Strikes and Labor Organization in Hybrid Regimes

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRAEME B. ROBERTSON

Existing theories of labor protest depend on independent organizations representing workers. However, in many countries most workers are either not organized at all or are in labor unions intended for control, not representation. This is particularly the case in partially liberalized or hybrid regimes where, despite the introduction of electoral competition, autonomous, democratic organizations representing labor are not well developed. Yet such workers do protest. Drawing on an original new dataset from one hybrid regime, post-Communist Russia, I develop a theory of labor protest and of the institutional mechanisms used by elites to influence it. Instead of being a function of union membership or characteristics of the information environment, as the existing literature would have it, protest occurs when it is in the interest of powerful elements of the elite, or when economic conditions are truly desperate.

2020 ◽  
pp. 0143831X2098005
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Frangi ◽  
Muhammad Umar Boodoo ◽  
Robert Hebdon

The general decline of strikes does not necessarily imply that workers are demobilised. A dormant strike potential can be present. Drawing on strikes as ‘experience goods’, this article sheds light on this point by studying pro-strike attitudes among employees in 24 countries who have never been on strike. The variation in pro-strike attitudes is explained by both contextual (collective bargaining coverage, economic conditions and freedom of rights and liberties) and individual (union membership and confidence in unions, political values and household financial situation) factors. Deeper analyses of three countries highlight the potential impact of specific repertoires of contention developed over time on the formation of pro-strike attitudes. Implications for the labour conflict literature and union strategies are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-67
Author(s):  
Courtney Maloney

We are witnessing a time of shrinking labor unions across the globe. Among member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, rates of union membership have declined from 30% in 1985 to 20% today (McCarthy 2017). In the U.S., the current rate is just 10.7% (Yadoo 2018). We have seen along with this the concomitant reduction in working-class and middle-class standards of living. Technological, political, and economic factors have impacted this change, but there is a cultural dimension to it as well. From the moment industrial unions in the U.S. gained power, corporations began to counter workingclass solidarity with alternative narratives that emphasized individualism, domesticity, and leisure. This article illuminates such efforts with a reading of one particularly sophisticated example from the mid-twentieth century, in which a steel corporation’s company magazine used workers’ own participation and self-representations in an effort to reorient notions of solidarity toward an identification with the corporation as family.


1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-24
Author(s):  
Richard L Clarke

U.S. maritime unions have played a vital historical role in both the defense and the economic development of the United States. The economic and the political forces that helped shape and promote the growth of U.S. seafaring labor unions changed dramatically in the 1990s. Maritime union membership in the United States has fallen by more than 80 per cent since 1950. Inflexible union work rules and high union wage scales have contributed to this decline. Recent regulatory and industry changes require a new union approach if U. S. maritime unions are to survive the next decade.


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunilla Andrae ◽  
Björn Beckman

Abstract:In January 2012 a broad spectrum of popular groups staged an unprecedented protest against the removal of what has been termed a “subsidy” on fuel prices by the Nigerian government. The participation of tailors in this national political event suggests that self-employed artisans were prepared to transcend their narrow nonpolitical agenda to promote their interests and demands for decent social and economic conditions. Interviews with participating organization representatives in Lagos indicate the supportive role of alliances with labor unions and organized informal workers at large. We see current global developments in the textile industry as conducive to this outcome.


Author(s):  
Ngok Ma ◽  
Edmund W. Cheng

Analysis of the 2014 Umbrella Movement speaks to three strands of academic literature: contentious politics and space, hybrid regimes and democratization, and social movements in China and Hong Kong. Based mostly on fieldwork conducted during the occupation, this book brings together 14 experts who studied the Umbrella Movement from different theoretical perspectives with different methodologies. The studies in the book analyze the occupation as a spontaneous and emotional contentious action, which made good use of public space and creative passion. They also show how civil resistance was shaped and constrained by the hybrid regime and situate the Hong Kong movement in a broader comparative perspective in reference to past student movements in China and protests in Taiwan and Macau.


1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold L. Sheppard ◽  
Nicholas A. Masters

The emergence of American labor unions to positions of actual or potential power as organized forces in election campaigns has stirred a great deal of controversy over the limits and propriety of union political activity. A decade and more after the Taft-Hartley Act provisions on that subject, argument continues as vigorously as ever about the need for, and if a need, then the nature and extent of, legal controls over the power of union leaders to enlist and commit their membership to electioneering goals. Underlying many of these debates is the complex question of union membership solidarity in political affairs. For if, to some, solidarity suggests dangers, it also indicates difficulties in the way of making controls effective. Yet we have only begun to explore the solidarity of rank-and-file attitudes toward union political activity.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Morlino

In recent years there has been growing interest and a related literature on hybrid regimes. Is there a good definition of such an institutional arrangement? Are there actually sets of stabilized, political institutions that can be labelled in this way? Is it possible that within the widespread process of democracy diffusion these are only ‘transitional’ regimes and the most suitable distinction is still the old one, suggested by Linz and traditionally accepted, between democracy and authoritarianism? This article addresses and responds to these questions by pinpointing the pertinent analytic dimensions, starting with definitions of ‘regime’, ‘authoritarianism’, and ‘democracy’; by defining what a ‘hybrid regime’ is; by trying to answer the key question posed in the title; by disentangling the cases of proper hybrid regimes from the cases of transitional phases; and by proposing a typology of hybrid regimes. Some of the main findings and conclusions refer to the lack of institutions capable of performing their functions as well as the key elements for achieving possible changes towards democracy.


Author(s):  
Itai Makone ◽  
Derica Lambrechts

Political Risk Analysis (PRA) levels are theoretically postulated to increase in a hybrid regime. This paper argues that there is a change to this hypothesis. A single case research design was employed, using Zimbabwe from 1990 to 2018. During the period, Zimbabwe showed five diverse forms of hybridity which are liberal, competitive illiberal, competitive, illiberal, and military hybrid regimes. A conceptual framework is developed to assess political risk in a hybrid regime using hybrid regime indicators and some political risk factors of most concern to developing countries. 28 key informants from six categories of respondents were interviewed. Illegitimacy, corruption, the staleness of leadership, adverse government regulation, election violence, and severed home-host state relations were confirmed to increase the perception of political risk in a hybrid regime. Investors were observed to have developed a tolerance for some “unacceptable” factors that increased political risk. Military tutelage, weak institutions, flawed elections, military generals in power, undemocratic means to retain power, minimum horizontal accountability and weak rule of law were found to not automatically increase political risk as before. The paper concludes that there is no single form of hybridity and as such different forms of hybrid regimes accrue different levels of political risk, some lower levels while others substantially higher levels. Therefore, in a hybrid regime, a differentiated PRA monitoring, assessing and mitigation strategy will be most effective for management to implement. Future studies can apply the analytical framework of assessing PRA in a hybrid to another hybrid regime to expand the theoretical propositions made by this paper


Author(s):  
Ronny Regev

The fifth chapter deals with the experience of those who are commonly known as craftsmen or below-the-line workers. It suggests that the division between arts and crafts in the film industry resulted from the history of labor organization and the political struggles between labor unions such as IATSE and the American Society of Cinematographers. In addition, focusing on the experience of cameramen, the chapter demonstrate that workers in the technical branches of filmmaking, were concerned less with control and more with recognition. It shows how directors of photography sought to claim some of the respect and artistic stature accorded to directors and screenwriters. Thus, they struggled to form a tighter bond between the creative status of the film industry and the more traditional craft or technical work they introduced into it.


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