Pub Date : 2021-11-17DOI: 10.1177/0160449x211044903
Steven K. Ashby
Any discussion of union democracy should begin with the obvious: labor unions are the most important vehicle to defend workers’ rights in the world. The world would be a far better place if every worker who wanted to could, without fear, join a labor union. Unions negotiate better wages and benefits than comparable non-union workers receive. Unions bring some element of democracy into an otherwise undemocratic workplace where the boss has unlimited power. A union grievance procedure brings a version of the Bill of Rights’ sixth amendment into the workplace—a worker accused of doing something wrong has due process rights. Unions advocate values in the workplace such as justice, fairness, safety, and respect. Polls show that around half of American workers would join a union if they were free to do so—four and a half times the number who are currently members. Over the past century, unions have fought for every U.S. law benefitting workers. As well, unions are one of the most democratic institutions in the U. S., and unions are among the most interracial organizations in the U.S. Yet American unions are not perfect models of democracy. While all unions have constitutions and by-laws that outline democratic procedures, there is a tremendous range of democracy within the labor movement. The bulk of labor unions are somewhere on a spectrum between completely democratic, member-driven, transparent unions, and bureaucratic, top-down, secretive unions with no member involvement. Democracy is a goal. Democracy is not something a union achieves, congratulates itself, and then forgets about. Democracy, in a country or in a labor union, is not achieved by just passing good laws or rules. No set of rules, no constitution, no by-laws, and no elections guarantee union democracy. Democracy is achieved by the continual struggle to maintain it and to expand it. Democracy is maintained by the people holding elected leaders accountable for their actions.
{"title":"Union Democracy in Today's Labor Movement","authors":"Steven K. Ashby","doi":"10.1177/0160449x211044903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449x211044903","url":null,"abstract":"Any discussion of union democracy should begin with the obvious: labor unions are the most important vehicle to defend workers’ rights in the world. The world would be a far better place if every worker who wanted to could, without fear, join a labor union. Unions negotiate better wages and benefits than comparable non-union workers receive. Unions bring some element of democracy into an otherwise undemocratic workplace where the boss has unlimited power. A union grievance procedure brings a version of the Bill of Rights’ sixth amendment into the workplace—a worker accused of doing something wrong has due process rights. Unions advocate values in the workplace such as justice, fairness, safety, and respect. Polls show that around half of American workers would join a union if they were free to do so—four and a half times the number who are currently members. Over the past century, unions have fought for every U.S. law benefitting workers. As well, unions are one of the most democratic institutions in the U. S., and unions are among the most interracial organizations in the U.S. Yet American unions are not perfect models of democracy. While all unions have constitutions and by-laws that outline democratic procedures, there is a tremendous range of democracy within the labor movement. The bulk of labor unions are somewhere on a spectrum between completely democratic, member-driven, transparent unions, and bureaucratic, top-down, secretive unions with no member involvement. Democracy is a goal. Democracy is not something a union achieves, congratulates itself, and then forgets about. Democracy, in a country or in a labor union, is not achieved by just passing good laws or rules. No set of rules, no constitution, no by-laws, and no elections guarantee union democracy. Democracy is achieved by the continual struggle to maintain it and to expand it. Democracy is maintained by the people holding elected leaders accountable for their actions.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"109 - 136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47566693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-29DOI: 10.1177/0160449X211049252
Matt Hinkel, P. McHugh
Media bias is well documented in the industrial relations domain. This paper extends this research by exploring whether union participation among former professional baseball players affects the likelihood of moving through two stages of the selection process for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF), a selection process controlled by sports media. At the HOF ballot inclusion stage, union activism increased position players’ and pitchers’ likelihoods of inclusion, regardless of time period. Conversely, at the HOF voting stage, position players who were union representatives during labor-management conflict (i.e., strikes and lockouts) received significantly less votes than non-activists, while position players who were representatives during labor-management cooperation received significantly more votes. Union activism did not affect pitchers at this stage. We conclude that union activists can be subject to negative media bias during labor-management conflict that, in turn, negatively affects post-employment outcomes.
