Occupying the Picket Line: Labor and Occupy in South Central Indiana

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-103
Author(s):  
Joseph Varga
Keyword(s):  
Labor Relations ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Mutual Benefit ◽  
South Central ◽  
Working People ◽  
Labor Relationship ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the relationship between a striking labor union and a local Occupy group in South Central Indiana in fall, 2011. It looks at areas of cooperation, tension, and coordination between the two groups within the context of Occupy/organized labor relations during the same period in other locations in the United States. The article examines attitudes of union members and Occupy participants regarding each other, unions, working people, class, labor law, strikes, and direct action. This work examines areas of agreement and mutual benefit between the striking union and the Occupy group, while also discussing the major areas of tension in the specific case in Southern Indiana and in other instances where Occupy groups and labor organizations came into contact. The article concludes with a discussion of major difficulties in the Occupy/labor relationship, and avenues of potential cooperation.

Organized Labor and the Problem of “Smokers’ Rights”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Wood
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
National Labor Relations Board ◽  
Smoking Restrictions ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Roll Back

This chapter examines the relationship of the labor movement to the decline of smokers' work cultures from the 1970s to the 1990s. As newspaper articles, letters to lobbyists, and published National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions illustrate, the demise of smoking at work often intersected with the efforts of many employers to roll back the power of organized labor. Employers sometimes used no-smoking rules to discipline workers, committeemen, and union organizers for unwanted efforts to shape managerial policy making. Unions often fought for working-class smokers and their vanishing privileges, as the increasing marginalization of smoking and smokers seemed to portend the overall demise of labor's power in the late twentieth century. The NLRB discovered in numerous cases brought by workers and unions that employers tried to sidestep collective bargaining by abruptly creating new no-smoking rules and using smoking restrictions to harass union supporters.

Permanent Replacements and the End of Labor's “Only True Weapon”

2008 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Logan
Keyword(s):  
Labor Relations ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
National Labor Relations Act ◽  
The Past ◽  
Permanent Replacement ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article analyzes the origins and impact of one of the most powerful antiunion weapons used by American employers during the past four decades: the right to use and threaten to use permanent replacement workers during economic strikes. It examines the policy debate over replacements in the 1930s and 1940s, the increasing use of permanent replacements in the 1970s and 1980s, the growth of a powerful and sophisticated “strike management industry,” and the unsuccessful efforts of organized labor and its political allies to amend the National Labor Relations Act to outlaw permanent replacements. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between the “striker replacement doctrine” and declining strike levels in the postwar decades.

The 1946 Railroad Strike: Harry Truman and the Evolution of Presidential Power

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Bill Wiese
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
American President ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
States Government ◽  
Harry Truman ◽  
The Relationship

The author looks back at the dramatic events that gripped the nation in the spring of 1946 when the country’s two most powerful railroad unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, declared a strike and, within hours, 250,000 members had walked off their jobs. Reaction to the strike on the part of President Harry Truman was swift and dramatic. While never granted, his request to Congress for emergency executive power to draft the striking workers into the army remains to this day the single most radical proposal ever publicly made by any American President in relation to a lawfully organized labor action. The outrage of the Congress to the strike resulted in the passage of the Hartley Act in 1947, a harsh anti-labor legislation that redefined the relationship between labor and the United States government and whose effects reverberate to this day. Sixty three years after its passage, it remains the law of the land.

The Japanese Labor Movement, 1912–1919: Suzuki Bunji and the Yūaikai

1970 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-579
Author(s):  
Stephen S. Large
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Labor Organization ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Institutional Foundations ◽  
At Home

AbstractsThe Yuaikai (Friendly Society) was the only large, national labor organization in 1912–1919 Japan. Its founder, Suzuky Bunji, an intellectual and Christian humanist, believed that cooperation between labor and management was the key to developing the Yuaikai into a true labor union movement in a day when organized labor was held in suspicion. Accordingly, Suzuki organized the Yuaikai workers into potential unions and tried to persuade business and government to accept a moderate union movement. Suzuki's gradualist tactice resulted in expansion of the Yuaikai. By 1917, after two trips to the United States, Suzuki had become the symbol of Japanese organized labor at home and abroad. But Suzuki's moderate approach to reform was jolted by repression of the Yuaikai in 1917–1918 by business and government and his moderate leadership in the Yuaikai was challenged by militant workers who resented intellectual domination of their movement and by radical university graduates who sought to turn the Yuaikai into a revolutionary organization. These two groups conspired to turn the Yuaikai into the relatively militant Sodomei (General Federation) in 1919 and to reduce Suzuki's power in the movement but their revalry for power greatly undermined the capacity of the Sodomei to build further on the institutional foundations laid for organized labor by Suzuki Bunji.

