The power of unions in workers' lives and in the American political system has declined dramatically since the 1970s. In recent years, many have argued that the crisis took root when unions stopped reaching out to workers and workers turned away from unions. But here Lane Windham tells a different story. Highlighting the integral, often-overlooked contributions of women, people of color, young workers, and southerners, Windham reveals how in the 1970s workers combined old working-class tools--like unions and labor law--with legislative gains from the civil and women's rights movements to help shore up their prospects. Through close-up studies of workers' campaigns in shipbuilding, textiles, retail, and service, Windham overturns widely held myths about labor's decline, showing instead how employers united to manipulate weak labor law and quash a new wave of worker organizing. Recounting how employees attempted to unionize against overwhelming odds, Knocking on Labor's Door dramatically refashions the narrative of working-class struggle during a crucial decade and shakes up current debates about labor's future. Windham's story inspires both hope and indignation, and will become a must-read in labor, civil rights, and women's history.

In this book, Traci Parker examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores, and broadens our understanding of historical transformations in African American class and labor formation. Built on the goals, organization, and momentum of earlier struggles for justice, the department store movement channeled the power of store workers and consumers to promote black freedom in the mid-twentieth century. Sponsoring lunch counter sit-ins and protests in the 1950s and 1960s, and challenging discrimination in the courts in the 1970s, this movement ended in the early 1980s with the conclusion of the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. affirmative action cases and the transformation and consolidation of American department stores. In documenting the experiences of African American workers and consumers during this era, Parker highlights the department store as a key site for the inception of a modern black middle class, and demonstrates the ways that both work and consumption were battlegrounds for civil rights.

In the early years of the twentieth century, newcomer farmers and migrant Mexicans forged a new world in South Texas. In just a decade, this vast region, previously considered too isolated and desolate for large-scale agriculture, became one of the United States' most lucrative farming regions and one of its worst places to work. By encouraging mass migration from Mexico, paying low wages, selectively enforcing immigration restrictions, toppling older political arrangements, and periodically immobilizing the workforce, growers created a system of labor controls unique in its levels of exploitation. Ethnic Mexican residents of South Texas fought back by organizing and by leaving, migrating to destinations around the United States where employers eagerly hired them--and continued to exploit them. In From South Texas to the Nation, John Weber reinterprets the United States' record on human and labor rights. This important book illuminates the way in which South Texas pioneered the low-wage, insecure, migration-dependent labor system on which so many industries continue to depend.

FLRA Doc. 1509. Federal Labor Relations Authority Document 1509.
Contains tables of decisions under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute; by agency; by labor organization; and by individual. Main body includes texts of decisions.

In the Japanese labour movement of the early 20th century, Osugi Sakae captured the public imagination as a 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 War (1894-5) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). 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.

Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien. European University Studies: Series 31, Political Science. Vol. 463

How do Canadian students perceive and prepare for the world of work? To what extent do gender, race, region and social class shape their aspirations, opportunities, and experiences? Transitions: Schooling and Employment in Canada presents new research by scholars from across Canada engaged in the study of youth, schooling, employment and social change. The aim of the book is to describe the multiple transitions that young adults encounter in their journey from school to the world of paid employment. Different contexts and conditions affect these transitions and the authors employ historical, qualitative and quantitative methodologies in identifying them. Particular attention is paid to the themes of gender, socio-economic status, ethnocultural origin, and region. In analyzing their findings, the authors apply a wide range of theories, including developmental, sociological, and social/psychological. In addition, a number of the essays have implications for policy-making in the areas of education and employment. The contributors to this volume explore the experiences of rural youth in Nova Scotia, blacks in Toronto, and high school students in Vancouver. They suggest new approaches to researching native communities and the lives of female adolescents.

