Union Struggles Research Articles

LEGAL REGULATION OF TOBACCO AND TOBACCO PRODUCTS IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC AND IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract The contribution deals with the Slovak and the EU legal regulation of tobacco and tobacco products. Its primary purpose is to point out the Slovak and European legal acts which constitute the main regulatory instruments in this field using the method of analysis and synthesis. Rules of production, distribution and conditions of use of tobacco and products thereof are in the Slovak Republic contained mainly in two acts - the Act No 335/2011 Coll. on Tobacco Products and the Act No 377/2004 Coll. on the Protection of Non-smokers, as well as in special Decree No 212/2012 Coll., regulating tobacco products. Regulation of excise duty on tobacco products can be found in the Act with the same name - Act No 106/2004 Coll.. Another objective of the paper is also to draw attention to the amendment of Act on Protection of Non-smokers which entered into force on 1 July 2013. The European Union struggles with the negative consequences of smoking at the supranacional level and its institutions - the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU - are already for several years adopting legal acts to facilitate uniformity and easier interpretation of European law also in the field of legal regulation of tobacco and tobacco products. The predominant part of the existing legislation deals with the approximation of laws in areas that are closely related to the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products, but also to the collection of taxes from these products.

The Demise of Live Radio Entertainment in the Heartland: A Case Study

The use of live entertainers is well-documented on radio networks, but not for local stations in rural America. This study examines the period of decline in the use of live entertainers starting in 1940 and the pinnacle of live performance on WDZ, an independent broadcaster in central Illinois that featured folk and hillbilly style entertainment. World War II, the FCC's tolerance for recordings, union struggles, and changing management emphasis from programming to sales were factors in the live performance decline. Management transitioned from emphasizing local interests to maximizing economic return with less expensive programming while relocating to a larger market.

Book Review: Polityka zagraniczna. Aktorzy – potencjały – strategie, ed. T. Łoś–Nowak, Warszawa: Poltext, 2011, pp. 575

The question of what will be the shape of international policy in the next decades, especially at the moment, when the European Union (and other regions) struggle with a financial crisis is difficult to answer as a new international order is still in the stage of transformation. Berefore, the beginning of the twenty first century is a perfect opportunity to sum up the foreign policy of the selected countries including Poland.

Sindicalismo combativo (ELA 2012: crecer desde el contrapoder)

The research objective has been to address the situation of the trade-union movement, using ELA’s trajectory study as a reference. This path has been contrasted with other practices related both to State-Nations —Western Europe— and Nations without state —Quebec—. The dissertation aims to reveal a double transition experienced by ELA; the first related to the shift from an institutional to a counter-power unionism, the second, linked to nation-related issues and the convergence from a statutory model to a sovereignity. For this purpose, it is compulsory to analyze ELA’s trajectory taking into account the impacts of this transition from that time to the present. The resulting model must be identified as Combative trade-unionism. This term refers to Quebecan unionism due to the importance of protest action in their collective intervention. In the specific case we are studying, the systematic presence of the union struggle should be emphasized. Such fight has displaced and replaced the previous institutional practice as a tool to defend workers’ rights and claims.

EU Criminal Law, Democratic Legitimacy and Judicial Review of Union Criminal Law Legislation in the Wake of the Lisbon Treaty

AbstractEU criminal law is a controversial area of Union law. It is clear that the founding fathers of the Rome Treaty conceived the Union to primarily constitute an economic space and that the Member States originally had no intention to transfer their sovereignty in the field of criminal law. Despite this, it appears that following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Union has gained a specific competence to legislate in criminal matters. There are, however, constraints as to how this power should be exercised. The constraints primarily concern the Union's struggle to overcome the strong sovereignty claims of Member States and the perceived lack of legitimacy on the part of the Union in the field of criminal law.In terms of legitimacy, it is clear that democratic participation by Union citizens is not self-evident in the shaping of the EU criminal policy. It is therefore essential to analyse how the Union legislator can legitimately exercise a criminal law power if the citizens of the Union do not participate in the legislative procedure. Further, do Union law and the constitutional traditions of the Member States recognise the existence of a democratic principle implying that the European Parliament shall be involved in the adoption of criminal law legislation? And, if so, can the democratic principle constitute grounds for review of EU criminal law legislation?

