Protestant Workers Research Articles

Discussion on the "Freedom to Strike" in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China

This paper will discuss the issue of strike freedom in China's legal practice. A strike is a collective refusal of work by workers in protest. With the advent of the era of bourgeois revolution, the contradiction between capitalists and their employed workers increased rapidly and became the principal contradiction of society. The working class, which directly creates social value, is increasingly impoverished and unfairly treated. The workers spontaneously rebelled against the capitalist oppressors in various ways. Strikes, as a form of workers' struggle, also appeared in that era. The strike also received warm reviews from Marx and Engels. As the most representative socialist country in the world, the right to strike in the People's Republic of China is not allowed and recognized by law, which leads to a lack of reasonable ways for many workers to defend their rights and interests. This led to a series of social problems and unstable factors, how the development of the rule of law of the Chinese government at the end of the 20th century is related to today's rule of law pattern, and how the Chinese government's attitude towards the strike has changed since the 1950s, all of which need to be discussed and studied. In addition, the thesis focuses on the ordinary working class in China, focuses on the basic demands of the Chinese people, and discusses the right to strike from the perspective of the people.

Contemporary but not modern

The Amsterdam architect Arnold Ingwersen (1882-1959) left behind a substantial body of work, yet it is still largely undocumented and has left very few traces in Dutch architectural history. One reason for this was Ingwersen's lack of affinity with the architectural world of his day; in the 1920s and 1930s he did not belong to any of the movements now regarded as of historical importance. His orthodox Protestant views were incompatible with those of his modernist confreres. As an introduction to the work of Arnold Ingwersen, this article first sketches his background: his Protestant youth and his long apprenticeship in the profession of architect. This is followed by a brief account of his architectural oeuvre, which is characterized by a craftsmanlike and sober style that, combined with a certain purism, was contemporary but not modernist. Compositions of brick volumes with alternating horizontal and vertical elements were accentuated by means of different roof forms and a rhythmic disposition of windows, bays and dormers, supplemented by recurring archetypical motifs like arches, chimneys and pointed gables. A meticulous detailing of ‘pure’ forms was also typical of his work. Ingwersen’s commissions emanated from his own Protestant community. Initially, the Patrimonium housing association provided the bulk of those commissions, but later on other contacts within the Protestant network and organizations became his main clients. Public housing projects in Amsterdam – in collaboration with Tjeerd Kuipers – constitute an important component of his oeuvre. In the mid-1920s Ingwersen ventured outside this field as an independent architect, designing schools, churches, homes for the aged and private houses. Relatively little is known about his private housing commissions. In a class apart are the hostels he built in Limburg and Brabant (in particular Eindhoven) for Protestant workers from the north. In the mid-1930s Ingwersen turned to renovations of which the Valeriuskliniek in Amsterdam was a major commission. Ingwersen in addition wrote articles and books, chiefly serving his ‘own circle’, such as the Protestant newspaper De Standaard. In 1935, when his career as architect was at an end, he addressed the much wider readership of De Telegraaf in a series of articles critical of modernist colleagues. The ensuing fierce debate whereby Ingwersen became an object of scorn and alienated himself still further from his profession is discussed, along with In Holland stond een huis (1950), the book in which Ingwersen expounded his ideas about the importance of Calvinist culture for Dutch architecture and town planning. Notwithstanding the moralizing tone of his publications, Ingwersen’s architectural work is not without its own special merits, witness the fact that several have been heritage listed. A considerable number of his buildings have been demolished, while others have yet to be tracked down. Nevertheless, greater attention to the architecture and underlying ideas of Arnold Ingwersen (as one of many who operated outside the well-known movements) can help to foster a broader understanding and appreciation of relatively unknown architecture in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Policing the lockdown: accounts of police officers’ aggression and extortion of frontline health workers in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the many intersections between policing and public health, illuminating profound effects of the interactions and collaborative efforts between both sectors in Nigeria, which culminated into an industrial action by health workers in protest of police harassment and extortion. This study, which represents one of the first attempts at empirically examining inter-sectoral collaboration between police and healthcare personnel in the promotion of public health, explored health workers’ experiences with the police officers coordinating local shutdowns and enforcing stay-at-home mandates. Sixty-two health workers, comprising medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, clinical and patient services assistants, were interviewed in a qualitative study and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that participants were subjected to different forms of aggression and extortive behaviour from police officers at checkpoints, which negatively impacted on their official functioning as responders to the pandemic. Occasionally, these aggressive and extortive behaviours were specifically targeted at health workers based on officers’ impressions and prior unpleasant experiences with health institution and its personnel. These findings have important policy and practical implications, if the physical health and emotional wellbeing of frontline health workers are to be recognised and met, in supporting them in their role of combating COVID-19.

