Labor historian Juliet Mofford presents the story of workers in the U.S. from the late 1700s to the present: the Industrial Revolution, the formation and role of unions, the quest for political reform, and the ongoing efforts for fair and safe labor conditions for migrant workers. Thoughts on labor from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Gompers, Eugene Debs, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, John L. Lewis, Cesar Chavez, JFK, and others are presented in their own words.

Alvin W. Gouldner takes readers through a case study of modern factory administrations in order to reveal the relations between workers and management at an industrial plant and in the community outside of it. The process of bureaucratization is found to be composed of three distinct tendencies: the "mock bureaucratization" pattern, characterized by the failure to enforce or obey rules; the "representative" pattern, where rules are both enforced by management and obeyed by works; or the "punishment-centered bureaucracy," where management attempts regular enforcement, but is resisted by workers. Scientific interest in bureaucracy and in the general theory of organization requires the accumulation of a large body of research data and empirical evidence. Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy, informed through by a strong theoretical grasp of the material, is one of the major contributions to the literature of these fields.

This essay is an attempt to describe the Canadian system of state interference since its general inception a decade ago, against a background of lesser interference affecting a section of the economy over the forty preceding years. While the main purpose is that of general education, attention is directed at times to controversial matters that have been the direct concern of legislators, administrators, participants, and critics. Where such questions are raised, the reader will understand from the context that he is moving temporarily in the realm of opinion rather than among historical or proven facts. The study divides naturally into two parts: the first eight chapters present the forms of state interference in collective bargaining and the conditions and circumstances to which this manner of interference has been the reaction; they also examine the methods used to determine the will of the people with respect to industrial relations. The last two chapters develop a summary statement of the effects of the legislation, and present some of the issues to which the various laws have given rise. An attempt has been made to describe administrative techniques where these concern the efficiency of the boards' performance, and case material is presented at points in the text where the judgments conspicuously affect the trend and the quality of the legislation, Elaboration of these matters, however, is left largely to scholars of more competence. The two acts of the dominion government are presented in full in Appendices I and II and some additional cases in Appendix III.

In the 1940s, British shipping companies began the large-scale recruitment of African seamen in Lagos. On colonial ships, Nigerian sailors performed menial tasks for low wages and endured discrimination as cheap labor, while countering hardships by nurturing social connections across the black diaspora. Poor employment conditions stirred these seamen to identify with the nationalist sentiment burgeoning in postwar Nigeria, while their travels broadened and invigorated their cultural identities. Working for the Nigerian National Shipping Line, they encountered new forms of injustice and exploitation. When mismanagement, a lack of technical expertise, and pillaging by elites led to the NNSL's collapse in the early 1990s, seamen found themselves without prospects. Their disillusionment became a broader critique of corruption in postcolonial Nigeria. In Nation on Board: Becoming Nigerian at Sea, Lynn Schler traces the fate of these seamen in the transition from colonialism to independence. In so doing, she renews the case for labor history as a lens for understanding decolonization, and brings a vital transnational perspective to her subject. By placing the working-class experience at the fore, she complicates the dominant view of the decolonization process in Nigeria and elsewhere.

The world was shocked in April 2013 when more than 1100 garment workers lost their lives in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka. It was the worst industrial tragedy in the two-hundred-year history of mass apparel manufacture. This so-called accident was, in fact, just waiting to happen, and not merely because of the corruption and exploitation of workers so common in the garment industry. In Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy, Richard P. Appelbaum and Nelson Lichtenstein argue that such tragic events, as well as the low wages, poor working conditions, and voicelessness endemic to the vast majority of workers who labor in the export industries of the global South arise from the very nature of world trade and production. Given their enormous power to squeeze prices and wages, northern brands and retailers today occupy the commanding heights of global capitalism. Retail-dominated supply chains-such as those with Walmart, Apple, and Nike at their heads-generate at least half of all world trade and include hundreds of millions of workers at thousands of contract manufacturers from Shenzhen and Shanghai to Sao Paulo and San Pedro Sula. This book offers an incisive analysis of this pernicious system along with essays that outline a set of practical guides to its radical reform.

Compelled by the extent to which globalization has changed the nature of labor relations, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, and Alexander J. S. Colvin give us the first textbook to focus on the workplace outcomes of the production of goods and services in emerging countries. In Labor Relations in a Globalizing World, they draw lessons from the United States and other advanced industrial countries to provide a menu of options for management, labor, and government leaders in emerging countries. They include discussions based in countries such as China, Brazil, India, and South Africa which, given the advanced levels of economic development they have already achieved, are often described as "transitional," because the labor relations practices and procedures used in those countries are still in a state of flux.Katz, Kochan, and Colvin analyze how labor relations functions in emerging countries in a manner that is useful to practitioners, policymakers, and academics. They take account of the fact that labor relations are much more politicized in emerging countries than in advanced industrialized countries. They also address the traditional role played by state-dominated unions in emerging countries and the recent increased importance of independent unions that have emerged as alternatives. These independent unions tend to promote firm- or workplace-level collective bargaining in contrast to the more traditional top-down systems. Katz, Kochan, and Colvin explain how multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and other groups that act across national borders increasingly influence work and employment outcomes.