Union Democracy and Labour Rights: A Cautionary Tale

In recent years, trade unions in Canada have become increasingly reliant on constructing workers’ rights as part of the broader rubric of human rights. While the topic of labour rights has become popular in recent academic literature, it remains under explored. An important element of constructing labour rights as human rights is its impact on union democracy and rank-and-file mobilization, though this has yet to be fully explored. Utilizing the case study of the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) struggle against Bill 29, this paper suggests that a reliance on the construction of labour rights as human rights and the corresponding judicial strategy prevents the development of a from a more radical, grassroots social movement unionism and instead facilitates the proliferation of hierarchical, elite dominated forms trade unionism. It concludes by suggesting that unions must be cautious of the potential downfalls of quelling militant grassroots activism in lieu of a rights-based challenge.

Comparative public budgeting: global perspectives on taxing and spending

Every government engages in budgeting and public financial management to run the affairs of state. Effective budgeting empowers states to prioritize policies, allocate resources, and discipline bureaucracies, and it contributes to efficacious fiscal and macroeconomic policies. Budgeting can be transparent, participatory, and promote democratic decision-making, or it can be opaque, hierarchical, and encourage authoritarian rule. This book compares budgetary systems around the world by examining the economic, political, cultural, and institutional contexts in which they are formulated, adopted, and executed. The second edition has been updated with new data to offer a more expansive set of national case studies, with examples of budgeting in China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, and Nigeria. Chapters also discuss Brexit and the European Union's struggle to require balances budgets during the Euro Debt Crisis. Additionally, the authors provide a deeper analysis of developments in US budgetary policies from the Revolutionary War through the Trump presidency.

Editorial: Dispatch from the Euro Titanic: And the Orchestra Played On Snippets From the Mail Box of the Editor: Poaching Masthead Changes In this Issue

These are challenging times for the European Union. Internally, important, even fundamental, decisions are on the agenda as the Union struggles with the Euro crisis and its underlying economic fissures. (Mercifully, the scapegoating of the USA as an escape from facing Europe's very own breathtaking governmental and private-sector financial and fiscal irresponsibility has all but disappeared � mercifully, since facing reality unflinchingly is a necessary condition for dealing with it effectively.) What is subprime in Europe is the decisional structure of the Union: the European Politburo � President of the Commission, newly-minted President of the Council, tired-old-more-senseless-than-ever rotating Member State Presidency, recycled High Representative answerable to two bosses and thus to none � has proven at best irrelevant to the real actors in you know where (Berlin, Paris, the formidable Merkel, the erratic Sarkozy), at worst distracting � was the able President of the Council's productive moves really helped by the forced tango with his opposite number at the Commission? About a year after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, it is clear that at least some of the principal objectives intended by the new decisional structure at the top are turning out to be as ineffective (some claim laughable) as critics anticipated. Externally, the world sans-Amerique (or at least with a terribly weakened America) is not waiting for Europe either. Here, the non-handshake of Catherine Ashton and Saeed Jalili, Iran's representative to the resumed talks, was an image emblematic at many levels of the depth of the international challenges and Europe's worrying circumstance. Be that as it may, on the Institutional Deck � the orchestra plays on. The tune, it would appear, is familiar: the usual melodies associated with Commission, Council, Parliament flaps. This time, however, the harmonies might be more out of tune than usual. �

Managing Religion in Communist-Era Poland: Catholic Priests versus the Secret Police

Solidarity, the free Polish trade union that emerged in 1980, acted in close alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. The union's struggle for human dignity and freedom became a question of national redemption and often used religious symbols and rituals. Although one can argue whether Pope John Paul II was personally the fulcrum of revolt, Solidarity and the demise of Polish Communism are hard to imagine without him. Not surprisingly, the Polish security forces made vigorous efforts to penetrate the Polish Catholic Church, eventually enlisting as informants some 15 percent of the clergy. Recent revelations of extensive collaboration by priests, notably in Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski's acclaimed book, provide a valuable correction to the historical record but do not greatly detract from the overall image of the Church as having resisted Communism. The Church, among other things, served as a refuge for many in the darkest moments of the Communist era and helped to force change by throwing its support behind Solidarity.