{"title":"Union Activism and the Baseball Hall of Fame Voting Process: Labor-Management Conflict and Media Bias","authors":"Matt Hinkel, P. McHugh","doi":"10.1177/0160449X211049252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X211049252","url":null,"abstract":"Media bias is well documented in the industrial relations domain. This paper extends this research by exploring whether union participation among former professional baseball players affects the likelihood of moving through two stages of the selection process for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF), a selection process controlled by sports media. At the HOF ballot inclusion stage, union activism increased position players’ and pitchers’ likelihoods of inclusion, regardless of time period. Conversely, at the HOF voting stage, position players who were union representatives during labor-management conflict (i.e., strikes and lockouts) received significantly less votes than non-activists, while position players who were representatives during labor-management cooperation received significantly more votes. Union activism did not affect pitchers at this stage. We conclude that union activists can be subject to negative media bias during labor-management conflict that, in turn, negatively affects post-employment outcomes.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"180 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48924148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-18DOI: 10.1177/0160449x211054138
James A. Young
{"title":"Book Review: The Memoirs of Wendell W. Young III: A Life in Philadelphia Labor and Politics by Wendell W Young","authors":"James A. Young","doi":"10.1177/0160449x211054138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449x211054138","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"99 - 100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48431319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-16DOI: 10.1177/0160449x211051284
J. Young
{"title":"Book Review: Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China's Workers by Chen, Jenny, Mark Selden and Pun Ngai","authors":"J. Young","doi":"10.1177/0160449x211051284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449x211051284","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"46 1","pages":"395 - 396"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45109723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-07DOI: 10.1177/0160449x211039121
Timothy R. Libretti
Reading A Pandemic Nurse’s Diary, particularly against prevalent media representations of health care workers’ experiences during this pandemic, brought to mind for me the opening words of the sketch by the U.S. radical writer Jesús Colón, “Something to Read,” from his collection A Puerto Rican in New York, in which he describes “a piece of working class literature, a pamphlet, a progressive book or pamphlet” as “precious things.” Authored by a nurse who just goes by Nurse T, along with Timothy Sheard, himself a former nurse, A Pandemic Nurse’s Diary is in fact “something to read.” It provides not only an incisive record of health care workers’ experiences of the pandemic at this moment but also offers a deeper analysis from a worker’s perspective into U.S. class society and how it impacts people’s health and the delivery of health care in the United States. Additionally, what makes this work most “precious,” distinguishing it as working-class literature, is that it addresses workers and the workplace traumas they endure directly, an issue rarely covered in our nation’s literature. As the process of vaccinating the U.S. population against COVID-19 is underway, promising visibility and hope for an end to the pandemic, Nurse T’s diary stresses that while vaccinations may provide some protection from the virus, the pandemic has also exacerbated and drawn into relief longstanding and deeply rooted social ills, often structural in nature, that cannot be cured by any vaccination, no matter how powerful. I found Nurse T’s explanations and analyses of “hospital poverty” one of the most illuminating aspects of the diary. She, of course, highlights that “poor patients— especially Black and Hispanic patients—are way more likely to die from COVID than their White counterparts” because “poverty has given them multiple co-morbidities, like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma.”While I knew something of these health disparities conditioned by our racist class system, I was less aware of how the capitalist political economy and class system impacted the functioning of hospitals. At one point, one of Nurse T’s colleagues expresses not being bitter, but just tired: “Tired of the shortages and the outdated equipment. Tired of the politicians protesting they can’t afford to raise our reimbursement rates. Tired of the government —city, state, and federal—funneling resources to the gold-plated medical centers in Book Reviews
{"title":"Book Review: A Pandemic Nurse’s Diary by Nurse T and Timothy Sheard","authors":"Timothy R. Libretti","doi":"10.1177/0160449x211039121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449x211039121","url":null,"abstract":"Reading A Pandemic Nurse’s Diary, particularly against prevalent media representations of health care workers’ experiences during this pandemic, brought to mind for me the opening words of the sketch by the U.S. radical writer Jesús Colón, “Something to Read,” from his collection A Puerto Rican in New York, in which he describes “a piece of working class literature, a pamphlet, a progressive book or pamphlet” as “precious things.” Authored by a nurse who just goes by Nurse T, along with Timothy Sheard, himself a former nurse, A Pandemic Nurse’s Diary is in fact “something to read.” It provides not only an incisive record of health care workers’ experiences of the pandemic at this moment but also offers a deeper analysis from a worker’s perspective into