Factory Politics in Britain and the United States: Engineers and Machinists, 1914–1919

1985 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-85
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Haydu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Work Practices ◽  
Organization Of Production ◽  
American Trade

The priorities of British and American trade unions center predominantly on the economic rewards received by union members. Collective bargaining and strikes typically focus on how much employers must pay for labor (in wages, pensions, and other benefits) rather than on how the labor, once purchased, may be used. Basic decisions regarding the organization of production are not considered by most unionists as legitimate issues for negotiation. Disputes over working conditions do arise, of course, but rarely concern securing for labor the rights of management. They involve instead efforts to protect jobs and work practices from encroachment by employers or poaching by other unions. In short, labor's goals are largely economistic, defensive, and sectional.

scholarly journals Obstacles and opportunities: labour emigration to the ‘British World’ in the nineteenth century

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (01) ◽  
pp. 43-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjory Harper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractLabour emigrants in the nineteenth century had ever-increasing access to a global employment market. Many of those who left Great Britain looked beyond Europe, to the British Empire and the United States. They took advantage of improvements in transportation, and followed a wide variety of occupations. Decisions to emigrate were often shaped by their involvement in trade unions and were based on concerns about living standards and working conditions. This study considers a selection of globetrotting British settlers and sojourners who went to Canada, the United States and Australia between 1815 and the 1880s. The article analyses the historiography of labour migration; carries out an empirical study constructed around four pieces of analytical scaffolding; and closes by identifying recurring threads in the multi-hued tapestry of labour emigration, highlighting how concerns and traditions about recruitment, wages and working conditions, which had emerged in the nineteenth century, created legacies that persisted into the period after the First World War.

scholarly journals La construcción social del sueño americano en la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos. Formación y proyectos migratorios de los estudiantes de enfermería

Revista Trace ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Patrick Pérez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Home Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
Topical Issue ◽  
The Real ◽  
Conditions De Travail ◽  
Personnel De Santé ◽  
The Individual

En México, el “sueño americano” no deja de ser reciente, las expectativas del personal de cuidado de la salud en materia de movilidad dependen de la iniciativa individual. Los factores que determinan tanto la migración, como la admisión de los candidatos, son numerosos y difíciles de objetivar, debido a que se encuentran sedimentados por la historia y las complejas relaciones con Estados Unidos, que simbolizan la promesa de un “horizonte de movilidad abierto”, con referencia al cual se desprecian profundamente las condiciones de trabajo en el país de origen. Sin embargo, las condiciones reales de trabajo en Estados Unidos no son tan idílicas como los estudiantes gustan creerlo.Abstract: In Mexico, the “American dream” is still a topical issue. The expectations of the healthcare workers in terms of mobility depends on the individual initiative. The factors which determine migration, as well as the admission of candidates are numerous and uneasy to specify, given that they are frozen by history and complex relations with the United States, which symbolizes the promise of an “open mobility horizon”, in reference to the disregard of working conditions in their home country. However, the real working conditions in the United-States are not as idyllic as the students want to believe.Résumé : Au Mexique, le « rêve américain » n’en finit pas d’être d’actualité. Les perspectives du personnel de santé en matière de mobilité dépendent de l’initiative individuelle. Les facteurs déterminants de la migration, ainsi que de l’admission des candidats sont nombreux et difficiles à spécifier, puisqu’ils sont figés par l’histoire et les relations complexes avec les États-Unis, lesquels symbolisent la promesse d’un « horizon de mobilité ouvert », et font référence au mépris des conditions de travail dans le pays d’origine. Cependant, les conditions réelles de travail aux États-Unis ne sont pas aussi idylliques que les étudiants veulent le croire.

A Vital Link in Wartime: The Organization of a Trade and Shipping Network Between the United States and Bordeaux, 1793-1815

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Marzagalli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transatlantic Trade ◽  
American Trade

This chapter explores the mercantile advantages of American neutrality during the wartime period of 1793-1815, by analysing the extension and organisation of American shipping with the major port of Bordeaux. It places Franco-American trade in historical context, then traces the evolution of the trade; the role of American shipowners and traders; and the necessary utilisation of the ‘human network’ withiin transatlantic trade, to confirm the tremendous profitability of Franco-American trade during the period.

