Dissertations / Theses: 'Labor unions – Organizing – History'

1

Wisnor, Ryan Thomas. "Workers of the Word Unite!: The Powell's Books Union Organizing Campaign, 1998-2001." PDXScholar, 2017. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4162.

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The labor movement's groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers' pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while also exploring the economic context surrounding bookselling and the labor movement at the end of the twentieth century. While the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) auspiciously announced a national campaign in 1997 to organize thousands of bookstore clerks, the only successfully unionized bookstore from this era that remains today is the Powell's Books chain in Portland, Oregon with over 400 workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 5. Local 5's successful union campaign at Powell's Books occurring between 1998 and 2000 is at the center of this study and stands out as a point of light against a dark backdrop of failed union attempts in the retail sector during the latter decades of the twentieth century. This inquiry utilizes Local 5's internal document archive and the collection of oral histories gathered by labor historians Edward Beechert and Harvey Schwartz in 2001 and 2002. My analysis of these previously unexamined records demonstrates how Powell's efforts to thwart the ILWU campaign proved a decisive failure and contributed to the polarization of a super majority of the workforce behind Local 5. Equally, my analysis illustrates how the self-organization, initiative, and unrelenting creativity of booksellers transformed a narrow union election victory to overwhelming support for the union's bargaining committee. Paramount to Local 5's contract success was the union's partnership with Portland's social justice community, which induced a social movement around Powell's Books at a time of increased political activity and unity among the nation's labor, environment, and anti-globalization activists. The bonds of solidarity and mutual aid between Local 5 and its community allies were forged during the World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 and Portland's revival of May Day in 2000. Following eleven work stoppages and fifty-three bargaining sessions, the union acquired a first contract that far exceeded any gains made by the UFCW at its unionized bookstores. The Powell's agreement included improvements to existing health and retirement benefits plus an 18 percent wage increase for employees over three years. This analysis brings to light the formation of a distinct working-class culture and consciousness among Powell's booksellers, communicated through workers' essays, artwork, strikes, and solidarity actions with the social justice community. It provides a detailed account of Local 5's creative street theater tactics and work stoppages that captured the imagination of activists and the attention of the broader community. The conflict forced the news media and community leaders to publicly choose sides in a labor dispute reminiscent of struggles not seen in Portland since the 1950s. Observers of all political walks worried that the Portland cultural and commercial intuition would collapse under the weight of the two-year labor contest. My research illustrates the tension among the city's liberal and progressive populace created by the upstart union's presence at prominent liberal civic leader Michael Powell's iconic store and how the union organized prominent liberal leaders on the side of their cause. It concludes by recognizing that Local 5's complete history remains a work in progress, but that its formation represents an indispensable Portland contribution to the revitalized national labor movement of the late 1990s.

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2

Wisnor, Ryan Thomas. "Workers of the Word Unite!| The Powell's Books Union Organizing Campaign, 1998-2001." Thesis, Portland State University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10636951.

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The labor movement’s groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers’ pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while also exploring the economic context surrounding bookselling and the labor movement at the end of the twentieth century. While the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) auspiciously announced a national campaign in 1997 to organize thousands of bookstore clerks, the only successfully unionized bookstore from this era that remains today is the Powell’s Books chain in Portland, Oregon with over 400 workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 5.

Local 5’s successful union campaign at Powell’s Books occurring between 1998 and 2000 is at the center of this study and stands out as a point of light against a dark backdrop of failed union attempts in the retail sector during the latter decades of the twentieth century. This inquiry utilizes Local 5’s internal document archive and the collection of oral histories gathered by labor historians Edward Beechert and Harvey Schwartz in 2001 and 2002. My analysis of these previously unexamined records demonstrates how Powell’s efforts to thwart the ILWU campaign proved a decisive failure and contributed to the polarization of a super majority of the workforce behind Local 5. Equally, my analysis illustrates how the self-organization, initiative, and unrelenting creativity of booksellers transformed a narrow union election victory to overwhelming support for the union’s bargaining committee. Paramount to Local 5’s contract success was the union’s partnership with Portland’s social justice community, which induced a social movement around Powell’s Books at a time of increased political activity and unity among the nation’s labor, environment, and anti-globalization activists. The bonds of solidarity and mutual aid between Local 5 and its community allies were forged during the World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 and Portland’s revival of May Day in 2000. Following eleven work stoppages and fifty-three bargaining sessions, the union acquired a first contract that far exceeded any gains made by the UFCW at its unionized bookstores. The Powell’s agreement included improvements to existing health and retirement benefits plus an 18 percent wage increase for employees over three years.

This analysis brings to light the formation of a distinct working-class culture and consciousness among Powell’s booksellers, communicated through workers’ essays, artwork, strikes, and solidarity actions with the social justice community. It provides a detailed account of Local 5’s creative street theater tactics and work stoppages that captured the imagination of activists and the attention of the broader community. The conflict forced the news media and community leaders to publicly choose sides in a labor dispute reminiscent of struggles not seen in Portland since the 1950s. Observers of all political walks worried that the Portland cultural and commercial intuition would collapse under the weight of the two-year labor contest. My research illustrates the tension among the city’s liberal and progressive populace created by the upstart union’s presence at prominent liberal civic leader Michael Powell’s iconic store and how the union organized prominent liberal leaders on the side of their cause. It concludes by recognizing that Local 5’s complete history remains a work in progress, but that its formation represents an indispensable Portland contribution to the revitalized national labor movement of the late 1990s.

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3

Wells, Jennifer. "The Black Freedom Struggle and Civil Rights Labor Organizing in the Piedmont and Eastern North Carolina Tobacco Industry." Scholar Commons, 2013. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4790.

