Thomas Hodgskin (1787 - 1869) was an English socialist writer on political economy, critic of capitalism and defender of free trade and early trade unions. He used Ricardo's labour theory of value to denounce the appropriation of the most part of value produced by the labour of industrial workers as illegitimate. He propounded these views in a series of lectures at the London Mechanics Institute (later renamed Birkbeck, University of London) where he debated with William Thompson, with whom he shared the critique of capitalist expropriation but not the proposed remedy. The results of these lectures and debates he published as "Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital" (1825), "Popular Political Economy" (1827) and "Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted" (1832). The title of "Labour Defended" was a jibe at James Mill's earlier "Commerce Defended" and signalled his opposition to the latter taking sides with the capitalists against their employees. Despite his high profile in the agitated revolutionary times of the 1820s, he retreated into the realm of Whig journalism after the Reform Act 1832. He became an advocate of free trade and spent 15 years writing for The Economist. He worked on the paper with its founder, James Wilson, and with the young Herbert Spencer. Hodgskin viewed the demise of the Corn Laws as the first step to the downfall of government, and his libertarian anarchism was regarded as too radical by many of the liberals of the Anti-Corn Law League. He left The Economist in 1857, but continued working as a journalist for the rest of his life.

In 1897 a small landholder named Robert Eastham shot and killed timber magnate Frank Thompson in Tucker County, West Virginia, leading to a sensational trial that highlighted a clash between local traditions and modernizing forces. Ronald L. Lewis's book uses this largely forgotten episode as a window into contests over political, environmental, and legal change in turn-of-the-century Appalachia. The Eastham-Thompson feud pitted a former Confederate against a member of the new business elite who was, as a northern Republican, his cultural and political opposite. For Lewis, their clash was one flashpoint in a larger phenomenon central to US history in the second half of the nineteenth century: the often violent imposition of new commercial and legal regimes over holdout areas stretching from Appalachia to the trans-Missouri West. Taking a ground-level view of these so-called "wars of incorporation," Lewis's powerful microhistory shows just how strongly local communities guarded traditional relationships to natural resources. Modernizers sought to convict Eastham of murder, but juries drawn from the traditionalist population refused to comply. Although the resisters won the courtroom battle, the modernizers eventually won the war for control of the state's timber frontier.

Labour relations are at the heart of China's extraordinary economic rise. This growth, accompanied by internal migration, urbanisation and rising income have brought a dramatic increase in the aspirations of workers, forcing the Chinese government to restructure its relationships with both employers and workers. In order to resolve disputes and manage workplace militancy, the once monolithic official trade union is becoming more flexible, internally. No longer able to rely on government support in dealing with worker unrest, employers are rapidly forming organisations of their own. In this book, a new generation of Chinese scholars provide analyses of six distinct aspects of these developments. They are set in the broader context by the leading authority on Chinese labour law and two western specialists in comparative labour relations. The result is a comprehensive study for scholars and graduate students working in Chinese industrial relations, comparative labour law, human resource management, NGOs and international labour organisations.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1898 Edition.