Since the onset of the Great Recession, Germany s economy has been praised for its superior performance, which has been reminiscent of the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. Such acclaim is surprising because Germany s economic institutions were widely dismissed as faulty just a decade ago. In Holding the Shop Together, Stephen J. Silvia examines the oscillations of the German economy across the entire postwar period through one of its most important components: the industrial relations system.

As Silvia shows in this wide-ranging and deeply informed account, the industrial relations system is strongest where the German economy is strongest and is responsible for many of the distinctive features of postwar German capitalism. It extends into the boardrooms, workplaces and government to a degree that is unimaginable in most other countries. Trends in German industrial relations, moreover, influence developments in the broader German economy and, frequently, industrial relations practice abroad. All these aspects make the German industrial relations regime an ideal focal point for developing a deeper understanding of the German economy as a whole.

Silvia begins by presenting the framework of the German industrial relations system labor laws and the role of the state and then analyzes its principal actors: trade unions and employers associations. He finds the framework sound but the actors in crisis because of membership losses. Silvia analyzes the reasons behind the losses and the innovative strategies German labor and management have developed in their efforts to reverse them. He concludes with a comprehensive picture and then considers the future of German industrial relations."

This book brings together research in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand to answer a series of key questions: * What opportunities do employees in Anglo-American workplaces have to voice their concerns and what do they seek? * To what extent, and in what contexts, do workers want greater union representation? * How do workers feel about employer-initiated channels of influence? What styles of engagement do they want with employers?* What institutional models are more successful in giving workers the voice they seek at workplaces? * What can unions, employers, and public policy makers learn from these studies of representation and influence? The research is based largely on surveys that were conducted as a follow-up to the influential Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS) reported in What Workers Want, coauthored by Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers in 1999 and updated in 2006. Taken together, these studies authoritatively outline workers' attitudes toward, and opportunities for, representation and influence in the Anglo-American workplace. They also enhance industrial relations theory and suggest strategies for unions, employers, and public policy

"While demographic forces make it inevitable that social institutions that encouraged workers to retire in their early sixties must change, this book shows that how we make these changes will have substantial implications for the risk of poverty and the general level of economic well-being of older populations. Its theme is that policy changes that encourage those able to work at older ages to do so must not come at the expense of our current system's protection of those less able to work. This is an important book for those interested in understanding how recent changes in the United States retirement system are impacting the employment and economic well-being of older workers." —Richard V. Burkhauser, Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University "The editors have done an excellent job of compiling some very valuable and interesting papers on working longer. With improvements in health and life expectancy, the decreasing physical requirements of work, and our financing shortfalls, the options of working longer, phased retirement, and more flexibility for retirement ages in retirement plans can be winners. In particular, I found the Introduction's synopsis of the papers by itself worth the price of the book." —Ron Gebhardtsbauer, American Academy of ActuariesWhile mandatory retirement has been eliminated in the United States, a myriad of policies and practices surround pensions, social security, tax law, labor contracts, and health benefits, all of which may have an impact on an older worker’s decision to work or retire and an employer’s decision to retain and train an older worker. In Work Options for Older Americans, Teresa Ghilarducci and John Turner assemble a critically important volume that systematically addresses many of the issues considered on a daily basis by employees and employers. Work Options for Older Americans brings together discussion of these issues by well-known economists and scholars in other fields, from the Government Accountability Office, the AARP Public Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor, and academia. The book contains eleven articles, along with commentary, that deal with issues of employment opportunity and constraints for older persons, pension types and coverage, retirement choices, and public policies that promote or hinder either retirement or employment of the elderly. Contributors present effective ways to prepare for this unprecedented growth in the number of older workers. In the introduction, Teresa Ghilarducci and John Turner identify how the labor market changes dramatically as workers age and how these changes affect the ongoing bargaining between employers and workers. The question is, are the options that workers want the same as those that employers offer?

A commonplace assumption about American workers is that they lack class consciousness. This perception has baffled social scientists, demoralized activists, and generated a significant literature on American exceptionalism. In this provocative book, a young sociologist takes the prevailing assumptions to task and sheds new light upon this very important issue. In three vivid case studies Fantasia explores the complicated, multi-faceted dynamics of American working-class consciousness and collective action.