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This thesis examines labor organizing in the U.S. South, specifically the Piedmont and eastern regions of North Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. It aims to uncover an often overlooked local history of civil rights labor organizing which challenged the southern status quo before America's 'mainstream' civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. This study argues that through labor organizing, African American tobacco workers challenged the class, gender, and race hierarchy of North Carolina's very profitable tobacco industry during the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the historiography of black working class protest, and the ever-expanding field of local civil rights histories and the long civil rights movement.

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4

Griffin, Lara. "The Chicago Women's Liberation Union: White Socialist Feminism and Women's Health Organizing in the 1970s." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1438529943.

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5

Sloan, Michael Andrew. "A Misguided Quest for Legitimacy: The Community Relations Department of the Southern Organizing Committee of the CIO During Operation Dixie, 1946-1953." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2006. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/history_theses/7.

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This thesis is a study of the Community Relations Department of the Southern Organizing Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations during the CIO’s Southern Organizing Drive, often referred to as “Operation Dixie.” The Community Relations Department was primarily interested in improving relations between organized labor and organized religion, in the hopes that improved church-labor relations would produce a situation more conducive to labor organizing, and reduce attacks on the CIO from religious leaders. This thesis examines the methods utilized by the CRD to achieve this end, and presents an analysis both of their efficacy and of their implementation. Specific programs that are explored are the CRD’s compilation, and publication, of various religiously themed pamphlets, the formation of Religion and Labor Fellowship groups, and the CRD’s relations with various anti-labor newspapers that made use of religious arguments to attack the CIO and Operation Dixie.

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6

Markowitz, Linda Jill. "Participatory democracy in union organizing: The influence of authority structures on workers' sentiments and actions." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187431.

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Labor unions began creating new organizing strategies in the nineteen-eighties with the hope of increasing membership levels. This dissertation focuses on two such strategies: the "comprehensive campaign" utilized by the International Grocery Workers' Union (IGWU) and the "blitz" developed by the United States Clothing Workers' Union (USCWU). These strategies differ in one fundamental way; the amount of participation they elicit from the workforce being organized. I am interested in how different levels of participation influence workers' sentiments and actions regarding the union. The IGWU's "comprehensive campaign" is a top-down approach. Union officials collect unsavory information about the company in hopes of exchanging this information for union recognition. Workers' role in the campaign is reduced to signing union cards. The USCWU's "blitz" follows a grass-roots approach. With this strategy, union officials train workers to organize their fellow employees. An active worker contingency, then, helps to mobilize the workforce to vote union. Principles from participatory democracy suggest that when an authority structure incorporates participation, individuals feel more satisfied and committed to the organization. The act of participation also affects people behaviorally; participation teaches individuals how to be active. In order to analyze how the different campaign authority structures influenced workers, I interviewed two groups of employees; thirty of whom experienced the comprehensive campaign and twenty of whom participated in the blitz. Both organizing campaigns were successful and resulted in a union contract. I asked employees about their feelings towards the campaigns and their participation in the union after the campaigns ended. I found that workers from the "comprehensive campaign" perceived the union as a business and this conception of the union discouraged activism and left employees ultimately dissatisfied. Workers from the blitz, however, developed a "union as workers" framework. This framework motivated employees to be active after the organizing campaign and gave workers a sense of fulfillment. The findings from this study suggest that organizing strategies involve more than the ability of unions to increase the number of their rank-and-file. They are a crucial method in which workers learn to become active agents within the union.

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7

Livingston, Louis B. "Theodore Roosevelt on Labor Unions: A New Perspective." PDXScholar, 2010. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3077.

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Historical studies of Theodore Roosevelt's views about labor and labor unions are in conflict. This was also true of contemporary disagreements about the meaning of his labor rhetoric and actions. The uncertainties revolve around whether or not he was sincere in his support of working people and labor unions, whether his words and actions were political only or were based on a philosophical foundation, and why he did not propose comprehensive labor policies. Roosevelt historiography has addressed these questions without considering his stated admiration for Octave Thanet's writings about "labor problems." Octave Thanet was the pseudonym of Alice French, a popular fiction writer during Roosevelt's adult years. Roosevelt on several occasions praised her knowledge of factory conditions and discussions of labor problems, and he invited her to the White House. The thesis analyzes her labor stories, Roosevelt's comments about her labor writings, and their relevance to how he responded to the growth and tactics of organized labor. It also addresses the influence on Roosevelt of contemporary writing on labor unions by John Hay, Henry George, and Herbert Croly, as well as his relationship with labor leader Samuel Gompers. The thesis concludes that Roosevelt was sincere about improving the social and industrial conditions of workers, primarily through government action. It further concludes that his support of labor unions in principle was genuine, but was contingent on organized labor's repudiation of violence and attempts to justify violence; and that he opposed union boycotts and mandatory union membership as inimical to his vision of a classless society. The thesis additionally considers the extent to which Roosevelt's views were embodied in national labor legislation after his death.

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8

Choi, Inyi. "Organizing negotiation and resistance : the role of Korean union federations as institutional mediators /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC IP addresses, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3161969.

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9

Webster, Barbara Grace. ""Fighting in the grand cause" a history of the trade union movement in Rockhampton, 1907-1957 /." Access full text, 1999. http://elvis.cqu.edu.au/thesis/adt-QCQU/public/adt-QCQU20020715.151239.

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Thesis (Ph.D) -- Central Queensland University, 1999.
Submitted as fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Central Queensland University, August 1999". Bibliography: leaves 425-452. Also available via the World Wide Web.

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10

Sloan, Michael. "A misguided quest for legitimacy the Community Relations Department of the Southern Organizing Committee of the CIO During Operation Dixie, 1946-1953 /." unrestricted, 2006. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04252006-222258/.

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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006.
Title from title screen. Michelle Brattain, committee chair; Charles Steffen, committee member. Electronic text (110 p.) ; digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed May 18, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-110).

