Browsing by Subject "Labor unions"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Contestation and collectivies: protecting labor organizing rights in the global economy.
    (2008-06) Kang, Susan Lee
    This dissertation argues that despite the near universal levels of state ratification of treaties protecting international labor organizing rights, states do not necessary comply with these rights under the current period of economic globalization. This is because the foundational conditions of these norms--specific to the political, ethical and economic concerns of the post-war liberal order--have changed as increased economic competition, financial and trade flows have created new material and political priorities for states. However, the human rights aspects of labor organizing rights have provided useful opportunities for labor unions to promote these norms within international institutions. International institutions are empowered by law to then make recommendations to states regarding states' compliance with these labor rights norms. I investigate this interaction between states, labor unions, and international institutions in their contestations over labor organizing rights. I call this process norm contestation, as the actors involved participate in a process of contestation regarding a state's obligations to protect labor organizing rights, resulting from the softer legalization of these norms in international law. I argue that both interest and identity-based factors can lead to greater compliance, despite these changes in state incentives. Compliance is more likely to occur when three factors are present: recommendations from multiple international institutions, trade union and other activist networks, and a state's international identity or reputation ambitions. I investigate this argument through historical comparative case research on the recommendations by international institutions on labor organizing rights laws in South Korea, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
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    Essays in Labor Economics
    (2008-08) Preugschat, Edgar
    The first essay investigates what role the interaction of firm turnover on the one hand and costly union organizing on the other might play in explaining the wide variation of unionization outcomes in the US both across sectors and states as well as over time. The paper develops a model that combines an entry-exit framework of monopolistically competing firms with costly union organizing. The model is analyzed both for the case of an "efficiently" bargaining and a wage-setting union. Firm turnover is a crucial determinant of the unionization rate in the US because entering firms are typically born as non-union and have to first be organized by unions. Moreover, the union's firm share usually diminishes only through exit of unionized firms. In the model, the unionization rate also depends on the equilibrium interaction of firm entry with the union's organizing decision: Higher union organizing deters firm entry, and higher entry lowers the incentives for organizing. The results show that the steady state unionization rate is higher if (1) firm entry costs are higher, (2) exit rates are lower, and (3) organizing costs are lower. Further, the transition dynamics of the model support two explanations of the long-term union decline in the US: First, an increase in the cost of organizing, and secondly, deregulation understood as a decrease in the cost of firm entry. The second essay analyzes investment in specific, non-substitutable skills under demand uncertainty as a channel of labor market mismatch that doesn't rely on a matching function. Education in specific skills such as a college program is an investment with delay. When deciding about what skill to invest in the worker has to predict the demand prevailing at the time of degree. A model with exogenous demand and exogenous wages is constructed that features labor market rationing due to demand uncertainty, the investment lag, and the assumption of non-substitutability between skills. Both an individual choice problem and an equilibrium version with endogenous entry into education types are studied. The results indicate that longer duration of degree programs as well as lower demand persistence increases labor market mismatch.
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    Innovative Methods for Using Census Data to Study Poverty, Labor Markets, and Policy
    (2017-09) Pacas Viscarra, Jose
    This dissertation studies poverty, labor markets, and policy. Integral to this effort are innovative methods for using Census data to study these topics. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter studies year-to-year poverty transitions in the United States. The second chapter measures the extent to which individuals’ union membership status affects the levels of taxes they pay and the cost of public benefits they receive. The third chapter analyzes how the electronic employment verification system, known as E-Verify, affects the labor market outcomes of unauthorized immigrants.
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    Interview with Gladys McKenzie
    (University of Minnesota, 1995-10-11) McKenzie, Gladys; Chambers, Clarke A.
    Clarke A. Chambers interviews Gladys McKenzie, civil servant in admissions and chief organizer for AFSCME.
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    Towards a Queerer Labor Movement: the politics and potential of LGBT-labor coalitionstitle
    (2013-07) Tiffe, Raechel
    Towards a Queerer Labor Movement: The Politics and Potential of LGBT-Labor Coalition examines the relationship between the contemporary US labor movement and LGBT workers. Through an investigation of the ways in which minoritized subjects resist injustice in our contemporary neoliberal climate, I provide a new theory social movement building. Using a combination of media analysis, ethnography, and participatory action research, I argue that the union movement is an ideal place from which to struggle for LGBT justice--through and alongside the struggle for racial and economic justice. Further, given the weakened state of organized labor in the US, I contend that labor's explicit inclusion of and attention to LGBT workers will also strengthen the union movement. In many ways, the labor movement is already doing this important work, and LGBT and labor communities are benefitting from the shift toward what some scholars and activists describe as social movement unionism. Rather than approaching oppression and discrimination through a single-issue lens, union members and leaders have developed campaigns, trainings, and strategies that acknowledge how the struggles faced by LGBT workers are connected to the struggles faced by the working-class more generally. More than just suggesting that these issues are interrelated, the coalitions I discuss have worked to point out that these positionalities are not mutually exclusive--unlike the mainstream gay rights movement, LGBT-union efforts center the fact that not all LGBT people are wealthy and white. However, there are still ways in which some facets of organized labor fail as a vehicle for social change, and through this critique, I argue that a truly liberatory social movement unionism could be possible with the guidance of radical militancy and critical queer politics.