U.S. class society and how it impacts people’s health and the delivery of health care in the United States. Additionally, what makes this work most “precious,” distinguishing it as working-class literature, is that it addresses workers and the workplace traumas they endure directly, an issue rarely covered in our nation’s literature. As the process of vaccinating the U.S. population against COVID-19 is underway, promising visibility and hope for an end to the pandemic, Nurse T’s diary stresses that while vaccinations may provide some protection from the virus, the pandemic has also exacerbated and drawn into relief longstanding and deeply rooted social ills, often structural in nature, that cannot be cured by any vaccination, no matter how powerful. I found Nurse T’s explanations and analyses of “hospital poverty” one of the most illuminating aspects of the diary. She, of course, highlights that “poor patients— especially Black and Hispanic patients—are way more likely to die from COVID than their White counterparts” because “poverty has given them multiple co-morbidities, like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma.”While I knew something of these health disparities conditioned by our racist class system, I was less aware of how the capitalist political economy and class system impacted the functioning of hospitals. At one point, one of Nurse T’s colleagues expresses not being bitter, but just tired: “Tired of the shortages and the outdated equipment. Tired of the politicians protesting they can’t afford to raise our reimbursement rates. Tired of the government —city, state, and federal—funneling resources to the gold-plated medical centers in Book Reviews","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"46 1","pages":"394 - 395"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46437829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0160449X211039123
César F. Rosado Marzán
In the United States, we debate how to rebuild our unions, but most of our discussions focus on improving the enterprise-based system that we have had since 1935. We talk about simplifying the National Labor Relations Board union election process, limiting employer opposition to unions during election campaigns, and extending National Labor Relations Act coverage to independent contractors and domestic workers, among others. But broader-based bargaining is seldom discussed. David Madland’s new book Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States fills this void of silence in our public debates. Madland’s book helps the reader understand how myopic our policy discussions regarding labor revitalization have been by addressing how many countries around the world, including most European Union countries, have had some form of “extension” practice, be it via law, policy, or autonomous bargaining, where collective bargaining agreements have been spread to whole sectors. Countries might also have wage boards, many times tripartite, to set minimum wages for workers laboring in more precarious sectors of the economy. In this sense, Re-Union opens up our national conversation to experiences from other countries where policymakers and governments have been more successful than the United States in protecting workers and the middle class. Chapter 3 specifically describes the experiences of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. We learn that these countries have embarked on U.S.-style enterprise bargaining schemes with disastrous effects. The United Kingdom and Australia have also experimented at times with broader-based bargaining, yielding better results. The lessons are clear for the United States: we should also experiment with broader-based bargaining. Madland argues that broader-based bargaining can be instituted in the United States through a combination of various policies. Perhaps the most important policy change would include legislative action for the government to extend collectively bargained contracts to specific sectors of the economy. Another policy change would deputize labor unions to provide services that benefit all workers, for example, “workforce training, co-enforcement, and benefits navigation” (p.122). By providing public goods such as those, American unions would mimic aspects of the so-called “Ghent systems” of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden (p.24). Ghent systems provide robust Book Reviews
{"title":"Book Review: Re-Union: How Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States by David Madland","authors":"César F. Rosado Marzán","doi":"10.1177/0160449X211039123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X211039123","url":null,"abstract":"In the United States, we debate how to rebuild our unions, but most of our discussions focus on improving the enterprise-based system that we have had since 1935. We talk about simplifying the National Labor Relations Board union election process, limiting employer opposition to unions during election campaigns, and extending National Labor Relations Act coverage to independent contractors and domestic workers, among others. But broader-based bargaining is seldom discussed. David Madland’s new book Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States fills this void of silence in our public debates. Madland’s book helps the reader understand how myopic our policy discussions regarding labor revitalization have been by addressing how many countries around the world, including most European Union countries, have had some form of “extension” practice, be it via law, policy, or autonomous bargaining, where collective bargaining agreements have been spread to whole sectors. Countries might also have wage boards, many times tripartite, to set minimum wages for workers laboring in more precarious sectors of the economy. In this sense, Re-Union opens up our national conversation to experiences from other countries where policymakers and governments have been more successful than the United States in protecting workers and the middle class. Chapter 3 specifically describes the experiences of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. We learn that these countries have embarked on U.S.