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11

Gay, Morgan K. "Organized labour and the Quebec state, neo-corporatism, nationalism and trade union consensus, 1988-1998." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ48574.pdf.

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12

KADLECK, COLLEEN. "POLICE UNIONS: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin997187643.

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13

Myconos, George 1959. "The globalization(s) of organized labour, 1860-2003." Monash University, School of Political and Social Inquiry, 2003. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/9385.

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14

Sucharczuk, Gregory. "A free trade union in a totalitarian society : towards understanding the Solidarity movement in Poland, August, 1980-December, 1981." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28926.

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This thesis attempts to contribute to our understanding of the emergence and the growth of the Solidarity Movement in Poland in the period of August 1980-December 1981. It is argued that Solidarity can be seen as a "hybrid" movement which combined "traditional" economic and syndicalist demands and "new" concerns with democratization of political life. A number of conducive factors, such as the fluidity and homogeneity of the Polish stratification system, the existence of a young, ambitious and alienated working class, concentrated in large enterprises and the perception of the social order in dichotomous terms, contributed to the emergence of an inter-class alliance of urban segments of Polish society against the political elite, which was widely perceived as being responsible for the acute economic, political and moral crisis of the late seventies. Also, the structure of Solidarity appears to contribute to its organizational and political success. It is maintained that the massive and rapid mobilization involved the activation of pre-existing informal ties among Polish workers. In this context, we also stress the importance of the charismatic leadership of Solidarity, especially that of Lech Walesa. Finally, we partly attribute the success of our movement to the failure of the weak, hesitant and internally divided political elite to contain the Solidarity movement and to respond to the crisis facing the nation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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15

DiPardo, Elizabeth Marie. ""A Rite of September: " Rhode Island Teachers' Unions & the Right to Strike." Thesis, Boston College, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/404.

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Thesis advisor: Mark Gelfand
Labor in the United States has been commonly associated with images of industrialism, factories, and skilled craftsmen. This narrow vision of labor ignores the millions of Americans employed by the federal, state, and local governments. As early national labor law failed to define the rights of government employees, each state was forced to create their own public labor law through judicial rulings and state legislation. This study is framed around the struggles of Rhode Island public employees, specifically public school teachers, to obtain the right to organize and employ labor's greatest weapon, the strike. An in-depth examination of the 1975 Woonsocket Teachers' Guild strike incorporating the experiences of union officers, labor lawyers, and other participants provides a concrete example of the difficulties encountered by government employees against the courts, legislature, and public opinion
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2005
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: History
Discipline: College Honors Program

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Redmond, Sandra P. "The emergence of the Nova Scotia Nurses' Union, 1968-1985." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0018/MQ49431.pdf.

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17

Coplen, Amy Katherine Rose. ""Poverty Wages Are Not Fresh, Local, or Sustainable": Building Worker Power by Organizing Around (Re)production in Portland's "Sustainable" Food Industry." PDXScholar, 2019. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5092.

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Although conscious consumers flock to sustainability-branded restaurants and grocery stores to "vote with their forks" for environmental sustainability and vibrant local economies, workers in these industries face the same poverty wages, discrimination, and exploitative labor practices that plague the food service and retail industries at large. Despite rapid growth and labor degradation, low-wage workers in these industries have largely been left behind by the mainstream labor movement and the alternative food movement. Whereas in the past, progressive social movements worked to alter power relations between labor and capital through collective action, today's mainstream labor movement focuses on servicing its dwindling membership and winning minimum wage increases through local ballot box measures and legislation. For its part, the alternative food movement focuses narrowly on achieving environmental sustainability through market-based mechanisms and consumption politics that do not adequately attend to the struggles of food chain workers. Through research conducted in partnership with the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) and the Industrial Workers of the World, I investigate three empirical research questions: 1) How do sustainability-branded institutions deploy values-based discourse and how does this relate to labor practices?, 2) How do worker-organizers understand and expose the contradictions of sustainability branding?, and 3) How do worker-organizers engage with social reproduction as a terrain of political struggle, and to what ends? I attend to these questions through activist scholarship aimed at informing my broad theoretical question: How might social reproduction "as discourse and practice" be marshaled to generate more inclusive organizing strategies, forge more just conceptions of sustainability, and build worker power? Drawing on over two years of ethnographic research, content analysis, and interviews with 48 worker-organizers involved in four labor organizing campaigns, I examine their efforts to build worker power through mutual aid programs, political education, and coalition politics. My analysis reveals that these strategies embody an inclusionary intersectional politics that prioritizes the needs of women, parents, and people of color, but that worker-organizers also face significant challenges. I demonstrate that organizing against neoliberal policies and practices requires moving beyond consumption politics and single-issue campaigns and deploying what I term (re)production politics which are fundamentally about how work is organized and how we care for society and the planet. Politicizing the labor, locations, and practices of social reproduction as landscapes of struggle, I conclude, offers an opportunity to build a broad class consciousness across interconnected issues and envision more liberatory ways of organizing social reproduction based on solidarity, mutuality, and interdependence.

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Hild, Matthew George. "Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists : farmer-labor insurgency in the late-nineteenth-century South." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/25691.

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Blissett, Edward. "Inside the unions : a comparative analysis of policy-making in Australian and British printing and telecommunication trade unions." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2013. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/45549/.

