What Do Workers and the Public Want? Unions’ Social Value

ILR Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 001979392095484
Author(s):  
Jack Fiorito ◽  
Irene Padavic

Using data from a national sample of American workers, the authors develop measures for “prosocial unionism”—the belief that unions contribute to the common good—and use regression analysis to determine its impact on public support for unions and on workers’ likelihood of supporting a union in a representation election in their workplace. Results show that the public’s support for unions is stronger when the public believes that unions act in the interests of all working people instead of just their members. The analyses also show that workers who believe unions have social benefits are significantly more likely to say they would vote “yes” in a union election than those who do not hold this belief. These findings imply that if unions address political and social justice goals that transcend the workplace, their legitimacy and their success in attracting public support and members may be enhanced and help stem the tide of shrinking union density.

Author(s):  
Andrew M. Yuengert

Although most economists are skeptical of or puzzled by the Catholic concept of the common good, a rejection of the economic approach as inimical to the common good would be hasty and counterproductive. Economic analysis can enrich the common good tradition in four ways. First, economics embodies a deep respect for economic agency and for the effects of policy and institutions on individual agents. Second, economics offers a rich literature on the nature of unplanned order and how it might be shaped by policy. Third, economics offers insight into the public and private provision of various kinds of goods (private, public, common pool resources). Fourth, recent work on the development and logic of institutions and norms emphasizes sustainability rooted in the good of the individual.


Author(s):  
Neil Rhodes

This chapter begins by presenting translation as an aspect of the Erasmian legacy in England, and it argues that translation helps to heal the division discussed in Chapter 3 by enabling Protestantism and humanism to work together. Translation was part of a Protestant programme of nation-building and spreading the word for the common good, but it was also the means through which the literature of antiquity and of modern Europe was communicated to the public at large. Erasmus’ Paraphrases, Grimald's Cicero, and Hoby's Courtier are discussed in these two contexts. Translation points towards the Renaissance, as an insular purism based on Protestant fears of contamination and adulteration was superseded by a hospitality towards the foreign. The chapter ends by arguing that by the 1580s it is Protestant Bible translation that it is accused by Catholics of being literary.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Jan Siegemund

AbstractLibel played an important and extraordinary role in early modern conflict culture. The article discusses their functions and the way they were assessed in court. The case study illustrates argumentative spaces and different levels of normative references in libel trials in 16th century electoral Saxony. In 1569, Andreas Langener – in consequence of a long stagnating private conflict – posted several libels against the nobleman Tham Pflugk in different public places in the city of Dresden. Consequently, he was arrested and charged with ‘libelling’. Depending on the reference to conflicting social and legal norms, he had therefore been either threatened with corporal punishment including his execution, or rewarded with laudations. In this case, the act of libelling could be seen as slander, but also as a service to the community, which Langener had informed about potentially harmful transgression of norms. While the common good was the highest maxim, different and sometimes conflicting legally protected interests had to be discussed. The situational decision depended on whether the articulated charges where true and relevant for the public, on the invective language, and especially on the quality and size of the public sphere reached by the libel.


2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Nyberg ◽  
John Murray

This article connects the previously isolated literatures on corporate citizenship and corporate political activity to explain how firms construct political influence in the public sphere. The public engagement of firms as political actors is explored empirically through a discursive analysis of a public debate between the mining industry and the Australian government over a proposed tax. The findings show how the mining industry acted as a corporate citizen concerned about the common good. This, in turn, legitimized corporate political activity, which undermined deliberation about the common good. The findings explain how the public sphere is refeudalized through corporate manipulation of deliberative processes via what we term corporate citizenspeak—simultaneously speaking as corporate citizens and for individual citizens. Corporate citizenspeak illustrates the duplicitous engagement of firms as political actors, claiming political legitimacy while subverting deliberative norms. This contributes to the theoretical development of corporations as political actors by explaining how corporate interests are aggregated to represent the common good and how corporate political activity is employed to dominate the public sphere. This has important implications for understanding how corporations undermine democratic principles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (05) ◽  
pp. A08
Author(s):  
Jagadish Thaker ◽  
Brian Floyd

Scientists highlight that actions that address environmental protection and climate change can also help with reducing infectious disease threats. Results using data from a national sample survey in New Zealand indicate that perceptions of co-benefits of actions to address environmental protection that also protect against infectious disease outbreaks such as the coronavirus is associated with policy support and political engagement. This association was partly mediated through perceived collective efficacy. Local councils with higher level of community collective efficacy were more likely to declare climate emergency. Communication about potential co-benefits is likely to shape public engagement and enact policy change.