There Will be No ‘One Big Union’: The Struggle for Interracial Labor Unionism in California Agriculture, 1933 — 1939

In California, between 1933 and 1939, Filipino, Japanese and Mexican farm workers engaged in far-reaching labor strikes. In this article, I argue that the practice of White supremacy prevented interracial farm labor unionism via the creation of a racial hierarchy that aligned Japanese, Mexicans and Filipinos into specific positions. Previous scholarship deemphasizes the roles of race and racism in analysis of farm worker mobilization. I focus upon four key actors, which actively maintained the hierarchy: landowners, the state, organized labor, and the White public.

Vocation or Vacation? Perspectives on Teachers' Union Struggles in Southern Mexico1

AbstractFor decades following the 1910 to 1917 Mexican Revolution, rural maestros (teachers) in the Mexican state of Oaxaca were respected for their “vocation” and the hardships they suffered while working in poor, remote, rural communities where they played an instrumental role in forging a national culture. Since the early 1980s, politicization of Oaxaca's Local 22 of the national educators' union and work stoppages that close schools coupled with teachers' high salaries contribute to negative attitudes toward the profession. Using ethnographic data collected in Oaxaca among teachers and other members of the public, I discuss the support and opposition for federal teachers who practice what was long considered a “noble” profession, and union members' justifications of their labor actions.

Micro cadeias produtivas e a nanoeconomia: repensando o trabalho decente

The expression job for a pay was an important part of the trades union struggles during much of the twentieth century for proper working conditions, a fair salary and dignity in the workplace. The same expression (decent work) was recently adopted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as part of its campaign for improved working conditions. Nobody would dispute the importance of improving working conditions for those in employment. But what are the struggles of those many other invisible people who in the immense day to day of informal practices, in the attempts to create more collective economic alternatives, or to have their products accepted in settings of perverse economic relations? If the great majority of theories of elaborated in the twentieth century focus, as a basic assumption, formal salaried employment, what are the concepts, practices and theories that could support and give direction to the actions of those people and their collective organizations who seek another possibility of development using everyday opportunities and a more collective understanding of citizenship? What is decent work in the world of micro-productive chains and the nanoeconomy?

Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism By Jonathan Cutler Temple University Press. 2004. 236 pages. $74.50 cloth, $24.95 paper

Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism By Jonathan Cutler Temple University Press. 2004. 236 pages. $74.50 cloth, $24.95 paper

An Unladylike Strike Fashionably Clothed: Mexicana and Anglo Women Garment Workers Against Tex-Son, 1959–1963

A conflict that rocked San Antonio from 1959 to 1963, the Tex-Son garment workers' strike was the first International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) struggle led by a Mexican American woman and the first strike in which Mexican-origin and Anglo women picketed together in Texas. Responding to the city press's focus on the violence of the strike, the women of Tex-Son strategically used Cold War-era ideologies of femininity and domesticity to revise public notions of their "unladylike" struggle. By literally refashioning themselves through their physical appearance and emphasizing their dual role as mothers and workers, the mostly Mexicana Tex-Son strikers gained tremendous support in the traditionally anti-union city of San Antonio. Situated between the end of World War II and the Chicano movement, the Tex-Son strike represents an important, transitional form of Mexican and Mexican American women's activism not yet fully explored by historians.

INVENTING A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY WITH LATINO FARM LABOR ORGANIZERS IN NORTH CAROLINA

In this article, I summarize my experience conducting “an experiment in public anthropology” involving ethnographic fieldwork on a labor union struggle from the standpoint of volunteer work with community advocates for farm labor rights in North Carolina between 1998 and 2004. Theoretical rationales for participatory action research, issues of access, pros and cons from an information‐gathering perspective, and ethical perspectives are discussed.

