In recent decades, Latin American countries have sought to modernize their labor market institutions to comply with the demands of globalization. This book evaluates the impact of such neoliberal reforms on labor movements and workers' rights in the region through comparative analyses of labor politics in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Using these five key cases, the authors assess the capacity of workers and working-class organizations to advance their demands and bring about a more just distribution of economic gains in an era in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. In particular, their findings challenge the purported benefits of labor market flexibility?the freedom of employers to adjust their workforces as needed?which has been touted as a way to reduce income inequality and unemployment. Showing how flexibilization and other processes have undermined organized labor in all of these countries, these in-depth case studies reveal the current internal fragmentation of unions and their inability to promote counterreforms or to increase collective bargaining. This assessment concludes that even with substantial variation among countries in how reforms have been implemented, most workers in the region have experienced increasing precarity, informal employment, and weaker labor movements. This book provides vital insights into whether these movements have the potential to regain influence and represent working people's interests effectively in the future.

Twenty years after its initial publication, Annelise Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire continues to resonate with its harrowing story of activism, labor, and women's history. Orleck traces the personal and public lives of four immigrant women activists who left a lasting imprint on American politics. Though they have rarely made more than cameo appearances in previous histories, Rose Schneiderman, Fannia Cohn, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, and Pauline Newman played important roles in the emergence of organized labor, the New Deal welfare state, adult education, and the modern women's movement. Orleck takes her four subjects from turbulent, turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe to the radical ferment of New York's Lower East Side and the gaslit tenements where young workers studied together. Orleck paints a compelling picture of housewives' food and rent protests, of grim conditions in the garment shops, of factory-floor friendships that laid the basis for a mass uprising of young women garment workers, and of the impassioned rallies working women organized for suffrage. Featuring a new preface by the author, this new edition reasserts itself as a pivotal text in twentieth-century labor history.

Casino Women is a pioneering look at the female face of corporate gaming. Based on extended interviews with maids, cocktail waitresses, cooks, laundry workers, dealers, pit bosses, managers, and vice presidents, the book describes in compelling detail a world whose enormous profitability is dependent on the labor of women assigned stereotypically female occupations-making beds and serving food on the one hand and providing sexual allure on the other. But behind the neon lies another world, peopled by thousands of remarkable women who assert their humanity in the face of gaming empires' relentless quest for profits.The casino women profiled here generally fall into two groups. Geoconda Arguello Kline, typical of the first, arrived in the United States in the 1980s fleeing the war in Nicaragua. Finding work as a Las Vegas hotel maid, she overcame her initial fear of organizing and joined with others to build the preeminent grassroots union in the nation-the 60,000-member Culinary Union-becoming in time its president. In Las Vegas, "the hottest union city in America," the collective actions of union activists have won economic and political power for tens of thousands of working Nevadans and their families. The story of these women's transformation and their success in creating a union able to face off against global gaming giants form the centerpiece of this book.Another group of women, dealers and middle managers among them, did not act. Fearful of losing their jobs, they remained silent, declining to speak out when others were abused, and in the case of middle managers, taking on the corporations' goals as their own. Susan Chandler and Jill B. Jones appraise the cost of their silence and examine the factors that pushed some women into activism and led others to accept the status quo.Casino Women will appeal to all readers interested in women, gambling, and working-class life, and in how ordinary people stand up to corporate actors who appear to hold all the cards.

The Canadian labour movement has undergone several fundamental changes in response to demands for greater inclusion and representation by women, visible and sexual minorities, and people with disabilities." Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour" explores the specific challenges put to outmoded conceptions of labour, charting the effort made towards establishing a more inclusive vision of labour in Canada. The study concludes that the Canadian labour movement has seen a fair amount of progress in this regard, though it still faces persistent impediments to equity and suffers from an uneven responsiveness within and across diversity issues.

This collection of original essays brings together contributors from a variety of backgrounds - women's studies, political science, sociology, industrial relations, and the labour movement itself. They provide detailed analyses of significant changes in union policies, practices, and cultures as viewed through different disciplinary lenses. With reference to gender, race, disability, and sexuality, the volume assesses the status of labour diversity in Canada and suggests what still needs to be done to advance the equity project.

An engaging look at the labour movement in Canada and elsewhere," Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour" will appeal to students, practitioners, and anyone interested in equity issues and minority rights.

