). The article explores the extent to which vehicle reimbursement encourages car ownership and car usage among public workers. It also seeks to assess the willingness of workers, the labor union and the government to replace the vehicle reimbursement salary component for a substitute that does not require car ownership. Analysis of both a survey of employees (n = 276) and interviews with government and labor union officials, suggests that Israel’s “vehicle reimbursement” constitutes a classic perverse incentive, driving and perpetuating private car ownership and usage, thereby affecting workers’ transport preferences in both the short and long terms. While the majority of public employees are willing to consider accepting salary compensation in lieu of car ownership, institutional and legal obstacles currently stand in the way of policy reform. This case study offers a first exploration of the role of historical employment arrangements in shaping employee and employer transportation decisions.

Factors impacting the Czech employees' job satisfaction

The article aimed to explore the drivers of employees' job satisfaction. Empirically, the study is based on the Czech data from the 2017 edition of the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS), accounting for 12,699 employed individuals. The implemented methods relied on the employment of the multivariate ordered logistic regression analysis. The estimated model found empirical support for the significance of job-related determinants and individual characteristics. The main findings are that job satisfaction is significantly related to the organization's size, skill level classification of the profession, supervisory responsibilities, working hours, level of education and years of experience. The highest levels of job satisfaction were, on average, observed among highly skilled professions, especially in managerial occupations. From the perspective of the organization's size, employees working in organizations with less than ten persons were, on average, mostly satisfied with their jobs. The study contributes to a better understanding of the drivers of job satisfaction from the context of the Central-European country, and it offers several suggestions for future research.

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of Nouvelle Théologie*

Witnesses to the Living God: Three Paradigms for Approaching the Politics of <i>Nouvelle Théologie</i>*

Protecting Academic Freedom Through Collective Bargaining: An AAUP Perspective

AAUP’s turn to collective bargaining grew out of a more expansive view of unionization than is typical for American labor unions. The mission of the AAUP incorporates addressing economic matters, as does the purpose of unions generally. But the AAUP adopted collective bargaining as a means of protecting and expanding the professional interests of the profession. This paper surveys the various approaches that AAUP chapters have used to accomplish the safeguarding and expansion of academic freedom.

Multiple jobholding and non-standard employment among young workers: a comparative analysis of EU-28 member states

ABSTRACT This article presents a comparative analysis of multiple jobholding and non-standard employment among young people in EU-28 member states. This work contributes to the understanding of multiple jobholding among youth by connecting the empirical work to the issues of labour market flexibilisation in Europe. The database used is the European Union Labour Force Survey for 2019. Non-standard forms of employment have a positive effect on the likelihood of secondary jobholding, especially part-time work. There is a high rate of multiple jobholding in Nordic countries, whereas it is low in Mediterranean, Central and Eastern European countries, where the time spent in second jobs is high. Finally, there are statistically significant differences in the propensity toward multiple jobholding according to level of education, gender, age, and country of birth, while there is no noticeable effect of over-qualification, although there is on the search for another job.

“A New Non-Entity”: Border Commuters, the Peyton Strike, and the Adverse Effect Standard in Immigration Law, 1958–1972

This article uses a 1958–1962 strike at the Peyton Packing Company in El Paso, Texas, to examine how labor unions in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands used racial stereotypes and Cold War paranoia to influence the adoption of a more rigorous labor certification standard for those applying for a visa to enter the United State. Ultimately, labor unions and Mexican American workers sought to end the practice of border commuting by adopting and advancing the language of immigration restriction deployed by many Mexican American civil rights leaders of the era. This rhetoric ignored pleas for improving the minimum wage laws and protections and overlooked the fact that many border commuters wanted to migrate to the United States, but were often prevented from doing so by existing immigration laws. This case study forces historians of immigration and labor to reassess the role that labor unions played in helping to make the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act more exclusionary than previously thought.