This handbook is an indispensable teaching, research and reference guide for anyone interested in issues of labour and employment. The editors have assembled a top-flight group of authors and the end-product is an encompassing state-of-the-art review of the industrial relations field' - Professor Bruce E Kaufman, AYSPS, Georgia State University 'This Handbook will quickly become the standard reference in industrial relations research. It provides the most comprehensive and challenging presentation of the key theoretical debates and topics of research that will shape our field well into the 21st century. All who wish to contribute to this field will need to read this volume and then build on what these authors have to say' - Professor Thomas A. Kochan, MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research 'This authoritative panorama of the field demonstrates the contemporary vitality, breadth and critical depth of industrial relations scholarship and research. Thirty-four stimulating essays, by an international blend of leading academics, expertly review the analytical and empirical state of play across all aspects of industrial relations enquiry. In doing so, a rich agenda for further scholarly endeavour emerges' - Paul Marginson, University of Warwick Over the last two decades, a number of factors have converged to produce a major rethink about the field of Industrial Relations. Globalization, the decline of trade unions, the spread of high performance work systems and the emergence of a more feminized, flexible work-force have opened new avenues of inquiry. The SAGE Handbook of Industrial Relations charts these changes and analyzes them. It provides a systematic, comprehensive survey of the field. The book is organized into four interrelated sections: " Theorizing Industrial Relations " The changing institutions that shape employment practice " The processes used by governments, employers and unions " Income inequality, employee wellbeing, business performance and national comparative advantages The result is a work of unprecedented scope and unparalleled ambition. It offers a compete guide to the central debates, new developments and emerging themes in the field. It will quickly be recognized as the indispensable reference for Teachers, Students and Researchers. It is relevant to economists, lawyers, sociologists, business and management researchers and Industrial Relations specialists.

In the only modern study synthesizing nineteenth-century American labor history, Bruce Laurie examines the character of working-class factionalism, plebian expectations of government, and relations between the organized few and the unorganized many. Laurie also examines the republican tradition and the movements that drew on it, from the General Trades Unions in the age of Jackson to the Knights of Labor later in the century.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides workers with minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labour protections. The FLSA covers most, but not all, private and public sector employees. In addition, certain employers and employees are exempt from coverage. Provisions of the FLSA that are of current interest to Congress include the basic minimum wage, sub-minimum wage rates, exemptions from overtime and the minimum wage for persons who provide companionship services, the exemption for employees in computer-related occupations, compensatory time in lieu of overtime pay, and break time for nursing mothers. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) recognises the right of employees to engage in collective bargaining through representatives of their own choosing. By "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining," the Act attempts to mitigate and eliminate labour-related obstructions to the free flow of commerce. Although union membership has declined dramatically since the 1950s, congressional interest in the NLRA remains significant. This book provides an overview of both the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act with a focus on coverage, amendments and policy.

The booming coal industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the main reason behind the creation of modern south Wales and its miners were central to shaping the economics, politics and society of south Wales during the twentieth century. This book explores the history of these miners between 1964 and 1985, covering the concerted run-down of the coal industry under the Wilson government, the growth of miners' resistance, and the eventual defeat of the epic strike of 1984-5. Their interactions with the wider trade union movement and society during these years meant the miners were amongst the most important strategically-located sections of the British workforce during this time. The South Wales Miners is the first full-length academic study of the miners and their union in the later twentieth century, in a tumultuous period of crisis and struggle.

Au mois de mai et juin 1919, plus de 30 000 travailleurs et travailleuses de Winnipeg, au Manitoba, quittent leur emploi. Ils menent une greve pour diverses raisons -- de meilleurs salaires, le droit a la negociation collective, et plus de pouvoir pour la classe ouvriere. Les grevistes font les manchettes des journaux nationaux et internationaux, et ils inspirent d'autres travailleurs a mener des greves de solidarite dans de nombreuses autres villes canadiennes. La greve generale de Winnipeg, qui aura dure six semaines, se solde finalement par une defaite. Elle est violemment ecrasee par la police, en collusion avec des representants de l'Etat et des dirigeants commerciaux de Winnipeg. Cent ans plus tard, la greve generale de Winnipeg demeure l'une des greves les plus determinantes de l'histoire du Canada. Cette bande dessinee revisite la greve pour presenter aux nouvelles generations les nombreuses lecons que l'histoire de la classe ouvriere a a offrir, notamment le pouvoir de la lutte des classes et de la solidarite, ainsi que la determination des gouvernements et des patrons a employer des tactiques musclees pour ecraser les mouvements ouvriers. La greve generale de Winnipeg est un rappel brutal que la classe ouvriere et la classe dominante n'ont rien en commun, et que l'Etat n'a pas peur de se couvrir les mains de sang pour proteger les interets du capital. Face a cela, les travailleurs et les travailleuses doivent compter les uns sur les autres et lutter ensemble pour faire renaitre de ses cendres un monde nouveau, plus juste.