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This thesis consists of a comparative analysis of policy making in Australian and British telecommunications and printing trade unions. It tests empirically the validity of different models of union policy making and behaviour, whilst also assessing the strength of the research hypothesis, that informal micro-political influences inside unions - such as personal friendships, enmities and loyalties - affect union policy making to a greater extent than is acknowledged in the literature. In order to address the subject the following research questions were posed: How, and why, do unions adopt specific policies? What factors explain the different behaviour of similar unions, when faced with comparable policy choices? To ensure that policies of strategic significance were focused upon, three key areas were selected for study: recruitment, amalgamations and union efforts to influence the labour process. As a former senior union officer I realised that trade unions were often loathe to publically disclose those factors which informed their policy making processes. For this reason a qualitative, interview rich, methodology was adopted, which involved a longitudinal study, in which over 220 officers and staff, of the relevant unions were rviewed. The research revealed that policy making in all the featured unions was a rich and complex process, in which occupational, geographical, ideological and personality based factional groups all had a significant influence on policy makers, along with the institutional and political context within which the unions operated. The empirical evidence also showed that micro-political factors, in particular enmities and personal loyalties, along with the individual beliefs, values and ideologies of policy makers, profoundly influenced their policy choices. Finally the research corroborated the assertion that strategic policy choices, made by trade unions, have a significant affect on their success or failure as organisations.

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20

Klee, Marcus. "Between the scylla and charybdis of anarchy and despotism, the state, capital, and the working class in the Great Depression, Toronto, 1929-1940." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ35966.pdf.

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21

Smet, Catherine. "Secularization and syndicalization : the rise of professional nursing in France, 1870-1914 /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9728767.

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22

Rovida, Flavio. "The effect of unions on investment and innovation decisions theory and empirical evidence." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1995. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3667/.

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The aim of this thesis is to analyse the effect of unions on investment and innovation decisions, both at the theoretical and the empirical level. The theoretical analysis deals with the choice of adoption of a new technology in the presence of an oligopolistic product market. A duopoly is considered for the ease of exposition. Unions are assumed to affect innovation decisions only via wage bargaining. The results show that environments where unions have a relatively strong (and not very spread) bargaining power tend to harm, ceteris paribus, innovation. If, instead, there is enough spread between unions in terms of their bargaining power, so that only one firm innovates, this firm is, ceteris paribus, the one facing the less powerful union. A firm may be the only one to innovate when facing the more powerful union, if this union is relatively more concerned with employment than the "rival". In general, environments where unions prize the defense of employment above pay rises tend to be more conducive to innovation. These results show the effectiveness of the "rent-seeking" mechanism outlined by Grout. Finally, there are cases where no firm would innovate should the labour market be competitive (non-unionised), while one firm would adopt the new technology, ceteris paribus, when firms face unions. The main results of the analysis are robust to the consideration of collusion in the product market. The generalisation to a model in which firms choose the quantity of capital also confirms the main results. The empirical analysis is based on data from a sample of British nonagricultural quoted companies over the period 1982-89. Data on investment have been constructed from the budget data and matched with information on unionisation and indutrial relations at the company level. Panel data estimation techniques (mostly Random Effects) have been employed. The results show that union recognition has, ceteris paribus, a significantly negative effect on the companies' propensity to invest. This negative impact is robust to the consideration of product market conditions, but seems to be concentrated in the first part of the period under study (1982-85). No separate effect on investment is detected for the presence of closed shop arrangements. There is evidence that the higher the union density at the company level, the lower the investment performance, but the results show also some evidence of non-linear effects. Finally, there is some evidence that companies that have partially derecognised during the eighties have benefited in terms of investment over the short-run.

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23

Machin, Stephen. "The impact of unions on economic performance : empirical tests using British micro-data." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1988. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/106625/.

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To date, most applied econometric work analysing the effects of British trade unions has concentrated on their effect on relative wages. However, a considerable body of U.S. evidence suggests that unions significantly influence other economic variables. This thesis attempts to explore some of these issues using British data and uses econometric techniques to consider the effects of unions on productivity, profitability and the relationship between unionism and schemes which link workers' pay to performance. As the tendency in recent years has been for collective bargaining to take place at the level of the plant or Arm in Britain the study prefers to use micro-economic data and several such data sources are accessed. The main finding is that trade unions certainly exert a significant influence on the behaviour of plants and firms in Britain in the early 1980's. Unions are found to reduce productivity in larger firms but have no impact in small firms in a sample of engineering firms. Using data on large British firms the union impact on profitability is observed to be negative but more marked in situations of market power so that unions effectively re-channel excess profits from capital to labour. The union impact on the financial performance of two large cross-sections of British establishments is also found to be negative and again more marked where these plants are able to exert some degree of product market power. Finally, union presence is positively related to the incidence of share ownership and profit sharing schemes unless strong unions are present when such schemes are no more likely to be present than in non-union workplaces. These results are of considerable interest and. despite the underlying macroeconomic and political climate, union activity is observed to have important economic effects in Britain in the early 1980's.

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LaFreniere, Peter McNeel. "Social Movement Unionism: Through Teachers Unions' Mobilization in Opposition to Corporate Education Reform." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1496425457204444.

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25

Tang, Kung. "The Search for Order and Liberty : The British Police, the Suffragettes, and the Unions, 1906-1912." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1992. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279136/.

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From 1906 to 1912 the British police contended with the struggles of militant suffragettes and active unionists. In facing the disturbances associated with the suffragette movement and union mobilization, the police confronted the dual problems of maintaining the public order essential to the survival and welfare of the kingdom while at the same time assuring to individuals the liberty necessary for Britain's further progress. This dissertation studies those police activities in detail.

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Harrison, Isabel D. "State and labour in the U.S. : the Carter administration and the AFL-CIO, 1976-1980 : political strategy and the National Accord." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:61edc432-a93d-4892-9c4b-a1c90591fb8c.

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The Accord was a political exchange whereby the labour leadership participated in the wage restraint programme in return for consultative rights and specific quid pro quo policies, including countercyclical measures to offset fiscal austerity. The President subsequently sustained a policy of fiscal and monetary restraint despite the approaching election and the increasing protests of organized labour. However, in the face of strong opposition from some of Carter's senior economists, the labour leaders secured significant modifications to the second year of the pay standard. The 1980 presidential election renewed incentives for continuing cooperation when economic policy otherwise jeopardized relations.