How to Build a Trade Union Oligarchy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Context ◽  
Free Communication ◽  
National Differences ◽  
United Automobile Workers ◽  
Occupational Communities

Trade unions are ostensibly democratic organizations, but they often fail to operate as democracies in practice. Most studies of Western trade union democracy have acknowledged that oligarchy is the norm among unions but have nonetheless examined exceptional democratic unions to understand how those unions defied the trend. My study inverts this approach and instead examines two known oligarchical unions, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in the United States. I argue that union oligarchy requires certain conditions to thrive. Both unions lacked democratic rules, close-knit occupational communities, local autonomy, rank-and-file decision making, internal opposition, equality between members and officials, and free communication, but these absences were expressed in different ways in each organization. Comparing a prominent US union with a prominent Australian union allows for assessment of the extent to which oligarchy was the result of national context. I argue that the experience of trade union oligarchy in the United States and Australia was more similar than different. National differences between the two countries were important, but they manifested primarily as different methods to achieve similar outcomes.

Remembering RIC Pfeffer, Celebrating His Work

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-236
Author(s):  
Vicente Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
United States ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Working People

This speech was given in a homage celebration to Ric Pfeffer on the occasion of his retirement. The article pays tribute to Ric's life and work, showing how his commitment to improve the life and working conditions of the population of the United States led him to stand up to many powerful forces that determined the nature of awards and visibility in this country. The article concludes that it is because of people like Ric Pfeffer that the quality of life improves for working people, even though the Establishment of this country, responsible for most of what is wrong, marginalizes and ignores them.

A Method for Forecasting Hailstone Size at the Earth's Surface*

1953 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 235-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest J. Fawbush ◽  
Robert C. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Thermodynamic Structure ◽  
Freezing Level ◽  
Air Column ◽  
Real Test

All upper-air soundings in the United States have been evaluated since January 1, 1950 and 274 selected as representative of air in which hailstones of known size formed. These soundings are summarized and several parameters which are or may be useful in forecasting are discussed. A graph is presented, which permits the translation of a forecast of air structure into one of hailstone size and two groups of forecasts are summarized to show the validity of this forecasting tool. The forecasts discussed were prepared in practical situations by meteorologists on regular forecasting duty and issued before the storms occurred. They therefore constitute a real test of the method under working conditions. Evidence is presented to show a very striking relation between the incidence of surface hail and the height of the wet bulb freezing level above the terrain. It was found that in 91.6% of the 274 representative soundings, the wet bulb freezing levels were between 5000 and 12,000 feet above the surface and the larger the reported surface hail, the greater the concentration of these levels near 8000 feet. It is emphasized that the method of hail forecasting discussed is not susceptible to machine methods, but depends on accurate prognostication of the thermodynamic structure of the air column as it changes in time and space.

A Note on the Interpenetration of Anglo-American Finance, 1837–1841

1951 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Dorfman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High Pressure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Financial History ◽  
Banking Business ◽  
Thomas Wilson ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Panic Of 1837 ◽  
American Trade

There is a widespread impression among students of American financial history that, in the period immediately following the panic of 1837, American financiers engaged in sharp practices amounting to the wholesale deception of British bankers and European investors. This impression has been fostered especially in connection with the well-known episode of the partial or complete repudiation of state bonds by Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Michigan, and Florida in the 1840's. According to the charge, the large British bankers originally transacted business in the United States only through old and established bankers and agents. This enabled them to avoid the more speculative securities. Much of the distribution of bonds in England was done through three British firms, which were prominent in the merchant-banking business for the American trade: Thomas Wilson & Co., Timothy Wiggin & Co., and Geo. Wildes & Co.—popularly known as the 3 W's. A change for the worse occurred—so the charge runs—when these firms were forced to suspend payments because of the financial strain in England and the United States in 1837. After the resumption of specie payments in the United States the following year, a more speculative type of American banker, assisted by high-pressure salesmen who were sent to England, was prominent in financiering. These agents were so persuasive that they involved the British bankers in the wildest of schemes, and these bankers, in turn, disposed of American securities to equally innocent investors.

History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, Vol. III: Working Conditions

1937 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1107
Author(s):  
Colston Warne ◽  
Don D. Lescohier ◽  
Elizabeth Brandeis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of
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