Combining the control theory of William Glasser with the wisdom of W. Edwards Deming, this indispensable management resource explains both what quality is and what lead-managers need to do to achieve it.

In the Japanese labor movement of the early twentieth century, no one captured the public imagination as vividly as Osugi Sakae (1885-1923): rebel, anarchist, and martyr. Flamboyant in life, dramatic in death, Osugi came to be seen as a romantic hero fighting the oppressiveness of family and society. Osugi helped to create this public persona when he published his autobiography (Jijoden) in 1921-22. Now available in English for the first time, this work offers a rare glimpse into a Japanese boy's life at the time of the Sino-Japanese (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese (1904-5) wars. It reveals the innocent - and not-so-innocent - escapades of children in a provincial garrison town and the brutalizing effects of discipline in military preparatory schools. Subsequent chapters follow Osugi to Tokyo, where he discovers the excitement of radical thought and politics. Byron Marshall rounds out this picture of the early Osugi with a translation of his "Prison Memoirs" (Gokuchuki), originally published in 1919. This essay, one of the world's great pieces of prison writing, describes in precise detail the daily lives of Japanese prisoners, especially those incarcerated for political crimes.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1950.

Based on interviews with miners, union and company archives, newspapers, and reports by mine inspectors, this study looks at the tragic link between the dust and radiation of St. Lawrence's government mines and approximately 200 fatal cases of lung disease and silicosis among former miners. By chronicling the many forces that created this particular disaster and shaped the response to it, this investigation tackles the larger problem of workplace health and safety, addressing the company disregard and government neglect that allow industrial tragedies such as this to happen and the community efforts to gain recognition of health hazards in the mines and obtain adequate compensation for victims and their families.

Uganda's capital, Kampala, is undergoing dramatic urban transformations as its new technocratic government seeks to clean and green the city. Waste Worlds tracks the dynamics of development and disposability unfolding amid struggles over who and what belong in the new Kampala. Garbage materializes these struggles. In the densely inhabited social infrastructures in and around the city's waste streams, people, places, and things become disposable but conditions of disposability are also challenged and undone. Drawing on years of ethnographic research, Jacob Doherty illustrates how waste makes worlds, offering the key intervention that disposability is best understood not existentially, as a condition of social exclusion, but infrastructurally, as a form of injurious social inclusion.

Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves explores the untold story of cannery workers in Southeast Alaska from 1878, when the first cannery was erected on the Alexander Archipelago, through the Cold War. The cannery jobs brought waves of immigrants, starting with Chinese, followed by Japanese, and then Filipino nationals. Working alongside these men were Alaska Native women, trained from childhood in processing salmon. Because of their expertise, these women remained the mainstay of employment in these fish factories for decades while their husbands or brothers fished, often for the same company. Canned salmon was territorial Alaska's most important industry. The tax revenue, though meager, kept the local government running, and as corporate wealth grew, it did not take long for a mix of socioeconomic factors and politics to affect every aspect of the lands, waters, and population. During this time the workers formed a bond and shared their experiences, troubles, and joys. Alaska Natives and Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants brought elements from their ethnic heritage into the mix, creating a cannery culture. Although the labor was difficult and frequently unsafe, the cannery workers and fishermen were not victims. When they saw injustice, they acted on the threat. In the process, the Tlingits and Haidas, clans of Southeast Alaska for more than ten thousand years, aligned their interests with Filipino activists and the union movement. Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves tells the powerful story of diverse peoples uniting to triumph over adversity.

During the independence era in Mexico, individuals and factions of all stripes embraced the printing press as a key weapon in the broad struggle for political power. Taking readers into the printing shops, government offices, courtrooms, and streets of Mexico City, historian Corinna Zeltsman reconstructs the practical negotiations and discursive contests that surrounded print over a century of political transformation, from the late colonial era to the Mexican Revolution. Centering the diverse communities that worked behind the scenes at urban presses and examining their social practices and aspirations, Zeltsman explores how printer interactions with state and religious authorities shaped broader debates about press freedom and authorship. Beautifully crafted and ambitious in scope, Ink under the Fingernails sheds new light on Mexico's histories of state formation and political culture, identifying printing shops as unexplored spaces of democratic practice, where the boundaries between manual and intellectual labor blurred.