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27

Torve, Constantin. "The Molly Maguires and the Detectives. : An analysis of the relationship between the use of undercover policingand violent labor conflict." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Historiska institutionen, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-445333.

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This paper evaluates the role of private policing in the patterns of violence that were prevalent in the mining regions of eastern Pennsylvania during the 1860s and 1870s, and which were attributed to an Irish secret society called the “Molly Maguires”. This topic has long been subject to academic and political controversy, and the use of agent provocateur tactics by the Pinkerton agency has been strongly suggested, but never conclusively proven. Drawing on existing research on secret societies, private policing, and the role of the agent provocateur, this paper combines two strands of research that have so far largely been discussed separately. The study then attempts to close the gap on the agent provocateur question by applying methods from criminological history. Through treating different sources as conflicting testimonies, as well as using GIS to provide new insights on crime patterns in the region, it analyzes the complex relationship between undercover policing and the groups under its surveillance. The results provide decisive new evidence regarding the agent provocateur question and the role of the Pinkerton agency during the Molly Maguire trials, as well as the character of the surviving evidence.

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28

Mitchell, John A. 1966. "Bolshevik Britain: An Examination of British Labor Unrest in the Wake of the Russian Revolution, 1919." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501153/.

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The conclusion of the First World War brought the resumption of a struggle of a different sort: a battle between government and labor. Throughout 1919, government and labor squared off in a struggle over hours, wages, and nationalization. The Russian Revolution introduced the danger of the bolshevik contagion into the struggle. The first to enter into this conflict with the government were the shop stewards of Belfast and Glasgow. The struggle continued with the continued threats of the Triple Alliance and the police to destroy the power of the government through industrial action. This thesis examines the British labor movement during this revolutionary year in Europe, as well as the government's response to this new danger.

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29

Hunter, Richard William. "Voices of our past: the rank and file movement in social work, 1931-1950." PDXScholar, 1999. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1602.

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During the period of the late 1920s through the late 1940s, a most remarkable event in the history of American social work emerged: the development of a vital radical trade union organizing effort known as the ''rank and file movement." Born within the growing economic crisis of the 1920s and maturing in the national economic collapse and social upheaval heralded by the Great Depression, the rank and file movement would attract the support and membership of thousands of professional social workers and uncredentialed relief workers in efforts to organize social service workers along the lines of industrial unionism. Within its relatively short life span, the rank and file movement would grow in sufficient number and influence to challenge both the prevailing definitions of social work as a profession - its form and identity and the essence of its function - its practice. It is the thesis of this study that an understanding of the rank and file movement is central to a modem understanding of our profession. The origin, development and demise of the rank and file movement reflects more than the historical curiosity of a momentary tendency in the evolution of a profession; rather, it reveals the enduring legacy of individuals, organizations and collective intellectual discourse in common struggle for the possibilities of a more just and democratic social order. And, perhaps unlike any other profession, the domain of social work is historically one uniquely born of this struggle, encompassing the self-imposed imperatives and paradoxes of morality, socially purposive service and scientific rationality. Consequently, this study seeks to inform the terms of this enduring legacy within the dynamic world of social work. It does so by: 1) locating the history of the rank and file movement within the context of an evolving profession; 2) analyzing this specific history of a profession within the context of broader social and political forces that defined both the limits and potentials of that evolution; and 3) assessing the implications of this history for social work in terms of its past, present and future.

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Key, David Stanton. "Laurel, Mississippi a historical perspective /." [Johnson City, Tenn. : East Tennessee State University], 2001. http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-1102101-144616/unrestricted/keyds112101a.pdf.

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SUZUKI, Hitoshi. "Digging for European Unity : the role played by the trade unions in the Schuman plan and the European coal and steel community from a German perspective, 1950-1955." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/10420.

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Defence date: 13 December 2007
Examining Board: Prof. Wilfried Loth (Universität Duisburg-Essen) ; Prof. Bo Stråth (EUI) ; Prof. Pascaline Winand (EUI and Monash University) ; Prof. Gérard Bossuat (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
no abstract available

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Fitzloff, Chad L. "The limits of American labor‘s influence on the cold war free labor movement: a case study of Irving Brown and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Tunisia and Algeria." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/4187.

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Master of Arts
Department of History
David A. Graff
Michael Ramsay
In 1988, Irving Brown received the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan for playing a crucial role in breaking the hold of international communism over postwar Western Europe. By doing so, he can truly be called one of the architects of Western democracy. Brown also made extraordinary efforts to fight international Communism in French North Africa during the 1950s. This paper seeks to answer the question of why these efforts in North Africa failed, and it will show the limits of American labor‘s international influence during the Cold War, in particular in French North Africa. Irving Brown successfully strengthened anti-Communist unions in Europe, and had the financial backing of the Truman Administration for those projects. However, Brown‘s efforts to build anti-Communist trade unions in Tunisia and Algeria did not have the backing of the U.S. government under the Eisenhower Administration. Instead, the AFL-CIO, with Brown as its representative, attempted to use the non-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to influence the nationalist movements of Tunisia and Algeria through their respective national unions, the Union générale tunisienne du travail (UGTT) and the Union générale des travailleurs algériens (UGTA). Disagreements within the ICFTU severely inhibited Brown‘s effectiveness and prevented him from fully realizing the AFL-CIO‘s policy goals in North Africa. Brown was overly dependent on Tunisia for his operations with the Algeria labor movement, and the ICFTU was incapable of providing adequate support to the Algerians to compete with its Communist rival, the World Federation of Trade Unions. To the extent that independent Tunisia was Western-oriented, Brown was successful in his efforts. However, in the long run, Brown failed as an architect of Western democracy, as Tunisia became a dictatorship with a socialist economy. In Algeria, the state of war forced the UGTA to turn to the Eastern bloc despite Brown‘s personal dedication to North African independence and development. Furthermore, in independence, Algeria‘s government embraced socialism and single party rule.