OSHA is generally responsible for setting and enforcing occupational safety and health standards in the nation's workplaces. OSHA carries out enforcement directly in 34 states and territories, while the remaining 22 have chosen to administer their own enforcement programs (state-run programs) under plans approved by OSHA. GAO was asked to review issues related to state-run programs. This report examines (1) what challenges states face in administering their safety and health programs, and (2) how OSHA responds to state-run programs with performance issues. GAO reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations and OSHA policies; conducted a survey of 22 state-run programs; and interviewed officials in OSHA's national office, all 10 OSHA regions, and from a nongeneralizable sample of 5 state-run programs; and interviewed labor and business associations and safety and health experts. State-run programs face several challenges that primarily relate to staffing, and include having constrained budgets, according to OSHA and state officials. States have difficulty filling vacant inspector positions, obtaining training for inspectors, and retaining qualified inspectors. Recruiting inspectors is difficult due to the shortage of qualified candidates, relatively low state salaries, and hiring freezes. Although OSHA has taken steps to make its courses more accessible to states, obtaining inspector training continues to be difficult. According to an agency official, OSHA's Training Institute faces several challenges in delivering training, including recruiting and retaining instructors, difficulty accommodating the demand for training, and limitations in taking some courses to the field due to the need for special equipment and facilities. These challenges are further exacerbated by states' lack of travel funds, which limit state inspectors' access to OSHA training. Retaining qualified inspectors is another challenge among states. Officials noted that, once state inspectors are trained, they often leave for higher paying positions in the private sector or federal government. GAO's survey of the 22 state-run programs that cover private and public sector workplaces showed that turnover was more prevalent among safety inspectors than health inspectors. Nearly half of these states reported that at least 40 percent of their safety inspectors had fewer than 5 years of service. In contrast, half of the states reported that at least 40 percent of their health inspectors had more than 10 years of service. These staffing challenges have limited the capacity of some state-run programs to meet their inspection goals. OSHA has responded in a variety of ways to state-run programs with performance issues. These include closely monitoring and assisting such states, such as accompanying state staff during inspections and providing additional training on how to document inspections. OSHA has also drawn attention to poor state performance by communicating its concerns to the governor and other high-level state officials. In addition, OSHA has shared enforcement responsibilities with struggling states or, as a last resort, has resumed sole responsibility for federal enforcement when a state has voluntarily withdrawn its program. Although OSHA evaluates state-run programs during its annual reviews, GAO found that OSHA does not hold states accountable for addressing issues in a timely manner or establish time frames for when to resume federal enforcement when necessary. In addition, the current statutory framework may not permit OSHA to quickly resume concurrent enforcement authority with the state when a state is struggling with performance issues. As a result, a state's performance problems can continue for years. OSHA officials acknowledged the need for a mechanism that allows them to intervene more quickly in such circumstances. GAO-13-320

Motion pictures are made, not mass produced, requiring a remarkable collection of skills, self-discipline, and sociality-all of which are sources of enormous pride among Hollywood's craft and creative workers. The interviews collected here showcase the ingenuity, enthusiasm, and aesthetic pleasures that attract people to careers in the film and television industries. They also reflect critically on changes in the workplace brought about by corporate conglomeration and globalization. Rather than offer publicity-friendly anecdotes by marquee celebrities, Voices of Labor presents off-screen observations about the everyday realities of Global Hollywood. Ranging across job categories-from showrunner to make-up artist to location manager-this collection features voices of labor from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Prague, and Vancouver. Together they show how seemingly abstract concepts like conglomeration, financialization, and globalization are crucial tools for understanding contemporary Hollywood and for reflecting more generally on changes and challenges in the screen media workplace and our culture at large. Despite such formidable concerns, what nevertheless shines through is a commitment to craftwork and collaboration that provides the means to imagine and instigate future alternatives for screen media labor.

This is a new release of the original 1923 edition.

An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, the first national movement of the American working class, began in Philadelphia in 1869. Millions of Americans, white and black, men and women, became Knights between that date and 1917. But the Knights also spread beyond the borders of the United States and even beyond North America. Knights Across the Atlantic tells for the first time the full story of the Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland, where they operated between 1883 and the end of the century. British and Irish Knights drew on the resources of their vast Order to establish a chain of branches through England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland that numbered more than 10,000 members at its peak. They drew on the fraternal ritual, industrial tactics, organisational models, and political concerns of their American Order and interpreted them in British and Irish conditions. They faced many of the same enemies, including hostile employers and rival trade unions. Unlike their American counterparts they organised only a handful of women at most. But British and Irish Knights left a profound imprint on subsequent British labour history. They helped inspire the British "New Unionists" of the 1890s. They influenced the movement for working-class politics, independent of Liberals and Conservatives alike, that soon led to the British Labour Party. Knights Across the Atlantic brings all these themes together. It provides new insights into relationships between class and gender, and places the Knights of Labor squarely at the heart of British and Irish as well as American history at the end of the nineteenth century.