From the Ashes of the Old: The Old Left and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1957–1965

How did the “Old Left”—the socialist milieu of the 1930s and 1940s—shape the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s? Focusing on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), this article examines several mechanisms of Old Left influence: personnel overlap, network ties, and organizational alliances. New findings on the Old Left backgrounds of Rev. Joseph Lowery, C. T. Vivian, and many of Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachers and friends are presented. The support that SCLC received from “red” labor unions is also highlighted. The picture that emerges is not the elaborate Communist conspiracy imagined by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI but rather a transfer of skills, money, and ideas that strengthened SCLC and influenced its strategic agenda. However, the repression and stigmatization of the Old Left during the Cold War led many SCLC activists to hide or downplay their connections to the socialist movement, which has distorted both popular and scholarly understanding of the civil rights movement.

Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture

In Love's Next Meeting, Aaron S. Lecklider presents an impressive range of examples of how sexual dissidents participated in, contributed to, and often thrived within the U.S. Left from the 1930s through the beginnings of the Cold War. His goal is to challenge how “much of the prevailing scholarship on queer history discounts the Old Left due to its perceived homophobia, suggesting that emerging gay subcultures were more historically significant than movements that did not centralize Lgbt identities” (p. 6). Going beyond noting the individual lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (Lgbt) Communists and fellow travelers, Lecklider considers their plays, poetry, novels, and autobiographies, as well as other art forms that depicted queer life alongside proletarian themes. The author sets the stage in the first chapters, using various life stories and documents to illustrate the range of representations, views, and analyses of homosexuality among socialists, Communists, and other radicals. The next three chapters focus on workers, women, and the urban poor, examining the visibility of gay men in labor unions such as the Marine Cooks and Stewards union and analyzing sex work as labor.

Populist Backlash and Trade Agreements in North America: The Prospects for Progressive Trade

Populist rejection of the embedded liberal international order is evident in many Western democracies. This is partly attributable to the architects of this system, who over-promised widespread benefits while ignoring warnings from labour and fair-trade advocates about risks to economic security from transnational economic competition. This article contrasts Canadian and American conservative populist positions on free trade. Globalisation and free trade without consideration for fair trade weakened the embedded liberal compromise and undermined the Keynesian welfare state model which sustained it. While regional free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement have had marginal negative effects, they became convenient scapegoats in a strategy of “othering” adopted by Trump and other populists. Populism arose in part in response to middle- and working-class decline (alongside cultural changes and revitalised nativism), which eroded support for embedded liberalism. The heretofore pro-trade GOP followed Trump to a more protectionist and bilateral model to press for “America first,” tinged by nativist othering towards Mexico and China. This diverged from Canadian right-populist leaders, whose rhetoric generally supports freer trade despite scepticism among some supporters. Asymmetrical circumstances of the US as a global economic hegemon vs. Canada as trade-dependent middle power limits the feasibility of a protectionist, “Canada first” position while particularities of political and electoral systems create more room for nativism in the US. Polling results indicate support for free trade in both nations, with a priority for labour and social protections, which provides the potential for further engagement in progressive trade liberalisation. Hence a significant percentage of the population supports “fair-trade” approaches, not protectionism. However, many conservative politicians eschew fair-trade positions and endorse anti-labour policies. Despite gains such as the labour provisions in the Canada–US–Mexico Agreement, a right-populist alliance with fair-trade advocates and labour unions is unsustainable and would entail compromises like climate denial, anti-immigrant, and anti-equity approaches which hinder the pursuit of progressive multilateral trading regimes.

“The Only Cure for an Increasingly Sick System”: The Jewish Labour Bund and Social Democratic Politics in Canada

David Lewis was not religious. In fact, many Canadians were probably fooled by his name and slight Welsh accent into believing he was from good Protestant stock, but his was a secular Judaism, grounded in the social democratic Jewish Labour Bund. This paper argues that, although generally overlooked in the literature, “the single most important person” in the CCF/NDP deeply engrained Bundist values and principles—working-class unity, the centrality of labour unions to political struggle and electoral efforts to agitate for justice and equality for Jews (and all workers), and international solidarity—into the social democratic left in Canada.