Author(s):  
Razvan Hoinaru

Abstract Corporate reporting is generally perceived as a type of accounting fit for purpose for the 21 century, taking into consideration not only the traditional shareholders’ needs and views but also stakeholders’. Academic literature tends to over-appreciate the non-financial nature of corporate reporting, forgetting that numbers can have their own narratives, which can be read in between the lines. It is true that numbers present certain uncertainties and an extra level of reporting can provide a better interpretation, in a complementary or continuous manner. The present research looks at the current European Union binding legislation and academic and professional judgements towards it. The ultimate questions to be answered is if corporate reporting is improved information? and whose needs are really served: shareholders, the traditional users of accounts, or stakeholders, always hidden, but intuitively taken into account. Findings of the research show that public good is largely perceived as the duty of private interest, as regulated by the public authorities. This mainly happens as shareholders and whoever puts money at risk still are the primarily user group, but the context and consequences of reporting are wider than before. The approach taken by this paper was first of all to discover inside outs of corporate reporting and secondly to look how industry self-regulators interact with public authorities, for the common good. The added value of the present papers is represented by its policy recommendations presented as conclusions.


Author(s):  
Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong

Faith in public life can be associated with Christianity in Ghana from the days of the early Western missionaries. Christian faith perspectives on matters of public concerns however, assumed a wider scope with the practice of regular issuance of communiques to governments and the people of Ghana by the churches. Christian ministry is expected to be holistic. A holistic approach in Christian ministry is considered to lead to the holistic development of the nation for the common good and the glory of God. Church leaders subsequently, bring their faith perspectives to matters of public concerns as a ministerial mandate to be in pilgrimage with the people. The study is a reflection on how the churches’ communiques are done and the factors that make the communiques theological in the public space. It further seeks to identify the contribution of the construction of communiques to public theology in Christianity in Ghana. The study as qualitative, examines both available primary and secondary sources. Copies of communiques of some selected churches, ecumenical bodies and joint communiques by ecumenical bodies are examined to appreciate insights of communiques by the churches. The study seeks to make a contribution to the theological construction of public theologies in Ghana and African Christianity. KEYWORDS: Public Theology, African Christianity, Communique, Common Good


Author(s):  
Jacob Jensen

This article revisits the origins of neoliberalism, arguing that it arose in the socialist calculation debates in the 1920s and 1930s. In these debates, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek contested socialist conceptions of the public interest, claiming that the market’s price mechanism was far better able to represent the many diffe-rent preferences that a modern mass society consists of. The market, they stressed, was far more efficient at coordinating the economy than state planners who would never be able to calculate or aggregate the necessary data on people’s preferences, which was required to direct markets. This contestation of the common good, the article argues, has been a mainstay throughout neoliberalism’s intellectual history, serving as the revolving point of post-war analyses of government failure.


Author(s):  
Charles Dorn

This chapter examines Bowdoin College, which was supported by district elites who worked to erect a regional center of higher learning to which they could send their sons rather than incur the cost of dispatching them south to other colleges. On the morning of Bowdoin's opening, appointed president Joseph McKeen pronounced the college's primary mission: “That the inhabitants of this district may have their own sons to fill the liberal professions among them, and particularly to instruct them in the principles and practice of our holy religion, is doubtless the object of this institution.” This conception of higher education's function in American society drew heavily on a social ethos of civic-mindedness that assigned priority to social responsibility over individuals' self indulgence. Characterized by the practice of civic virtue and a commitment to the public good, civic-mindedness provided social institutions, including those dedicated to higher learning, a source from which to derive their central aims.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Pearson

AbstractThe nature of a public theology is to concern itself with the common good and the flourishing of all. The subject of climate change is to the forefront of the public agenda. Now and then the level of concern can slip down the opinion polls and it does attract a concerted degree of scepticism. It is nevertheless an issue that can allow us to consider the purpose and practice of a public theology. This article sets out to draw upon the insights of others who have contributed to this issue of the International Journal of Public Theology. It also sets out to place this work inside other discussions on what is a public theology and its intersection with an ecotheology.


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