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Wood, Geoffrey Thomas. "Comprehending strike action: the South African experience c.1950-1990 and the theoretical implications thereof." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003107.

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Regular strike action has become a central characteristic of the South African industrial relations system. Whilst in the 1950s strikes were mostly isolated outbursts of relatively short duration, strikes in the 1980s were challenges of unprecedented duration and intensity. It is argued that despite this dramatic change, reflecting a series of discontinuities in both the political and economic arenas, strike action in South Africa does follow distinct patterns, and can be ascribed to a combination of identifiable causes. Principal causal factors include wage aspirations, past experiences and the subjective interpretation thereof, and the role of the union movement. Contingent factors include the prevailing political climate, industrial relations legislation, the amount of information opposing sides possess of their adversaries' intentions as well as spatial issues, such as the internal dynamics of individual communities. Partially as a result of South Africa's political transformation, the late 1980s and early 1990s saw further changes in the industrial relations environment. Reflecting these developments, it is argued that a new type of trade unionism has developed, "coterminous unionism" . This will have far-reaching implications for the nature of industrial conflict. However, it falls fully within the theoretical parameters outlined in this thesis. Despite significant developments in social theory in the 1980s and 1990s, there have been few attempts accordingly to update theories of strike action. One of the objectives of this thesis has been to attempt such an update. It is hoped that the constructs developed will shed light on a widely prevalent form of social conflict, assist in the analysis of future outbreaks, and enable the identification of those situations where a high propensity to engage in strike action may exist.

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Moore, Roberta Ailene 1972. "Challenging the bias: Academic women organizing for equity A case study of the Association for Women Faculty at the University of Arizona." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/278654.

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This essay focuses on the development and early activism of the Association for Women Faculty, an organization created by and for women faculty and professionals at the University of Arizona. Emphasizing the pay equity struggle engaged by AWF in the early 1980s, this work analyzes the methods used to challenge salary inequities and evaluates the overall outcome of these efforts. Salary inequity in academia has functioned as a mobilizing issue since it affects nearly all women working in higher education. This essay details how the Association for Women Faculty (AWF) at the University of Arizona challenged these inequities and the methods they used to contest institutional discrimination. Through the use of primary historical documents, salary studies, and oral histories, this essay recreates AWF's history and situates this history within the feminist economic theory of the period.

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White, Kirk. "The Development of IAM District Lodge 776 in Fort Worth, Texas, 1942-1946: A Case Study in the Growth of Organized Labor During World War II." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2205/.

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This thesis concentrates on a local union of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), District Lodge 776, of Fort Worth, Texas, during the war years. The main argument of the thesis runs along three basic lines. First, it demonstrates that the experiences of the Fort Worth Machinists clearly fit into the national labor movement during the war years. Second, it argues that the existence, survival, and strength of the union depended greatly on outside forcesan expanding national economy, a powerful national union, and a generally labor-friendly government. Third, it shows that union officers and rank-and-file members used their bases of strengththe national economy, the national IAM, and the federal governmentto build an effective local labor organization.

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Cherry, Janet. "The making of an African working class: Port Elizabeth 1925-1963." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17243.

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Bibliography: pages 231-239.
The thesis examines the 'making' of an african working class in Port Elizabeth. It offers an alternative interpretation to conventional histories which emphasize continuity both in the idea of a strong industrial working class and in a tradition of militant and effective worker organisation. At the same time, it posits the idea that there was a working-class movement which developed among Port Elizabeth's african community in the late 1940's and 1950's. Chapter 1 examines population growth in Port Elizabeth, the growth of secondary industry, and employment opportunities for africans. It is argued that limited opportunities for african employment in secondary industry affected the forms of working-class organisation that emerged. Chapter 2 examines the situation of the urban african population in the 1920's and 1930's, looking at factors which influenced its organisation and consciousness. The low wages paid to african workers were not challenged effectively in this period by the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union which had declined by the mid-1920's, or the Trades and Labour Council which did not organise african workers. However, the permanently urbanised status of the majority of the african population laid the basis for a militant community consciousness. Chapter 3 analyses attempts to organise african workers during the Second World War. It focusses on Wage Board determinations. the first african trade unions formed by the Ballingers and Max Gordon, the organisation of the Council of Non-European Trade Unions and the Trades and Labour Council, and the organisation of railway workers. It is argued that these attempts at organising african labour were largely unsuccessful in building strong industrial unions with an african leadership. Chapter 4 looks at the rise of the 'new unions' in the post-war period, when african workers were drawn into manufacturing on a large scale, and an african working-class leadership began to emerge. The response to this from the state, capital and other trade unions is examined through looking at the struggles of workers in four sectors: stevedoring, laundry, textiles and food. These sectors are contrasted with the tertiary sector where organisation of african workers was weak. Chapter 5 examines the politics of reproduction of the african working class between 1 945 and 1960. It looks at changes in the nature of the African National Congress and the Communist Party of South Africa, and at innovative strategies around issues of reproduction. The role of women's organisation and their struggle against the extension of pass laws is highlighted, and it is posited that a working class movement developed in this period. Chapter 6 analyses the application of influx control in Port Elizabeth in the 1950's, and the conflict of interests over the implementation of the labour bureau system. It examines the divisions in the african working class between migrants and non-migrants, and the response of different sections of the working class. Chapter 7 looks at the role of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. It is argued that the integration of point-of-production struggles with community and political struggles was the outcome of the position of african workers in industry combined with strong political organisation in the 'sphere of reproduction'. Changes in the structural position of african workers combined with political repression led to the collapse of this working class movement in the early 1960's.

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Ikebe, Shannon. "In Place of Liberation : Failure of Labour Politics in Britain, 1964-79." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1308072968.