The Caledon Lockout: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Rural Ulster, 1918–1922

AbstractThis paper examines an unsuccessful strike by Irish Catholic and Protestant workers at a woolen mill in 1919. The location, Caledon in County Tyrone, is renowned as a stronghold of Ulster Unionism and Orangeism, yet in the context of the revolutionary period in Ireland from 1916–1926, traditional sectarian divisions briefly abated in the face of working-class solidarity. In this respect, the analysis offers something of a corrective to assumptions regarding the immutability of sectarian divisions in Ulster. The article also places Caledon within the context of a widespread and sustained movement of unskilled workers in the main provincial city, Belfast, and across much of rural Ulster between 1918–1920. Nevertheless, the manner in which the employer defeated the strike and the village's subsequent history of violent sectarianism offers valuable insights into the creation and consolidation of Northern Ireland, or what many local Catholics called “the Orange State,” which celebrates its centenary in 2020.

Performing the Northern Athens: Dr. Corry's Diorama of Ireland and the Belfast Riot of 1864

Although sectarian violence characterized life in Belfast for hundreds of years, 1864 marked a shift in how violence played out in the city. Unlike previous conflicts that occurred in open spaces and reflected long-held rural rituals, the riots of August 1864 took place in the city's rapidly developing urban streets. The violence broke out in response to celebrations around the foundation laying for a new statue of Daniel O'Connell, the late Catholic politician, in Dublin. Thousands of Belfast Catholics traveled to Dublin for the celebration. Upon their return to Belfast, ten thousand Protestant loyalists greeted them by burning an effigy of O'Connell on Boyne Bridge and staging a mock funeral and procession that attempted to enter a Catholic burial ground. The resulting violence and rioting continued for ten days on the city streets, where homes and businesses faced destruction on a scale previously unseen. Expelling residents of opposing views, rioters reinforced older ideas of “communal conflict” expressed through “disagreements over each group's place—literally and imaginatively—in the city” and strengthened notions of neighborhood geography based on religious beliefs. As historian Mark Doyle argues, the shifting patterns of violence resulted from “[t]he steady advance of working-class alienation from the state, the growing hegemony of violent extremists in working-class neighbourhoods, the sectarian alliance between Protestant workers and elites, the insecurity of the Catholics and, above all, the polarising effects of earlier outbreaks of violence.” Lasting reminders of conflict lingered as the city recovered, reminding anyone walking the streets of the city's violent past and the likely potential of future clashes.

Om mens en menselijkheid

Abstract In May 1945, shortly after the Liberation of the Netherlands, Dutch Reformed minister Willem Banning (1888-1971) published a sketch of a ‘personalistic socialism’. Shortly thereafter, he became one of the founding fathers of the renewed Dutch Labor Party. At the first convention of the new party he proposed that the process of renewal of socialism had to be informed by ‘spiritual values’. In Dutch historiography, the role of Banning as one of the founders of the Dutch Labor Party was never really been understood as religiously or even ideologically motivated. The so-called ‘Breakthrough-movement’ – which sought a new synthesis between political action and religious or ideological inspiration – has been generally interpreted in terms of opportunism: in order to persuade Catholic and Protestant workers to vote for the Labor Party, some spiritually and morally loaded vocabulary was added and the harsh anti-religious affiliation of classic socialist politics was (temporarily) toned down. In this article, I propose a new analysis of the breakthrough-movement, inspired by new studies on public debate in the Netherlands and in Europe between 1918 and 1960 and by an in-depth analysis of the intellectual development of Banning. This leads to the conclusion that the spiritual and religious sources of inspiration of the breakthrough movement should be seen as a turning point in the Dutch debate on the essence of humankind and his/her role in society, church and politics in a period still problematically labelled by the metaphor of ‘pillarization’.

THE KU KLUX KLAN, LABOR, AND THE WHITE WORKING CLASS DURING THE 1920S

Historians usually consider the revived Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s to have been consistently opposed to labor unions and the aspirations of working-class people. The official outlook of the national Klan organization fits this characterization, but the interaction between grassroots Klan groups and pockets of white Protestant working-class Americans was more complex. Some left-wing critics of capitalism singled out the Klan as a legitimate if flawed platform on which to build white working-class unity at a time when unions were weak and other institutions demonstrated indifference to working-class interests. In industrial communities scattered across the Midwest, South, and West, white Protestant workers joined the Klan. In Akron, Ohio, the Klan helped to sustain white working-class community cohesion among alienated rubber workers. In Birmingham, Alabama, the Klan violently repressed mixed-race unions but joined with white Protestant workers in a political movement that enacted reforms beneficial to the white working class. But Klan attention to working-class interests was circumstantial and rigidly restricted by race, religion, and ethnicity. Ku Klux definitions of whiteness excluded from fellowship many immigrant and Catholic workers. Local Klans supported striking white Protestant workers when Catholic, immigrant, or black rivals were present, but acted, sometimes violently, against strikes that destabilized white Protestant communities. Ku Klux sympathies complicated urban socialist politics in the Midwest and disrupted the effectiveness and unity of the United Mine Workers. Lingering Klan sympathies among union workers document the power of reactionary popular movements to undermine working-class identity in favor of restrictive loyalties based on race, religion, and ethnicity.

Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement by Geoffrey Bell

Reviewed by: Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement by Geoffrey Bell Patrick Smylie Geoffrey Bell, Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement (London, Pluto Press 2016) Mainly focusing on the period between the 1916 Easter Rising and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, this is one of a spate of books concerned with the Irish revolution one hundred years on. The book is unique in that it cogently analyses the response of the British left to the revolution, rather than the participants in Ireland or the British government. It partly follows on from the author's earlier works (also published by Pluto) including The Protestants of Ulster (1976) and Troublesome Business: The Labour Party and the Irish Question (1982). These works along with The British in Ireland: A Suitable Case for a Withdrawal (1984) were probably shaped by Bell's socialist activism during the recent "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Hesitant Comrades, based on a PhD, is less polemical. Bell's prologue begins with an account of Trafalgar Square's "Bloody Sunday" of November 1887, a demonstration against British coercion in Ireland ending with violence on London streets, to introduce "the history of British radicalism identifying with the cause of Ireland." (x) The opening chapter discusses the Rising's gestation and the unsympathetic response of the British left, exemplified by the Socialist Labour Party's failure to provide an obituary for James Connolly, a former prominent member, following his execution. A further contextual chapter outlines Sinn Féin's electoral eclipsing of the Home Rule Party on a republican platform, and it places the increasingly deadly "Irish Question" in the context of the Russian Revolution, growing working-class consciousness, and industrial militancy in Britain. Subsequent thematic chapters provide a detailed account of the British left's hesitant response to the tumultuous events in Ireland. Bell devotes two chapters to the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress (tuc), while "Alternatives" deals with Communists, Fabians, and the Independent Labour Party. Other chapters incorporate "voices from below" or workers' perspectives; address contemporary debates about how socialists should respond to Irish nationalism, the Ulster question, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ultimately recognized the partition of Ireland. Hesitant Comrades emphasizes that the labour movement was critical of government policy and Bell disassociates it "from Britain's side in the Irish War of Independence. This was not their war." [End Page 300] (216) Nevertheless, Bell's main argument is that whilst large sections of the British working class were disturbed by their government's treatment of Ireland, the labour movement, with a few exceptions, failed even to attempt to provide leadership that could give voice to this sentiment. Rather, equivocation, confusion, and ultimately a disinclination actively to support Irish independence typified attitudes and approaches. Why? Bell convincingly points to ambivalence about the utility of Irish nationalism, limited comprehension of Irish complexities, and a strong desire that the issue would simply disappear. The Labour Party did actually move from support for Home Rule to advocating unconditional Irish self-determination. However, in 1920, the party's Executive backed away from the idea, since independence would make Ireland a military or naval menace to Great Britain. As Bell points out the "implication was that if the potential Irish 'menace' was not sorted out Labour would oppose any settlement." (72) This imperialist thinking had a left-wing corollary in the idea that since the Irish revolution was not "socialist," it deserved only qualified support. One communist organ observed that the "nationalist aspirations of the Irish workers … are dangerous illusions" (112) and Bell notes that leading Bolsheviks felt obliged to rebuke their British comrades for such sentiments. Bell outlines how discontinuity carried over into thinking on the "Ulster Question." Arguments for the region's exclusion from a Home Rule settlement, most forcibly made by the "reactionary" figure of Sir Edward Carson, were deemed as economic in basis by the British left and supportive Ulster protestant workers were the dupes of Belfast's capitalists. There was in fact little understanding of Ulster worker mentalities, and when anti-Catholic violence was brought to the attention of the tuc, their response was feeble. In 1920...

Making Theological Sense of the Migration Journey From Latin America

This article focuses on the ways in which religious workers in Central America, Mexico, and U.S. border areas respond to the increasing dangers that confront undocumented migrants as a consequence of the militarization of international borders in the region. Drawing on interviews with religious leaders who work with departing and journeying migrants, this article examines the theological bases for pastoral care and social justice actions for migrants in the context of current immigration law and policy. Findings suggest that the Catholic church embraces a communitarian social theology that translates into social justice activities when it comes to migration matters. Protestant churches remain divided when it comes to immigration matters, with mainline Protestant workers aligning themselves with Catholic workers. In contrast, Pentecostal and Evangelical workers, who maintain an individualistic orientation, shy away from immigration politics, focusing instead on the needs and salvation of individual members of their ministries.