Throughout the twentieth century, despite compelling evidence that some pesticides posed a threat to human and environmental health, growers and the USDA continued to favor agricultural chemicals over cultural and biological forms of pest control. In Ghostworkers and Greens, Adam Tompkins reveals a history of unexpected cooperation between farmworker groups and environmental organizations. Tompkins shows that the separate movements shared a common concern about the effects of pesticides on human health. This enabled bridge-builders within the disparate organizations to foster cooperative relationships around issues of mutual concern to share information, resources, and support.Nongovernmental organizations, particularly environmental organizations and farmworker groups, played a key role in pesticide reform. For nearly fifty years, these groups served as educators, communicating to the public scientific and experiential information about the adverse effects of pesticides on human health and the environment, and built support for the amendment of pesticide policies and the alteration of pesticide use practices. Their efforts led to the passage of more stringent regulations to better protect farmworkers, the public, and the environment. Environmental organizations and farmworker groups also acted as watchdogs, monitoring the activity of regulatory agencies and bringing suit when necessary to ensure that they fulfilled their responsibilities to the public. These groups served as not only lobbyists but also essential components of successful democratic governance, ensuring public participation and more effective policy implementation.

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.

Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. But it wasn't always this way. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States. The Big Rig explains how this massive degradation in the quality of work has occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months training and working as a long-haul trucker, Viscelli explains in detail how labor is recruited, trained, and used in the industry. He then shows how inexperienced workers are convinced to lease a truck and to work as independent contractors. He explains how deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking's labor markets - once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history - into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public.

'The most comprehensive and authoritative comparative analysis of employment relations ...' Thomas Kochan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States'...breaks new ground as an integrated account of the forces shaping employment relations.' William Brown, University of Cambridge. United KingdomEstablished as the standard reference for a worldwide readership of students, scholars and practitioners in international agencies, governments, companies and unions, this text offers a systematic overview of international employment relations.Chapters cover the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, China and India. Experts examine the context of employment relations in each country: economic, historical, legal, social and political. They consider the roles of the major players: employers, unions and governments. They outline the processes of employment relations: collective bargaining and arbitration, consultation and employee involvement. Topical issues are discussed: non-unionised workplaces, novel forms of human resource management, labour law reform, multinational enterprises, networked organisations, differences between Asian and Western companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, migrant workers, technological change, labour market flexibility and pay determination.This sixth edition is fully revised with an emphasis on globalisation and comparative theories, including concepts of convergence. It offers a new framework for varieties of capitalism in the Introduction, and concludes with an insightful account of the forces shaping employment relations in the world economy.

Welcher Angestellte hat sich noch nie ein Leben mit all jenen Annehmlichkeiten und personlichen Freiraumen gewunscht, die sonst nur einem Freiberuflichen oder Selbststandigen vorbehalten sind? Auch unter der Woche einmal Auszuschlafen, am Vormittag einen Einkaufsbummel zu machen oder am Nachmittag zwei Stunden zum Sport zu gehen? Warum an einem heissen Sommernachmittag das Buro nicht eher verlassen und den Laptop mit ins Schwimmbad nehmen, die E-Mails abends beantworten oder die liegen gebliebene Arbeit am Wochenende aufarbeiten? Was spricht dagegen? Ist das arbeitsrechtlich nicht moglich oder bislang gesellschaftlich einfach nur unublich bzw. nicht akzeptiert? Sind strenge Anwesenheitskontrollen mit Stechuhr und das abendliche gegenseitige Aussitzen" der Kollegen wirklich entscheidende Leistungskriterien in unserer Arbeitswelt? Wie ist es in wirtschaftlich schwierigen Zeiten uberhaupt moglich, dass profitorientierte Unternehmen es stillschweigend hinnehmen, wenn ihre Mitarbeiter Zeit am Arbeitsplatz totschlagen, im Internet surfen, Kaffeepausen einlegen und sich auf ausgedehnte Plauscherln" unter Kollegen treffen? Akzeptieren sie derartige Verhaltensweisen nur, um sicher zu gehen, dass die Angestellten auch tatsachlich anwesend sind und deren vorgeschriebene Anwesenheitszeit ordnungsgemass ableisten? Ist physische Anwesenheit wichtiger als Produktivitat? Ware eine zeitunabhangige Leistungsmessung anhand von Output und Zielvorgaben nicht wesentlich sinnvoller? Und welche Rollen spielen der demographische Wandel und die technische Mobilisierung bei dieser Uberlegung? Fakt ist, dass der Ruf nach mehr Freiheit und Flexibilitat im Berufsleben immer lauter wird, vor allem bei den unselbststandig Erwerbstatigen. Begunstigt wird dieser Wunsch durch den Eintritt einer neuen Generation in den Arbeitsmarkt, der sogenannten Generation Y." Einer Generation, die die Macht der Demografie hinter sich weiss, und dementsprechend kompromisslos ihre konkreten Forderungen an ihre ku

Accounts of the Arab Spring often focus on the role of youth coalitions, the use of social media, and the tactics of the Tahrir Square occupation. This authoritative and original book argues that collective action by organised workers played a fundamental role in the Egyptian revolution, which erupted after years of strikes and social protests. Drawing on the authors' decade-long experience of reporting on and researching the Egyptian labour movement, the book provides the first in-depth account of the emergence of independent trade unions and workers' militancy during Mubarak's last years in power, and and their destabilising impact on the post-revolutionary regimes.