Late Chartism in the Potteries, 1848–1858

In the Potteries, as in most industrial districts, Chartism revived in 1848. Chartist activity in 1850–2 was centred on the Hanley People's Hall and its journal the Lever, also (until 1853) the Longton Working Men's Hall. Thereafter a hard core of thirty or forty Chartists sustained the movement, through support for Ernest Jones and the People's Paper until 1858. Chartists also supported trade union struggles, especially a number of short-lived miners' unions, throughout the 1850s. They made a considerable impact on local politics through their control of the elected Hanley and Shelton Highways Boards, through pressure on the Stoke-on-Trent Poor Law Board of Guardians, through spearheading opposition to the introduction of the Public Health Act, and finally through defending the right of working men to live in old railway carriages. The essay concludes with a brief discussion of Chartist involvement in the Reform League and a comparison with Halifax where Chartism was similarly long-lived.

Section News

Abstract:For your convenience, this month's Section News PDF includes bookmarks for each section. After opening the PDF, select the “Bookmark” tab on the left side of your screen, and click on the name of the section you are interested in reading.American Ethnological Society (AES): Joanna Davidson, ed.Anthropology and Environment Section (A&E): Laura Ogden, ed. “Integrating Cultural and Biological Diversity into Federal Environmental Policy,” by Rick SteppArcheology Division (AD): James M Skibo, ed. “AD at the SAA Meeting,” by Janet E Levy; “Employer Exposition,” by Terry MajewskiAssociation for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA): Jennifer E Coffman, ed.Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA): Shaka McGlotten, ed. “Martha Washington Goes to Anthropology, Part 1,” by Aimee CoxAssociation for Feminist Anthropology (AFA): Damla Isik and Jessica Smith, eds.Association for Latina and Latino Anthropologists (ALLA): Luis FB Plascencia, ed. “What's Identity Got to Do With It?” by Michael J MontoyaAssociation for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA): Elizabeth Krause and Mona Bhan, eds. “‘Birth Pangs” in Palestine and Iraq,” by Julie PeteetAssociation of Senior Anthropologists (ASA): Paul L Doughty, ed. “Anthropology Forgotten?” by J Anthony ParedesCentral States Anthropological Society (CSAS): Evelyn Dean‐Olmstead and Angela Glaros, eds.Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE): Steven Bialostok, ed. “What's New(s) in CAE,” by Teresa McCartyCouncil for Museum Anthropology (CMA): Joyce Herold, ed.Culture and Agriculture Section (C&A): Ronald Rich, ed. “New Publication on People and Forests,” by Carol J Pierce ColferEvolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS): John P Ziker, ed. “2009 AAA Meeting: Wards, Sessions, Papers and Registration,” by John PattonGeneral Anthropology Division (GAD): Luke Eric Lassiter, ed. “Anthropological Observations on AAA Meetings, Part II,” by Peter J BrownMiddle East Section (MES): Emilio Spadola, ed. “Publication Announcement: Governing Gaza (2008),” by Ilana FeldmanNational Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA): Christine Miller, ed. “NAPA Occupational Therapy Interest Group Launches Field School,” by Gelya FrankNational Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA): Jenny Chio, ed. “Beyond the ‘Academic/Applied’ Binary in the Ethics Debate,” by Elan Abrell and Kaja TretjakSociety for Anthropological Sciences (SAS): Stephen Lyon, ed.Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC): Lloyd Miller, ed. “On Coprolites: From ‘Archaeology Matters’,” by Bob Muckle; “The President's Annual Report: Excerpts,” by Lloyd Miller and Ann KauppSociety for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC): Enoch H Page, ed.Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN): Rachel Black, ed. “Paradox, Disparity, Ethnography: Observations on the Spread of Diabetes in the Developing World,” by Amy Moran‐ThomasSociety for the Anthropology of North America (SANA): David Kamper, ed. “Where the Patient Experience Begins: Waiting Room Ethnography and the Art of Reception,” by Cynthia StrathmannSociety for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR): Jennifer Selby, ed. “Book Review: Brian M Howell's Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptists in the Philippines (Palgrave MacMillan 2008),” by Jon BialeckiSociety for the Anthropology of Work (SAW): Angela Jancius, ed. “SAW's Relevance in These Times,” by Ann Kingsolver; “The Anthropology of Freecycling,” by Angela JanciusSociety for Cultural Anthropology (SCA): Jean M Langford, ed.Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA): Jennifer Hubbert and Gordon Mathews, eds. “Anthropology and the Anaconda: China Post‐2008,” by Charlene MakleySociety for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA): Frederic W Gleach and Vilma Santiago‐Irizarry, eds.Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (SLACA): Annelou Ypeij, ed. “Back to Todos Santos Cuchumatán,” by Ellen SharpSociety of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA): David LR Houston, ed.Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA): James Stanlaw and Mark Peterson, ed. “Language and Social Justice: Report from the CfHR Task Group,” by Laura R Graham and Ana Celia ZentellaSociety for Medical Anthropology (SMA): Kathleen Ragsdale, ed. “Native Elder Mistreatment: A CBPR Approach,” by Lori L Jervis and the Shielding American Indian Elders Project TeamSociety for Psychological Anthropology (SPA): Jack R Friedman, ed. “Critical Neuroscience: A Conference Report,” by Suparna Choudhury and Jan SlabySociety for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology (SUNTA): Jayne Howell, ed. “Union Struggles in Urban Mexico: Oaxaca City Revisited,” by Jayne HowellSociety for Visual Anthropology (SVA): Wendy Dickinson, ed. “2008 SVA Lifetime Achievement Award: Karl Heider,” by Mary Strong; “2008 SVA Collier Prize: Joanna Scherer,” by Mary Strong