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Nepgen, Arnold. "The impact of globalisation on trade unions : Cosatu’s present and future engagement in international issues." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1951.

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Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.
The effects of ‘accelerated globalisation’ can not be denied when observing modern innovations shaping human life. Its development and consequent revolutionary impact is unlike any other in modern history. The last half of the twentieth century witnessed changes in exponential terms, such as informational and technological innovations that constantly redefine the way people function. This study focuses on the effect of globalisation on trade unions, paying particular attention to the formation of liberal economic conditions, the rise of global capital flows, and the diversification of workers, working conditions and employment patterns. Globalisation has led to the formation of new social, economic, and political conditions which have made it increasingly difficult for trade unions to function in traditional ways. At the heart of this lies the fundamental opposition of capital to labour, and increasingly so under conditions of global competition. Trade unions, are organisations that represent worker interests through solidarity and strength in numbers, traditionally at the national level but increasingly they are being challenged on a global level. Thus, due to various internal and external factors, the situation many unions find themselves in is one of survival instead of growth and influence. The case study of Cosatu was chosen due to the benefit of analysing the organisation’s past success as well as present situation. Although it has not been unaffected by the problems facing unions worldwide, it has managed to achieve some notable successes in the process. The practice of social movement unionism has been highly effective in mobilising under-represented groups, and is found to still be effective in South Africa, although at a diminished scale. It is imperative for all unions to restructure the way they function so as to incorporate previously marginalised groups, to utilise technology and globalisation to their advantage, and to educate potential new entrants to the labour market.

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Güentzel, Ralph Peter. "In quest of emotional gratification and cognitive consonance : organized labour and Québec separatist nationalism, 1960-1980." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=42049.

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This thesis examines the reaction of organized labour to Quebec separatist nationalism for the period between 1960, the year of the creation of the Rassemblement pour l'independance nationale and the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, and 1980, the year of the first referendum on Quebec's constitutional status. The thesis investigates four labour organizations: the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Federation des travailleurs et travailleuses du Quebec (FTQ), the Confederation des syndicats nationaux (CSN), and the Centrale de l'enseignement du Quebec (CEQ). It shows in which ways the positions of the four centrals have been informed by their members' national identifications and the emotional and cognitive mechanisms that resulted from these identifications.

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Van, Zyl-Hermann Danelle. "White workers and South Africa's democratic transition, 1977-2011." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708951.

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41

Welch, M. Courtney. "Evolution, Not Revolution: The Effect of New Deal Legislation on Industrial Growth and Union Development in Dallas, Texas." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2010. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30524/.

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The New Deal legislation of the 1930s would threaten Dallas' peaceful industrial appearance. In fact, New Deal programs and legislation did have an effect on the city, albeit an unbalanced mixture of positive and negative outcomes characterized by frustrated workers and industrial intimidation. To summarize, the New Deal did not bring a revolution, but it did continue an evolutionary change for reform. This dissertation investigated several issues pertaining to the development of the textile industry, cement industry, and the Ford automobile factory in Dallas and its labor history before, during, and after the New Deal. New Deal legislation not only created an avenue for industrial workers to achieve better representation but also improved their working conditions. Specifically focusing on the textile, cement, and automobile industries illustrates that the development of union representation is a spectrum, with one end being the passive but successful cement industry experience and the other end being the automobile industry union efforts, which were characterized by violence and intimidation. These case studies illustrate the changing relationship between Dallas labor and the federal government as well as their local management. Challenges to the open shop movement in Dallas occurred before the creation of the New Deal, but it was New Deal legislation that encouraged union developers to recruit workers actively in Dallas. Workers' demands, New Deal industrial regulations, and union activism created a more urban, modern Dallas that would be solidified through the industrial demands for World War II.

