Pub Date : 2022-10-19DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10087
Larry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, H. Ingersoll
During the labor movement’s formative years, Upton Sinclair was among the most vehement critics of the press for, as he claimed, a wide variety of “capitalist corruptions.” The authors examine one of Sinclair’s central charges in his The Brass Check, the first major book-length criticism of the U.S. corporate press: When strikers are violent, they get reported on the wire services; when they are not violent, they are ignored by the wires and thus the papers. This press selection process serves to create in public consciousness a strong association between strikes and violence. Focusing on coverage by the New York Sun and New York Times for fourteen major strikes spanning the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, evidence suggests that Sinclair’s claim was, with some qualification, generally correct. The authors discuss implications of negative press as “soft repression” during the formative years of the labor movement and prior to journalism’s major moves at professionalization.
{"title":"Early Labor Movement Strike Violence, the Press, and the Upton Sinclair Hypothesis","authors":"Larry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, H. Ingersoll","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10087","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 During the labor movement’s formative years, Upton Sinclair was among the most vehement critics of the press for, as he claimed, a wide variety of “capitalist corruptions.” The authors examine one of Sinclair’s central charges in his The Brass Check, the first major book-length criticism of the U.S. corporate press: When strikers are violent, they get reported on the wire services; when they are not violent, they are ignored by the wires and thus the papers. This press selection process serves to create in public consciousness a strong association between strikes and violence. Focusing on coverage by the New York Sun and New York Times for fourteen major strikes spanning the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, evidence suggests that Sinclair’s claim was, with some qualification, generally correct. The authors discuss implications of negative press as “soft repression” during the formative years of the labor movement and prior to journalism’s major moves at professionalization.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48609569","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 : 2022-10-10DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10083
Ana Cárdenas Tomažič
Since the 1970s, labor markets have been neoliberalized worldwide. In this context, labor market intermediation has been increasingly privatized and the temporary staffing industry (tsi) has undertaken a process of internationalization and diversification. This article seeks to discuss how and to what extent leading staffing firms have become powerful global labor market actors while diversifying their staffing services internationally. Building on the literature on the internationalization/globalization of the tsi in the 2000s, the article outlines a theoretical perspective for understanding current leading staffing firms as global labor market intermediaries (glmi) and discusses the key empirical results of two case studies conducted during 2020 on the international diversification of the two main glmi s: Randstad and the Adecco Group. The article suggests that glmi s have developed this strategy to expand and, consequently, secure their “classification power” in order to increase labor market flexibilization and the consequent informalization and precarization of work.
{"title":"Global Labor Market Intermediaries: The Power of Leading Staffing Firms","authors":"Ana Cárdenas Tomažič","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10083","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Since the 1970s, labor markets have been neoliberalized worldwide. In this context, labor market intermediation has been increasingly privatized and the temporary staffing industry (tsi) has undertaken a process of internationalization and diversification. This article seeks to discuss how and to what extent leading staffing firms have become powerful global labor market actors while diversifying their staffing services internationally. Building on the literature on the internationalization/globalization of the tsi in the 2000s, the article outlines a theoretical perspective for understanding current leading staffing firms as global labor market intermediaries (glmi) and discusses the key empirical results of two case studies conducted during 2020 on the international diversification of the two main glmi s: Randstad and the Adecco Group. The article suggests that glmi s have developed this strategy to expand and, consequently, secure their “classification power” in order to increase labor market flexibilization and the consequent informalization and precarization of work.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42117446","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 : 2022-10-07DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10091
Danish Khan
The role of the internal political economic factors of the peripheral countries tends to remain largely muted in the analysis of imperialism. To redress this the paper put forwards an articulated conceptualization of imperialism in the context of the postcolonial state of Pakistan by underscoring the significance of domestic political economic factors in mediating and regulating an imperialist political settlement. Imperialist political settlement is mediated by a combination of two interrelated processes—strategic fix and dependency fix. ‘Strategic fix’ is about addressing actual or perceived political, economic and militaristic challenges --- encapsulating both territorial and capitalist logics of power --- to core countries of the capitalist world system. Whereas, the ‘dependency fix’ is about preventing a radical progressive restructuring in dominated countries (e.g., Pakistan) to ensure a favorable socio-economic order for the domestic elites. One of the key implications of envisioning imperialist domination as a dialectic of strategic and dependency fixes is that it makes visible the shared interests of Pakistani ruling elites and the imperialist forces of blocking progressive and emancipatory political and socio-economic transformation in Pakistan. Therefore, the paper argues that an effective counter-hegemonic project against imperialism needs to incorporate strategies of progressive radical transformation of a dominated country.
{"title":"Articulated Imperialism in Pakistan: a Dialectic of ‘Strategic’ and ‘Dependency’ Fixes","authors":"Danish Khan","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10091","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The role of the internal political economic factors of the peripheral countries tends to remain largely muted in the analysis of imperialism. To redress this the paper put forwards an articulated conceptualization of imperialism in the context of the postcolonial state of Pakistan by underscoring the significance of domestic political economic factors in mediating and regulating an imperialist political settlement. Imperialist political settlement is mediated by a combination of two interrelated processes—strategic fix and dependency fix. ‘Strategic fix’ is about addressing actual or perceived political, economic and militaristic challenges --- encapsulating both territorial and capitalist logics of power --- to core countries of the capitalist world system. Whereas, the ‘dependency fix’ is about preventing a radical progressive restructuring in dominated countries (e.g., Pakistan) to ensure a favorable socio-economic order for the domestic elites. One of the key implications of envisioning imperialist domination as a dialectic of strategic and dependency fixes is that it makes visible the shared interests of Pakistani ruling elites and the imperialist forces of blocking progressive and emancipatory political and socio-economic transformation in Pakistan. Therefore, the paper argues that an effective counter-hegemonic project against imperialism needs to incorporate strategies of progressive radical transformation of a dominated country.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47227221","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 : 2022-09-26DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10090
Isabel Roque
{"title":"Altenried, Moritz. The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation","authors":"Isabel Roque","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10090","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47342071","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 : 2022-09-26DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10081
Jonah Butovsky, L. Savage
Given the documented advantages of unionization, why don’t more workers support, let alone join, unions? This article presents findings from the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Niagara (PEPiN) study as they relate to precarious work and the union advantage. While precariously-employed workers in Canada’s Niagara Region enjoyed a demonstrable union advantage and were much more likely than other categories of workers to indicate support for unionization, a clear majority of precarious workers still expressed opposition to unionization. The article considers some of possible reasons for these seemingly paradoxical findings through a case study of recent workplace struggles in Niagara.