A Brief Ascendency: American Labor After 1945

The Forum ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Salvatore
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Working People ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
American Working Class ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
American Labor

In 1945, American labor unions optimistically expected considerable growth in the coming decades. The New Deal policies continued their influence, and organized labor achieved its highest density rating (35 percent) ever recorded in the United States. By the mid-1950s, however, that figure began to decline, slowly at first and then, after 1970, swiftly. At the close of 2011, it had fallen to 11.8 percent. The cause of this reduction was not simply employer opposition, although that did occur. Rather, the American working class itself underwent a political and sociological sea change, propelled by southern migration of whites and blacks into the industrial North, sharp changes in political attitudes during and after the 1960s, and the economic transformation of the American and global economy that began in the 1970s. Some of these changes were beyond the scope of organized labor’s ability to alter; regarding others, labor proved to be slow, even hesitant, in its response. One consequence was the resurgence of a sharply conservative political vision among American working people that had a powerful impact on national elections and the policy choices followed.

Labor Union Strength and the Equality of Political Representation

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 1075-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Flavin
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
American Society

Amid growing evidence of ‘unequal democracy’ in the United States, labor unions can play a potentially important role by ensuring that low-income citizens’ opinions receive more equal consideration when elected officials make policy decisions. To investigate this possibility, this article evaluates the relationship between labor union strength and representational equality across states and finds evidence that states with higher levels of union membership weigh citizens’ opinions more equally in the policy-making process. In contrast, there is no relationship between the volume of labor union contributions to political campaigns in a state and the equality of its political representation. These findings suggest that labor unions promote greater political equality primarily by mobilizing their working-class members to political action and, more broadly, underscore the important role that organized labor continues to play in shaping the distribution of political power across American society.

China and the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg A. Brazinsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Mutual Benefit ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, America’s relationship with China ran the gamut from friendship and alliance to enmity and competition. Americans have long believed in China’s potential to become an important global actor, primarily in ways that would benefit the United States. The Chinese have at times embraced, at times rejected, and at times adapted to the US agenda. While there have been some consistent themes in this relationship, Sino-American interactions unquestionably increased their breadth in the 20th century. Trade with China grew from its modest beginnings in the 19th and early 20th centuries into a critical part of the global economy by the 21st century. While Americans have often perceived China as a country that offered significant opportunities for mutual benefit, China has also been seen as a threat and rival. During the Cold War, the two competed vigorously for influence in Asia and Africa. Today we see echoes of this same competition as China continues to grow economically while expanding its influence abroad. The history of Sino-American relations illustrates a complex dichotomy of cooperation and competition; this defines the relationship today and has widespread ramifications for global politics.

Collective Bargaining and Workforce Protections in Sports

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas M. Ohanesian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Professional Sports ◽  
The United States ◽  
Collective Bargaining Agreement ◽  
Employee Relationship ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses collective bargaining and workforce protections available in professional sports. Broadly speaking, collective bargaining in the United States is a workplace arrangement where employees opt to negotiate as a group with their employer through a labor union. The two parties typically negotiate an agreement, commonly called a collective bargaining agreement, that codifies for the length of the contract the rights and responsibilities of each side. Conversely, the term “workforce protections” injects the government into the employer-employee relationship. Federal and state authorities pass laws that regulate the relationship between employers and employees in the workplace. As this chapter explains, these dynamics play out in both traditional and unique ways in U.S. professional sports.

Union Responses to Workforce Feminization in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Large Female ◽  
National Labor Relations Board ◽  
Union Representation ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter examines how labor unions responded to workforce feminization that began in the 1970s. It first places the relationship of women to unions in historical perspective before analyzing empirical data on inter-union variations in the extent of women's representation in union membership and leadership in the late twentieth century, as well as variations in the extent and nature of attention to “women's issues” on the part of unions. It then explores the dynamics of union organizing in the 1980s, showing that workplaces with large female majorities were the most readily organized in that period—as measured by the probability of winning National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union representation elections. It also considers the growing commitment of some unions in the 1970s and 1980s to gender equality issues and to incorporating women into positions of leadership. Finally, it discusses the innovative gender politics that has emerged in unions least constrained by the forces of deunionization or patriarchal traditions.

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