-style enterprise bargaining schemes with disastrous effects. The United Kingdom and Australia have also experimented at times with broader-based bargaining, yielding better results. The lessons are clear for the United States: we should also experiment with broader-based bargaining. Madland argues that broader-based bargaining can be instituted in the United States through a combination of various policies. Perhaps the most important policy change would include legislative action for the government to extend collectively bargained contracts to specific sectors of the economy. Another policy change would deputize labor unions to provide services that benefit all workers, for example, “workforce training, co-enforcement, and benefits navigation” (p.122). By providing public goods such as those, American unions would mimic aspects of the so-called “Ghent systems” of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden (p.24). Ghent systems provide robust Book Reviews","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"46 1","pages":"318 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65018253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0160449X211038692
Stephen T. Sadlier
The use of adjunct faculty in higher education has become a widely discussed labor practice. The voices of adjuncts are largely absent in this inquiry and advocacy, an absence which wrongly suggests adjuncts a lack voice or of agency. In the first part of this piece, I argue that adjuncts should contribute to their field of inquiry to destabilize the notions of contingent instructional workers as mere classroom proctors, in need of others’ advocacy. In the second part, I relate episodes of adjuncts disregarded and embraced on their campuses. Stemming from years of teaching in higher education and adjunct organizing, this piece is written from an adjunct perspective, exploring the disregard and embrace adjuncts encounter in their institutional lives. Following Foucault's exercises of the self as part of a philosophical life, I call the academic productions of adjuncts “gleaning,” an exercise taken on by professors that enacts a philosophical project in the face of de-professionalization and precaritization. This critical and ethical intervention counterbalances managerial practices that dismiss adjunct labor and normalize the process of dismissal. Adjunct gleaning, I conclude, may never transform the two-tiered instructional system, though their cultural and intellectual production will hamper efforts to dismiss adjuncts’ presence and catalog them as agents of precarious survival.
{"title":"Gleaning the Fields of Higher Education: Exercises of an Adjunct Self and Instructional Precaritization","authors":"Stephen T. Sadlier","doi":"10.1177/0160449X211038692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X211038692","url":null,"abstract":"The use of adjunct faculty in higher education has become a widely discussed labor practice. The voices of adjuncts are largely absent in this inquiry and advocacy, an absence which wrongly suggests adjuncts a lack voice or of agency. In the first part of this piece, I argue that adjuncts should contribute to their field of inquiry to destabilize the notions of contingent instructional workers as mere classroom proctors, in need of others’ advocacy. In the second part, I relate episodes of adjuncts disregarded and embraced on their campuses. Stemming from years of teaching in higher education and adjunct organizing, this piece is written from an adjunct perspective, exploring the disregard and embrace adjuncts encounter in their institutional lives. Following Foucault's exercises of the self as part of a philosophical life, I call the academic productions of adjuncts “gleaning,” an exercise taken on by professors that enacts a philosophical project in the face of de-professionalization and precaritization. This critical and ethical intervention counterbalances managerial practices that dismiss adjunct labor and normalize the process of dismissal. Adjunct gleaning, I conclude, may never transform the two-tiered instructional system, though their cultural and intellectual production will hamper efforts to dismiss adjuncts’ presence and catalog them as agents of precarious survival.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"56 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65018243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0160449X211039136
Alicia Massie
insurance schemes typically administered by governments. Finally, the United States could reinstate workers’ boards to negotiate matters such as minimum wages. This was the system in place in the first decade of the Fair Labor Standards Act, before it was diluted in 1947 by the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments pushed by Republican legislators. Without a doubt, the political right and many business leaders will aggressively challenge Madland’s proposals. Madland recognizes that politics matter. He argues that for his plan to be viable, U.S. voters will need to support pro-labor policies, even those who vote Republican. While he thinks there is a chance this could happen, it is difficult to believe that under our present polarized political landscape such coming together has any chance of success—except, perhaps in some cities and states with large majorities of Democratic voters. That said, one should not give up the fight before it starts. Engaging with the ideas of Madland’s book is important for today’s labor movement, progressives, and everyone else thinking about bold and different institutions that can revitalize labor and rebalance the influence of money and power in all aspects of our country.