Between the Great War and Pearl Harbor, conservative labor leaders declared themselves America's ""first line of defense"" against Communism. In this surprising account, Jennifer Luff shows how the American Federation of Labor fanned popular anticommunism but defended Communists' civil liberties in the aftermath of the 1919 Red Scare. The AFL's ""commonsense anticommunism,"" she argues, steered a middle course between the American Legion and the ACLU, helping to check campaigns for federal sedition laws. But in the 1930s, frustration with the New Deal order led labor conservatives to redbait the Roosevelt administration and liberal unionists and abandon their reluctant civil libertarianism for red scare politics. That frustration contributed to the legal architecture of federal anticommunism that culminated with the McCarthyist fervor of the 1950s. Relying on untapped archival sources, Luff reveals how labor conservatives and the emerging civil liberties movement debated the proper role of the state in policing radicals and grappled with the challenges to the existing political order posed by Communist organizers. Surprising conclusions about familiar figures, like J. Edgar Hoover, and unfamiliar episodes, like a German plot to disrupt American munitions manufacture, make Luff's story a fresh retelling of the interwar years.

From the 1870s to the 1930s, the Lake Superior Ojibwes of Minnesota and Wisconsin faced dramatic economic, political, and social changes. Examining a period that began with the tribe's removal to reservations and closed with the Indian New Deal, Chantal Norrgard explores the critical link between Ojibwes' efforts to maintain their tribal sovereignty and their labor traditions and practices. As Norrgard explains, the tribe's "seasonal round" of subsistence-based labor was integral to its survival and identity. Though encroaching white settlement challenged these labor practices, Ojibwe people negotiated treaties that protected their rights to make a living by hunting, fishing, and berrying and through work in the fur trade, the lumber industry, and tourism. Norrgard shows how the tribe strategically used treaty rights claims over time to uphold its right to work and to maintain the rhythm and texture of traditional Ojibwe life. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including New Deal@-era interviews with Ojibwe people, Norrgard demonstrates that while American expansion curtailed the Ojibwes' land base and sovereignty, the tribe nevertheless used treaty-protected labor to sustain its lifeways and meet economic and political needs--a process of self-determination that continues today.

Des centaines de millions de travailleurs autour du monde sont affilies, par leur adhesion a un syndicat, a l'une des federations syndicales internationales (FSI). Ces organisations mondiales couvrent toutes les industries, du transport a la finance aux services publics. Elles appuient leurs affilies dans le monde entier, offrant des formations pour les militants syndicaux, construisant une solidarite et mettant la pression sur employeurs et gouvernements lors des conflits industriels. Ce livre est une courte introduction aux organisations professionnelles et interprofessionnelles internationales; un point de depart pour les syndiques cherchant a apprendre davantage sur la dimension internationale de notre mouvement."

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."

"A significant contribution that enriches historical narratives. This is a wonderful case study that complicates Latin American history, and particularly labor history in that region, by emphasizing the positive role played by black migrants in labor mobilization in Guatemala."--Jean Muteba Rahier, Florida International University In the late nineteenth century, many Central American governments and countries sought to fill low-paying jobs and develop their economies by recruiting black American and West Indian laborers. Frederick Opie offers a revisionist interpretation of these workers, who were often depicted as simple victims with little, if any, enduring legacy. The Guatemalan government sought to build an extensive railroad system in the 1880s, and actively recruited foreign labor. For poor workers of African descent, immigrating to Guatemala was seen as an opportunity to improve their lives and escape from the racism of the Jim Crow U.S. South and the French and British colonial Caribbean. Using primary and secondary sources as well as ethnographic data, Opie details the struggles of these workers who were ultimately inspired to organize by the ideas of Marcus Garvey. Regularly suffering class- and race-based attacks and persecution, black laborers frequently met such attacks with resistance. Their leverage--being able to shut down the railroad--was crucially important to the revolutionary movements in 1897 and 1920. Frederick Douglass Opie, professor of history and foodways at Babson College, is the author of "Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America," and a blogger at www.foodsasalens.com.

These two volumes make up the 24th part in a series of monographs whose main topic of concern is that of organizational behaviour and industrial relations. The volumes deal with the multiple levels approach to leadership.