Ethnic politics and labour market closure: Shipbuilding and industrial decline in Northern Ireland

This article examines the interplay of ethnic conflict and economic interests in Northern Ireland, specifically for the case of the shipbuilding industry, which received massive state aid despite its terminal decline. Parkin's theory of dual social closure by members of the subordinate class but dominant status group to monopolize resources and opportunities is employed to examine the interests and actions of Protestant workers. The contribution of local institutions including Extended Internal Labor Markets to the salience of Protestant group solidarity is examined from a political economy perspective. Political accommodation between Protestant labour and the Northern Ireland government, and later British government political fears of antagonizing Loyalist workers, facilitated huge aid to a failing industry.

The Kaiser's Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany. By Jonathan Sperber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii + 389. $64.95. ISBN 0521-59138-4.

Published: Central European History, vol. 34, no. 1 (2001): Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Review of The Kaiser's Voters. Electors and elections in Imperial Germany. By Jonathan Sperber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xiii + 389. $64.95. ISBN 0521 59138 4. For more than a century scholars have argued about the social bases of German electoral politics. In the 1905 Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik Robert Blank dropped a statistical bombshell with his claim to have proven that a significant proportion of Socialist voters in recent elections must be coming from the middle class. Though Blank's findings gave ammunition both to Bernsteinians then and Bolsheviks later (albeit for different reasons), scholars--beginning with Max Weber's instant rebuttal in the same issue--decided overwhelmingly against him. Now here comes Jonathan Sperber with his computer and argues that Blank's challenge to Marxist orthodoxy was too modest. Although our view of the SPD electorate as largely urban and Protestant survives Sperber's ecological regressions, the picture of the SPD as a labor party does not. The Social Democrats after 1900 won nearly as many of their voters from the middle as from the working classes: perhaps as much as forty-five percent. And if the middle classes voted socialist, a fairly constant thirty-five percent of Protestant workers after 1890 voted conservative or (increasingly over time) liberal. Sperber makes short work of

Book Reviews

Practicing Community: Class, Culture, and Power in an Urban Neighborhood. Rhoda H. Halperin. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. Two Sides to Everything: The Cultural Construction of Class Consciousness in Harlan County, Kentucky. Shuanna L. Scott. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience, Christena L. Turner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Race, jobs, and the war: the FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-46

The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC) was established by Franklin Roosevelt in response to an intense lobbying campaign led by black leaders who challenged his administration to eliminate racial discrimination in U.S. defense plants. In this rigorous and thoroughly documented examination of the FEPC's work, focusing on the pivotal Midwest, Andrew Edmund Kersten shows how this tiny government agency influenced the course of civil rights reform and moved the United States closer to a national fair employment policy. Race, Jobs, and the War looks across the Midwest at the accomplishments and failures of a New Deal organization that laid the foundation for today's contested affirmative action practices. Rejecting claims that black advancement during the war was due primarily to shortages of labor, Kersten contends that the FEPC made significant strides in allaying discrimination, especially when local authorities cooperated.Efforts to foster racial equality in the southern region of the Midwest suffered from managerial stonewalling and white hostility, Kersten finds, while areas farther north saw more support from government officials and community and union activists and correspondingly greater success in reversing discriminatory patterns. Events such as the infamous Cincinnati 'D-Day' Strike - a wildcat strike by nine thousand white UAW-CIO workers in protest of the upgrading of seven black machinists - signal the depth of racial animosity on the home front. Fighting an uphill battle to dismantle such deep-seated and virulent racism, the FEPC succeeded in breaking some racial barriers, settling complaints, and pursuing a vigorous education campaign to foster more harmonious industrial relations between white and minority workers. The FEPC also acted as a catalyst, inspiring midwestern local communities to rejuvenate and transform their own fights against employment discrimination.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience:Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience. Christena L. Turner. Berkeley. University of California Press, 1995. 268 pp.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience. CHRISTENA L. TURNER

<i>Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience</i>. CHRISTENA L. TURNER

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience.Christena L. Turner

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsJapanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience. Christena L. Turner William W. KellyWilliam W. Kelly Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 101, Number 4Jan., 1996 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/230800 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1996 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience

This first ethnographic study of factory workers engaged in radical labor protest gives a voice to a segment of the Japanese population that has been previously marginalized. These blue-collar workers, involved in prolonged labor disputes, tell their own story as they struggle to make sense of their lives and their culture during a time of conflict and instability. What emerges is a sensitive portrait of how workers grapple with a slowed economy and the contradictions of Japanese industry in the late postwar era. The ways that they think and feel about accommodation, resistance, and protest raise essential questions about the transformation of labor practices and limits of worker cooperation and compliance.

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience

Japanese Workers in Protest: An Ethnography of Consciousness and Experience

Japanese workers in protest: an ethnography of consciousness and experience

Japanese workers in protest: an ethnography of consciousness and experience