Tens of millions of workers around the world are affiliated, through their union membership, to one of the global union federations (GUFs). These international unions cover every industry, from transport to finance to public services. They work to support their affiliates throughout the world, providing support during industrial disputes, training union members, and bringing pressure to bear on multinationals and governments. This book serves as a short introduction to the GUFs, as well as the International Trade Union Confederation, and a starting point for union members who want to learn more about the international dimension of our movement.

The average number of hours worked annually by workers in the United States has increased steadily over the past several decades and currently surpasses that of Japan and most of Western Europe. The influence of overtime and extended work shifts on worker health and safety, as well as on worker errors, is gaining increased attention from the scientific community, labor representatives, and industry. U.S. hours of service limits have been regulated for the transportation sector for many years. In recent years, a number of states have been considering legislation to limit mandatory overtime for health care workers. The volume of legislative activity seen nationwide indicates a heightened level of societal concern and the timeliness of the issue. This document summarizes recent scientific findings concerning the relationship between overtime and extended work shifts on worker health and safety. This report provides an integrative review of 52 recently published research reports that examine the associations between long working hours and illnesses, injuries, health behaviors, and performance. The report is restricted to a description of the findings and methods and is not intended as an exhaustive discussion of all important issues related to long working hours. Findings and methods are summarized as reported by the original authors, and the study methods are not critically evaluated for quality.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data indicate that arrests of CBP employees for corruption-related activities since fiscal years 2005 account for less than 1 percent of CBP's entire workforce per fiscal year. The majority of arrests of CBP employees were related to misconduct. There were 2,170 reported incidents of arrests for acts of misconduct such as domestic violence or driving under the influence from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2012, and a total of 144 current or former CBP employees were arrested or indicted for corruption-related activities, such as the smuggling of aliens and drugs, of whom 125 have been convicted as of October 2012. Further, the majority of allegations against CBP employees since fiscal year 2006 occurred at locations along the southwest border. CBP officials have stated that they are concerned about the negative impact that these cases have on agency wide integrity. CBP employs screening tools to mitigate the risk of employee corruption and misconduct for both applicants (e.g., background investigations and polygraph examinations) and incumbent CBP officers and Border Patrol agents (e.g., random drug tests and periodic reinvestigations). However, CBP's Office of Internal Affairs (IA) does not have a mechanism to maintain and track data on which of its screening tools (e.g., background investigation or polygraph examination) provided the information used to determine which applicants were not suitable for hire. Maintaining and tracking such data is consistent with internal control standards and could better position CBP IA to gauge the relative effectiveness of its screening tools. CBP IA is also considering requiring periodic polygraphs for incumbent officers and agents; however, it has not yet fully assessed the feasibility of expanding the program. For example, CBP has not yet fully assessed the costs of implementing polygraph examinations on incumbent officers and agents, including costs for additional supervisors and adjudicators, or factors such as the trade-offs associated with testing incumbent officers and agents at various frequencies. A feasibility assessment of program expansion could better position CBP to determine whether and how to best achieve its goal of strengthening integrity-related controls for officers and agents. Further, CBP IA has not consistently conducted monthly quality assurance reviews of its adjudications since 2008, as required by internal policies, to help ensure that adjudicators are following procedures in evaluating the results of the preemployment and periodic background investigations. CBP IA officials stated that they have performed some of the required checks since 2008, but they could not provide data on how many checks were conducted. Without these quality assurance checks, it is difficult for CBP IA to determine the extent to which deficiencies, if any, exist in the adjudication process. CBP does not have an integrity strategy, as called for in its Fiscal Year 2009-2014 Strategic Plan. During the course of our review, CBP IA began drafting a strategy, but CBP IA's Assistant Commissioner stated the agency has not set target timelines for completing and implementing this strategy. Moreover, he stated that there has been significant cultural resistance among some CBP components in acknowledging CBP IA's authority for overseeing all integrity-related activities. Setting target timelines is consistent with program management standards and could help CBP monitor progress made toward the development and implementation of an agency wide strategy.

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.

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.

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.