PLACING LEGITIMACY: ORGANISING RELIGIOUS SUPPORT IN A HOSPITAL WORKERS’ CONTRACT CAMPAIGN1

AbstractReligion‐labour alliances, like other faith‐based and religious organisations, raise questions about the invocation of religion to establish moral authority and political legitimacy in Western democracies. This paper argues that legitimacy should be understood as produced through spatio‐temporally contingent practices. The question of legitimacy is explored through a case study of the activities of a religion‐labour alliance in an urban hospital workers’ contract campaign. The paper traces the work of religion‐labour organising through the multiple space‐times of the campaign. As religion‐labour organising negotiates various habituses, attempting to legitimate itself as well as the union's struggle, it draws on not only religious discourses, but discourses of human rights, democratic deliberation, and social scientific evidence. The analysis is based on participant observation throughout the campaign, interviews with coalition members and other union staff, and internal documents and public reports from the campaign.

Book Review: Cutler, J. (2004). Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 236 pp. $20.95 (paper)

Book Review: Cutler, J. (2004). Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW, and the Struggle for American Unionism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 236 pp. $20.95 (paper)

White Collar Revisited: A Commentary on Isler, Osnowitz, and Kenny

With these three interesting articles on the plight of the semi-professional occupations and with a flurry of books on the degradation of the middle class including Jill Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bait and Switch, and Louis Uchitelle, The Disposable American, I was led back to C Wright Mills’s White Collar. What light does this classic, published in 1951, shed on white-collar work today? More than 20 years before Harry Braverman penned his classic, Labor and Monopoly Capitalism, Mills wrote about deskilling and rationalization, both of work in general, and of white-collar work in particular—all laid out in his unforgettable and brilliant chapter 10 on the demise of “craftsmanship” and the rise of “cheerful robots.” Unlike Braverman, and clearly influenced by Veblen, Mills delved into the subjective as well as the objective dimensions of white-collar work, writing of status panic, upward mobility, and the frenzy for success. This commanding analysis of production and its regulation is couched in a sweeping history of the rise of the office, mass consumption, and the retail store, all propelled by what he called the “managerial demiurge” of the all-dominating corporation. Mills ends, as he does all his books, with a political diagnosis. With great prescience for his time, he saw the convergence of the white-collar and blue-collar as the former suffered rationalization and the latter experienced uplift through union struggles and a protective welfare state. He points to the percentage of white-collar workers unionized, rising from 2.5% in 1900 (about what it is today!) to 16.2% in 1948 (as compared to 44.1% for wage workers). Still, Mills was no revolutionary optimist. The new middle classes, another name Mills used for white-collar workers, can never be an autonomous or guiding force, but are always, to coin a phrase, in a “contradictory class location.” They blow with the wind; when the capitalist is ascendant they will shift in that direction, when the working class is ascendant they side with that class. They are no incipient ruling class; they don’t have a coherent class consciousness to call their own. They are, he says, the rearguard, not the vanguard. Qual Sociol (2007) 30:501–504 DOI 10.1007/s11133-007-9078-5