{"title":"Precarious Work and the Union Advantage: Paradoxical Findings from Niagara","authors":"Jonah Butovsky, L. Savage","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10081","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Given the documented advantages of unionization, why don’t more workers support, let alone join, unions? This article presents findings from the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Niagara (PEPiN) study as they relate to precarious work and the union advantage. While precariously-employed workers in Canada’s Niagara Region enjoyed a demonstrable union advantage and were much more likely than other categories of workers to indicate support for unionization, a clear majority of precarious workers still expressed opposition to unionization. The article considers some of possible reasons for these seemingly paradoxical findings through a case study of recent workplace struggles in Niagara.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42631718","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 : 2022-09-26DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10069
Eleni Schirmer, Rebecca Tarlau
This article explores how crises become opportunities. Through a study of a progressive teachers’ union caucus in New York City during the emergence of covid-19, this piece examines how organizations convert crises into opportunities for political growth. Drawing on sociological theories of political articulation and crisis, this article explores the role of union caucuses to foment political change. We argue that crises become politically significant according to how organizations use events to catalyze competing political narratives to drive new political formations. We examine how union caucuses engage in this work. Using ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews, our study finds that caucuses with established visions, internal organizational structure, and moral legitimacy are better able to take advantage of crises. These conditions allow caucuses to exercise power, not just petition for it. We conclude that the existence of organizational infrastructure and ideological coherence enables a group to convert crises into opportunities.
{"title":"Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste: Labor Organizing During covid-19","authors":"Eleni Schirmer, Rebecca Tarlau","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10069","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article explores how crises become opportunities. Through a study of a progressive teachers’ union caucus in New York City during the emergence of covid-19, this piece examines how organizations convert crises into opportunities for political growth. Drawing on sociological theories of political articulation and crisis, this article explores the role of union caucuses to foment political change. We argue that crises become politically significant according to how organizations use events to catalyze competing political narratives to drive new political formations. We examine how union caucuses engage in this work. Using ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviews, our study finds that caucuses with established visions, internal organizational structure, and moral legitimacy are better able to take advantage of crises. These conditions allow caucuses to exercise power, not just petition for it. We conclude that the existence of organizational infrastructure and ideological coherence enables a group to convert crises into opportunities.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45261827","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 : 2022-08-08DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10079
J. Warren
{"title":"Ellerman, D. Neo-abolitionism","authors":"J. Warren","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10079","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44670936","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 : 2022-08-05DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10086
M. Paret
{"title":"Trevor Ngwane, Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements","authors":"M. Paret","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10086","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41353880","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 : 2022-08-05DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10071
Justin Rogers-Cooper
{"title":"Mark Kruger, The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland","authors":"Justin Rogers-Cooper","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10071","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48272222","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 : 2022-07-28DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10080
G. Reuten
In 2019, the Mondragon worker cooperatives, which number around 100, employed over 81 000 workers. Based primarily on information from the Mondragon annual reports, this article traces Mondragon’s employment record from 1983–2019. In this period its Spanish employment growth outran that of Spain by a factor of 3.4, and that of the aggregated oecd countries by a factor of 6.3. On top of the Spanish employment, Mondragon cooperatives’ subsidiaries employed about 4300 workers abroad (7% of the total) in 2001, and about 14 500 (18% of the total) in 2019. The article expands on the reasons for this last type of employment. The article also explains why the proportion of cooperative owner-members in the total employment varies over time. Depending on the sector, in 2019 this proportion is 32–45%, and measured as a proportion of the employment in cooperatives 32–74%—the difference being engendered by non-cooperative subsidiaries. Many cooperatives regard these proportions as second-best practices in the search for a modus between competitive pressures and the maintenance of employment within cooperatives.
{"title":"The Mondragon Worker Cooperatives’ Employment Record 1983–2019","authors":"G. Reuten","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10080","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 2019, the Mondragon worker cooperatives, which number around 100, employed over 81 000 workers. Based primarily on information from the Mondragon annual reports, this article traces Mondragon’s employment record from 1983–2019. In this period its Spanish employment growth outran that of Spain by a factor of 3.4, and that of the aggregated oecd countries by a factor of 6.3. On top of the Spanish employment, Mondragon cooperatives’ subsidiaries employed about 4300 workers abroad (7% of the total) in 2001, and about 14 500 (18% of the total) in 2019. The article expands on the reasons for this last type of employment. The article also explains why the proportion of cooperative owner-members in the total employment varies over time. Depending on the sector, in 2019 this proportion is 32–45%, and measured as a proportion of the employment in cooperatives 32–74%—the difference being engendered by non-cooperative subsidiaries. Many cooperatives regard these proportions as second-best practices in the search for a modus between competitive pressures and the maintenance of employment within cooperatives.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43650927","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}