{"title":"Book Review: The Great American Workforce: A Student’s Guide to Work and the Economy by Garrison Moore and Robert Bowman","authors":"Alicia Massie","doi":"10.1177/0160449X211039136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X211039136","url":null,"abstract":"insurance schemes typically administered by governments. Finally, the United States could reinstate workers’ boards to negotiate matters such as minimum wages. This was the system in place in the first decade of the Fair Labor Standards Act, before it was diluted in 1947 by the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments pushed by Republican legislators. Without a doubt, the political right and many business leaders will aggressively challenge Madland’s proposals. Madland recognizes that politics matter. He argues that for his plan to be viable, U.S. voters will need to support pro-labor policies, even those who vote Republican. While he thinks there is a chance this could happen, it is difficult to believe that under our present polarized political landscape such coming together has any chance of success—except, perhaps in some cities and states with large majorities of Democratic voters. That said, one should not give up the fight before it starts. Engaging with the ideas of Madland’s book is important for today’s labor movement, progressives, and everyone else thinking about bold and different institutions that can revitalize labor and rebalance the influence of money and power in all aspects of our country.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"46 1","pages":"319 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44653865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-16DOI: 10.1177/0160449X211033664
Preeti Sharma, Lina Stepick, Janna Shadduck-Hernández, Saba Waheed
We argue that employers subject workers to time theft by controlling workers’ time—both on and off the clock. Time theft considers employer control of workers’ time without the promise of pay through unstable scheduling practices as well as beyond their scheduled work hours. We develop a typology of time theft through a discussion of survey and workshop data with retail workers in Los Angeles. We underscore how federal labor law is inadequate to address unstable scheduling and we discuss retail worker organizing and the implications of time theft for labor policy and worker movements.
{"title":"Time Theft in the Los Angeles Retail Sector: The Need for New Labor Standards and a Fair Workweek","authors":"Preeti Sharma, Lina Stepick, Janna Shadduck-Hernández, Saba Waheed","doi":"10.1177/0160449X211033664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X211033664","url":null,"abstract":"We argue that employers subject workers to time theft by controlling workers’ time—both on and off the clock. Time theft considers employer control of workers’ time without the promise of pay through unstable scheduling practices as well as beyond their scheduled work hours. We develop a typology of time theft through a discussion of survey and workshop data with retail workers in Los Angeles. We underscore how federal labor law is inadequate to address unstable scheduling and we discuss retail worker organizing and the implications of time theft for labor policy and worker movements.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"28 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47403164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-30DOI: 10.1177/0160449x211028660
Christian A. I. Schlaerth
In the last decade, adjuncts have become the dominant faculty type at most colleges and universities, making up to 80 percent of those teaching college courses. Their conditions and struggles have been well documented in terms of their compensation and working conditions. Adjuncts have begun to organize across the nation, while also fighting for a broader movement, most notably through Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Faculty Forward Campaign, along with others. However, institutions of higher learning have been fighting back against these efforts in the same manners that for-profit companies have done in the past. This paper demonstrates the conflict as well as providing a framework for something bigger.
{"title":"Adjuncts Unite! The Struggle to Unionize, Administrative Response, and Building a Bigger Movement","authors":"Christian A. I. Schlaerth","doi":"10.1177/0160449x211028660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449x211028660","url":null,"abstract":"In the last decade, adjuncts have become the dominant faculty type at most colleges and universities, making up to 80 percent of those teaching college courses. Their conditions and struggles have been well documented in terms of their compensation and working conditions. Adjuncts have begun to organize across the nation, while also fighting for a broader movement, most notably through Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Faculty Forward Campaign, along with others. However, institutions of higher learning have been fighting back against these efforts in the same manners that for-profit companies have done in the past. This paper demonstrates the conflict as well as providing a framework for something bigger.","PeriodicalId":35267,"journal":{"name":"Labor Studies Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"5 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0160449x211028660","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42377829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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