Labor in the Age of Finance: Pensions, Politics, and Corporations from Deindustrialization to Dodd-Frank

Sanford M. Jacoby's Labor in the Age of Finance fruitfully complicates the history of labor's decline in the United States since the 1970s. Jacoby is realistic about that loss of organizing, bargaining, and political power, yet he brings a fresh perspective to the familiar declension narrative. In a deeply researched, well-written study, Jacoby spotlights how labor leaders found in union pension holdings “a source of power outside the labor market to augment their power within it” (p. 5). At the heart of the book is a telling irony. By empowering efforts of shareholder claims to corporate ownership, labor ultimately facilitated “a wealth transfer from labor to capital” (p. 2). Along the way, however, Jacoby argues that labor unions forged a history of activism in the finance sector that is important in its own right and that in the future could be critical to the resurgence of workers' power in politics and at work.

Union collective action, social movement unionism and worker freedom in New Zealand

Freedom of association can include the right of labour unions to take collective action in the interest of their members. In this regard, it is presumed that unions increase worker freedom. However, there is little literature on how worker freedom as self‐actualization is linked to union collective action involving coalition‐building with civil society. This article uses the notions of freedom according to Berlin (1969) and MacCallum (1967) to assess the meaning of such coalition‐building for worker freedom. It then employs a radical democratic perspective (Laclau and Mouffe 2001) of union engagement with the Just Transition in New Zealand to explore how unions enhance worker freedom.

Challenges of Women Leaders in South African Schools: Towards a Resolution

This article explored the challenges of women leaders in South African schools, in the Gauteng Province. Existing studies on this issue only document the situation but do not specify or suggest frameworks on how the challenges can be dealt with. The article used secondary data sources obtained in both grey and academic literature, using terms such as women leaders, women leader challenges, women empowerment and women emancipation as key terms. It also utilised in-depth interviews conducted with a total of 52 education stakeholders consisting of six male and female principals, six male and female deputy principals, 12 male and female departmental heads, 18 Post Level one teachers, five male and female members of the School Governing Body (SGB) from staff and parent components, three Gauteng Department of Education officials, one representative of South African Principals Association in Gauteng and one labour union representative who were selected purposively. The theoretical framework adopted in the article integrated feminist and sociocultural theories. The article showed that women leaders faced a variety of social, cultural and structural challenges. It proposed the deployment of transformational leadership across all levels of the department as the best long-lasting solution.

Supply Chain Threats Persist

Since early 2020, critical infrastructure sectors have endured myriad conditions that have threatened their continuity of operations. Most business entities are not autonomous or self-sufficient; rather they depend on a complex and often global supply chain of essential goods and services—this is certainly true of drinking water and wastewater systems. Supply chain matters were a roller coaster last year, and several of those challenging supply chain conditions will persist into 2023 and beyond. The following is a high-level summary of supply chain challenges and their effects on operational continuity in the water sector. The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine exacerbated existing COVID-19-related stress on commodity markets, triggering price shocks in food and fuel. The reduction in natural gas exports from Russia has caused significant increases in the cost and availability of anhydrous ammonia—prices have spiked over last year to roughly $1,400 per ton in late 2022. This has direct budgetary impacts on water treatment operations, especially systems that use chloramines as a disinfectant. Also, Russia is the world's largest producer of fertilizer, and reductions in fertilizer exports have had far-ranging effects. Shifts in fertilizer markets have caused China—the world's largest exporter of phosphorus—to restrict exports in 2023. In addition to escalating costs, water systems in several states have reported availability issues with phosphate corrosion inhibitors. In mid-2022, a long-term railroad labor dispute resulted in government intervention to negotiate a contract. An 11th-hour agreement in September averted a strike that came very close to cutting off the supply of chlorine and other critical treatment products that are transported by rail. Subsequent votes by the various labor unions to ratify terms had mixed results and again threatened a strike in early December. Water sector associations urged President Biden and Congress to intervene, and ultimately Congress passed legislation that prevented a nationwide rail strike; it should be noted that the contract will end in 2024. Policy factors have also complicated supply chain issues. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules in 2022 that could have direct impacts on the water sector. The most concerning change was the proposal to ban the use of asbestos diaphragms in chlorine production, which would affect 50% of the retail market that supplies the water sector. This rule would require chlor-alkali plants to switch to an alternative method within two to three years, with an estimated cost burden that is 119,000–287,000 times greater than the expected health benefits. Water associations called on EPA to provide a more reasonable timeline for the transition to ensure the availability of chlorine for water sector operations. This request noted the statutory obligation that EPA has under Section 1441 of the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure the reasonable availability of critical drinking water and wastewater treatment chemicals and materials. This regulatory pressure is amplified by external factors and basic economic principles. Overall demand for various materials slumped during the height of the pandemic. In late 2021, as economic activity returned, the demand for products quickly outpaced supply. Currently, pipe manufacturers are reporting delivery timelines of 15–24 months, and similar delays in other manufactured goods have been observed. If you factor in the massive infusion of federal infrastructure funds for projects of all types, including water-related improvements, the inflationary impacts are notable. The boost in funding for infrastructure programs is welcomed, but the reality is that current economic conditions mean utility customers will be paying more for less. Chemical supply is a prime example of recent challenges. Numerous systems throughout the nation experienced significant delivery disruptions and major spikes in the unit cost of chlorine. AWWA has found that the average cost for each ton of chlorine delivered has increased more than 120%. That alone has had significant budgetary impacts on many water systems and ultimately the rate payers. Last year, one southeastern utility reported that it recently spent an additional $1 million on chlorine—money that will not be spent on operations and maintenance needs. In some instances, chlorine production has been reduced because of disasters, equipment malfunctions, and facility closures. As a result, systems must adjust to chemical costs that are 10 times what systems budgeted. Rate payers will bear the burden of these economic changes. These supply chain issues will likely persist into 2024. Assessing supply chain dependencies will help utilities consider options to mitigate the impacts. Kevin M. Morley is manager of federal relations at the AWWA Government Affairs Office in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at [email protected].

Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism in America

This book offers stunning new depth to a relatively familiar tale: the 1925 Scopes monkey trial and the campaign of some evangelical Christians to publicly castigate evolutionary science and propagate their own views of creationism. Launching with the undertold labor backgrounds of John Scopes himself and of Dayton, Tennessee, the book examines the vicissitudes of the antievolution movement throughout the twentieth century and into the present. Red Dynamite includes the role of well-known figures (J. Frank Norris, Aimee McPherson, Ronald Reagan, Ken Ham and his Kentucky Noah's Ark), as well as their captivatingly more obscure comrades (George McCready Price, Gerald Winrod, Fred C. Schwarz). Creationism, argues Carl R. Weinberg, was never just about narrowly scientific models, ideological technicalities, or biblical hermeneutics. It was deeply, and intentionally, embedded in broader American cultural contestations over capitalism's sacrosanctity, skepticism of labor unions, changing gender roles, evolving sexual morality, social power, and America's status as a perceived Christian nation. Antievolutionists mobilized politically to respond to all of these as a cluster of concerns. The interconnections forged between these issues Weinberg monikers the “Red Dynamite” tradition. Such an account further demonstrates continuity between the old and new Christian Right and the persistence of conservative evangelical quests to shape the culture. It also reveals how the latter tradition never honestly reckoned with the blatantly anti-Semitic and segregationist legacy of earlier antievolutionists.

부당노동행위 구제신청의 당사자 적격 판단

In this case, the issue was whether the conciliatory remarks of the executive director, who has the position of representing the interests of the company, constituted an unfair labor practice against union members and labor unions, As a related issue or prerequisite, whether an employer who are not business owner is eligible as a respondent for an unfair labor practice remedy application, and a labor union who is not the direct counterpart of the unfair labor practice is eligible as an applicant for an unfair labor practice remedy application in case of infringement of rights. This is a case in which a judgment is made on the eligibility of the parties, etc. Regarding this issue, the target judgment is based on Article 81 of the Trade Union Act, criticizing the understanding that only the business owner has the qualifications of the respondent in relation to the remedy order when it is conventionally judged that unfair labor practices are established with respect to the eligibility of the respondent. It was judged that all the users specified were qualified as respondents. And if the rights of a specific trade union may be infringed due to unfair labor practices against a trade union that seeks to join or solidarity with a specific trade union regarding the eligibility of the applicant, the specific trade union directly commits the unfair labor practice Even if it is not the other party, it is judged that it has the qualifications to apply for remedy for unfair labor practice. In spite of some unsatisfactory aspects in the target judgment, it is possible to apply for relief against the manager, etc. It is significant in that it is a ruling that can make a big change in practice related to unfair labor practice relief applications, such as the specific labor union having the right to apply for relief.