White Workers and the American Civil War

From the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 until the Confederacy surrendered in the spring of 1865, workers—North and South—labored long hours under often trying conditions at wages that rarely kept pace with wartime inflation. Though many workers initially voiced skepticism of plans for sundering the nation, once Southern states seceded most workers rallied round their rival flags and pledged to support their respective war efforts. The growing demand for war material opened employment opportunities for women and men, girls and boys, across the Union and Confederacy. Yet workers were not always satisfied with a job and appeals to back the boys in blue and gray without question. They often resisted changes pressed on them in the workplace—new technology, military discipline, unskilled newcomers—as well as wages that always lagged behind rising prices. Protests and strikes began in 1861 and increased in number and intensity from 1863 to the war’s conclusion. Labor unions, in decline since the depression of 1857, sprung back to life, especially in the war’s later years. Employers sometimes countered their employees’ increasing organization and resistance with industry associations that tried to break strikes and blacklist those who walked off their jobs. While worker discontent and resentment of “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” were common across the sectional divide, Northern workers exercised greater coordination of their resistance through citywide trade assemblies, national trade unions, traveling organizers, and labor newspapers. Southern workers tended to fight their labor battles in isolation from shop to shop and town to town, so they rarely built a broader labor movement that could survive the hardships of the postwar era.

Does market segmentation hinder interregional CO2 flow in China? — Evidence from China’s interprovincial MRIO table

China is the key player in the globalization era and is eliminating its intra-national trade barrier. This process will affect interprovincial CO2 flows. This study recalculates interprovincial CO2 flows in China by using the latest MRIO table and applies a gravity model to assess how market segmentation affects interprovincial CO2 flows. Results show that the total volume of interprovincial embodied CO2 flow did not increase excessively from 2007 to 2012, but the pattern of embodied CO2 flow had changed a lot. Market segmentation significantly decreased the interprovincial embodied CO2 flows in China and within its sub-regions. At interregional level, market segmentation’s negative effect was significant between Central and Western China. Other variables such as geographical distance showed a significant negative impact on interprovincial embodied CO2 flow in China. On the basis of our results, we raise some relevant policies to deal with the environmental inequality caused by the decrease in market segmentation.

The Obligation to Use Bahasa Indonesia in National Trade: A Juridical Review

Language is one of the tools and also a communication system both orally and in writing that is used by certain people in certain countries or regions. Language is a very important essence and a very basic aspect. Therefore, every human being in various activities and life is always closely related to it. This includes trading. Considering that no research discusses the use of Bahasa Indonesia in national trade, especially after passing the omnibus law on job creation, so by using the normative juridical method, this study aims to identify and analyze the need for the use of Indonesian which has emerged as the national language and the ideal official language as part of the from national identity in national trade to achieve fair trade. This research uses a method that is built on a system of norms, rules of laws and regulations, principles, court decisions, agreements, and doctrines (teachings). The results of this study ultimately conclude that the use of Bahasa Indonesia in national trade is mandatory for every party, especially business actors in determining the inclusion of Indonesian on labels of goods and services that are distributed and traded domestically. The results of this study also suggest that every individual and business actor should not forget to include product information in the form of labels using Bahasa Indonesia. Because it can create a “win-win solution” for business actors and their consumers.

The Future Belongs to Globalized Societies

The concluding chapter summarizes the major findings of the book. Populism has inflicted the greatest damage to global trade and the trading system through the policies of Donald Trump and the UK Brexit vote. Trump’s populist manifesto presents globalism as the opposite of patriotism, but globalized societies increase their national welfare through trade, serving patriotic goals. In order to rebuff the populist temptation it will be necessary to improve adjustment policies, so that workers will have better chances of moving to new jobs when globalization disrupts markets. National trade policy should prevent the concentration of power in one individual’s discretion. The WTO needs to be revitalized through updating its rule book, introducing more effective safeguard measures, and finding new methods of reaching consensus. Maintaining democratic institutions will also be necessary, along with global efforts to defuse refugee crises, and national efforts to integrate and assimilate immigrants.

The Issue of Representativeness in the Lights of the Amended Trade Unions Act

The subject of the deliberations are issues regarding the representativeness and size of workplace trade union organisations after the changes introduced in the Trade Unions Act in 2018. According to the obligatory provisions, the “representativeness” of a trade union organisation is traditionally conditional on its size, but not only the employees, but also other categories of the employed are taken into account. It is, inter alia, about persons providing work under a contract of mandate or a specific work contract and sole proprietors. By expanding the full rights of coalition onto persons performing work on the basis other than employment relationship, the legislator increased the percentage limits decisive in the matter of representativeness. At present, the representative trade union organisation above the workplace level is also an organisation uniting at least 15% of all people performing gainful work under the articles of association, not fewer, however, than 10,000 persons performing gainful work. It works similarly at the workplace level. With reference to workplace trade union organisations which belong to organisations above the workplace level which meet the criteria for representativeness as specified in the Social Dialogue Council Act, at least 8% of the staff of the given employer is required. In the case of workplace trade union organisations which do not participate in such structures, the representativeness is conditional on uniting of at least 15% of persons performing gainful work for the given employer (7% and 10%, respectively, were required earlier). Determining the number of the staff, the employees and persons providing gainful work under other bases being employed for at least 6 months before the commencement of negotiations or arrangements must be included. A significant novelty is the necessity to select a joint representation of the representative organisations at the workplace level that belong to the same Trade Union Federation or National Trade Union Confederation in matters regarding collective rights and interests of the persons performing gainful work.