Hi-tech tactics during a strike at a dockside factory in Montreal. A workplace cancer tragedy in Sarnia, Ontario. Immigrant workers sticking with their union at the chocolate factory. A struggle for pay equity in the courts and on the streets. A campaign to create jobs by cutting hours of work in B.C. An organizing drive 350 kilometres out into the frigid Atlantic. These are some of the fascinating stories told by Jamie Swift in his chronicle of the first ten eventful years of one of the most dynamic labour unions in North America.
A strength of the book is its national scope, and the range of jobs portrayed, drawing on stories from every region of the country.
"We had a little war there," laughed Alain. "One of the first internet strikes. We'd just entered a new century and with it a new level of struggle using new technology."
"Unions are always accused of looking out for ourselves," said Mike. At 47, he was one of the youngest pipefitters at the mill. "We're trying to reduce the work week to keep people employed, and not just our own members."

Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien, 2002. num. tables Work & Society. Vol. 37 General Editor: Phillppe Pochet

Contrary to widespread rhetoric of deregulation, the media are objects of increased global policy. Generators of cultural spheres, within which social consensus is formed, the media are shaped by national and supranational agencies of questionable legitimacy. Policy delineates the form and content of global communications impinging on cultures, discourses and consciousness; yet, citizen representation in processes of policy-making remains fragmentary. In this insightful study, the author examines the role of the European Parliament, as the only international organisation directly accountable to and elected by citizens, in the formation of media policy. This critical account of supranational representation identifies the structural and ideological dynamics of powers in European media policy. Through detailed examination of major policies, the author demonstrates the conditions under which supranational representation can offer a resisting force to unaccountable global powers, and the ways in which it can contribute to system transformation and defend communication spaces.

Industrial relations is critically important for economic performance as well as the social cohesion of a nation. In Australia, industrial relations has been subject to numerous reforms by both Labor and Liberal-National Party Coalition governments during recent decades. This book critically analyses recent changes in work and employment relations and their policy implications for Australia. Scholarly essays by prominent experts in the field examine the lessons that can be learned from previous attempts to reform industrial relations by governments with different political agendas and challenges which may lie ahead. Some of the key questions addressed in this book include: What can be learned from past attempts to reform the industrial relations system? What have been the impacts of recent legislative reforms from the Howard government's `WorkChoices' to the Rudd/Gillard government's `Fair Work Australia' and the recent Abbott/Turnbull government's policies on industrial relations? How does politics influence proposals for industrial relations reform? What reforms are required in relation to women, work and family issues? How should collective bargaining and dispute settlement systems be reformed? How have wages and productivity been affected by reforms of the industrial relations system? What are the key issues facing Australia in relation to immigration and workforce skills? The book is based on a symposium which celebrated the outstanding contributions of Professor Joe Isaac to scholarship and the practice of industrial relations in Australia and at the international level for more than seven decades.

The book discusses how labour law and welfare systems will be affected by the ongoing transformation of work. The first section considers demography from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it focuses on chronic diseases and their impact on work, emphasising the role and the regulation of welfare systems. On the other, attention is given to youth unemployment and to those forms of employment which might have an impact on young people. Section II touches upon the relationship between the environment and industrial relations, while the third part broaches the topic of the impact of technology in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. As such, this volume provides an exhaustive picture of the changes currently underway, considering all the aspects which will affect work now and in the future.

In recent years, new and more intrusive surveillance technology has found its way into workplaces. New medical tests provide detailed information about workers' biology that was previously unthinkable. An increasing number of employees work under camera surveillance. At the same time, computers allow for a detailed monitoring of our interactions with machines, and all this information can be electronically stored in an easily accessible format. What is happening in our workplaces? Has the trend towards more humane workplaces been broken? From an ethical point of view, which types and degrees of surveillance are acceptable, and which are not? From a policy point of view, what methods can be used to regulate the use of surveillance technology in workplaces? These are some of the questions that have driven the research reported in this book. Written by an interdisciplinary group of researchers in Computer Ethics, Medical Ethics and Moral Philosophy, this book provides a broad overview that covers both empirical and normative aspects of workplace privacy.