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Visser, Wessel Pretorius. "Die geskiedenis en rol van persorgane in die politieke en ekonomiese mobilasasie van die georganiseerde arbeiderbeweging in Suid-Afrika, 1908-1924." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52202.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the course of the 20th century the press played an absolutely crucial role as a source of information, a medium of communication and propaganda, educator, critic, public watchdog and in forming and influencing opinion. In this respect the press may also be regarded as a reflection of South African society. This study investigates the role that the press played and the influence that it exercised in the political and economic mobilisation of the organised labour movement during the period 1908 to 1924. In view of the racial divisions that have prevailed in South Africa, the focus here is specifically on the white labour movement, because it was this manifestation of the organised labour force that virtually dominated the first few decades of the twentieth century. During this time the black labour movement was still to a large extent under-developed and began to emerge only around the 1920s. Organised labour flourished during the period under review. This period is characterised as one of political turbulence, as well as of large scale and serious industrial unrest, as part of the cathartic process in which the relationship between the state and its subjects in the field of labour took shape. The study adopts as its point of departure the year 1908, when the National Convention began its deliberations on the unification of South Africa, which in turn led to the official founding of the South African Labour Party in October 1909. The Labour Party operated independently until 1924, when the alliance between the National Party and the Labour Party won the election held in that year and formed the Pact coalition government. From an economic point of view there were two clear positions. On the one hand, there were the so-called establishment press organizations. These included Afrikaans-language newspapers, although - because of their ethnic commitments - they were strongly in favour of the protection of the economic position of the Afrikaner workers. On the other hand, there were anti-capitalist press organisations that wished to promote proactive steps in favour of the workers, which in tum often resulted in industrial conflict in the form of strikes. These tensions in the economic terrain spilled over into the political sphere elections, and here too the press played a central role in the often tense relationship between state and subject. In order to understand a meaningful analysis of the social role of the press, the following press organs and study materials were selected: The Star was the mouthpiece of the powerful Witwatersrand gold-mining industry. Die Burger and Ons Vaderland played a great role in the political and economic mobilisation of the Afrikaner working class whose sympathies lay with the National Party. The following labour-orientated and socialist papers reflected and interpreted the political and economic points of view of the labour movement in the period 1908 - 1924: Voice of Labour, The Worker, The Eastern Record, The Evening Chronicle, The War on War Gazette, The International, The Labour World, The Bolshevik and The Guardian. In addition, the role of a number of extremist strike newspapers In mobilising workers during the strikes of 1913, 1914 and 1922, is also investigated. The press played an important role in exposing a number of cardinal issues that dominated the discourse within the labour movement to greater public criticism and discussion. The effect of this was to raise the struggle between labour and capital for hegemony in the political and economic life of South Africa - as happened every time during election campaigns - to the level of the national political debate. Furthermore, the press, and specifically the right-wing labour and left-wing socialist press organs, also reflected the deep ideological divisions in the labour movement. In this respect, it was particularly the views of these press organs on race and the place of black people in the industrial dispensation that determined and influenced their political creeds. The mobilising power of the press was vividly illustrated by the strike papers. By propounding militant extremism these papers often succeeded in sweeping up industrial unrest among workers to the level of violence, which meant that the authorities were compelled to suppress these publications by means of martial law proclamations. It is probable that the SALP, and especially the socialist organisations, on the periphery of the political spectrum, would not have survived for long in South African politics without the communicative support of their mouthpieces.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gedurende die 20ste eeu het die pers, as bron van inligting, kommunikasie- en propagandamedium, opvoeder, kritikus, openbare waghond en meningsvormer en -beihvloeder, 'n uiters belangrike samelewingsrol vertolk. In hierdie opsig kan die pers ook as 'n weerspieeling van die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing beskou word. Hierdie studie ondersoek die rol wat die pers gespeel het en die invloed wat dit as openbare memngsvormer met betrekking tot die politieke en ekonomiese mobilisasie van die georganiseerde arbeiderbeweging gedurende die tydperk 1908 tot 1924 uitgeoefen het. Gegewe die historiese rasseverdeeldheid in Suid-Afrika, is daar spesifiek op die blanke arbeiderbeweging gekonsentreer, aangesien dit die arbeidsterrein gedurende die eerste paar dekades van die twintigste eeu feitlik oorheers het. Die swart arbeiderbeweging was in daardie stadium nog grootliks onderontwikkeld en het eers om en by die twintigerjare begin ontwaak. Die betrokke tydperk was 'n tydperk van hoogbloei VIr die georganiseerde blanke arbeiderbeweging. Dit word veral gekenmerk as 'n tydperk van politieke onstuirnigheid, asook van groot en ernstige endemiese nywerheidsonrus en konflik, as dee 1van 'n katarsis waardeur die verhouding tussen staat en onderdaan op die arbeidsterrein uitgekristalliseer het. Die vertrekpunt van die studie is 1908, toe die sittings van die Nasionale Konvensie met die oog op die unifikasie van Suid-Afrika 'n aanvang geneem het en ook aanleiding gegee het tot die amptelike stigting van die Suid-Afrikaanse Arbeidersparty in Oktober 1909. Dit strek tot 1924, toe die verkiesingsalliansie van die Nasionale Party en die Arbeidersparty die oorwinning by die stembus behaal en die Pakt-koalisieregering gevorm het. Vanuit 'n ekonomiese oogpunt gesien, was daar twee duidelike stellingnamens. Enersyds was daar die sogenaamde establishment-persorgane. Hieronder ressorteer ook Afrikaanstalige koerante, alhoewel hulle as gevolg van 'n etniese verbondenheid sterk ten gunste van die beskerming van die ekonomiese posisie van die Afrikanerwerkers was. Andersyds was daar anti-kapitalistiese persorgane wat 'n pro-aktiewe optrede ten behoewe van die werkers, wat dikwels op nywerheidskonflik in die vorm van stakings uitgeloop het wou bevorder. Hierdie gespannenheid op ekonomiese terrein het oorgespoel na die politieke sfeer van verkiesings en ook daarin het die pers, in die dikwels gespanne verhouding tussen owerheid en onderdaan, 'n sentrale rol gespeel. Ten einde 'n sinvolle ontleding van die samelewingsrol van die pers te kon doen, is die volgende persorgane as studiemateriaal geselekteer: The Star was die mondstuk van die magtige kapitalistiese, Witwatersrandse goudmynindustrie. Die Burger en Ons Vaderland het 'n groot rol in die politieke en ekonomiese mobilisasie van die Nasionaalgesinde Afrikanerwerkersklas vervul. Die volgende arbeider- en sosialistiese blaaie het die politieke en ekonomiese uitgangspunte van die arbeiderbeweging in die tydperk 1908 tot 1924 weerspieel en vertolk: Voice of Labour, The Worker, The Eastern Record, The Evening Chronicle, The War on War Gazette, The International, The Labour World, The Bolshevik en The Guardian. Daarby is ook die mobiliseringsrol wat 'n aantal ekstremistiese stakersblaaie in die stakings van 1913, 1914 en 1922 gespeel het, ondersoek. Die pers het 'n belangrike rol gespeel om 'n aantal kardinale kwessies, wat die diskoers binne die arbeidergeledere oorheers het, ook aan groter openbare kritiek en bespreking bloot te stel. Sodoende is die stryd tussen arbeid en kapitaal om die hegemonie van die Suid-Afrikaanse politieke en ekonomiese lewe byvoorbeeld telkens tydens verkiesingsveldtogte tot die nasionale debat verhef. Daarbenewens het die pers, spesifiek by monde van die regse arbeider- en linkse sosialistiese persorgane, ook die diepe ideologiese verdeeldheid in arbeidergeledere weerspieel. In hierdie opsig was dit veral hulle rassebeskouings en die posisie van die swart man in die nywerheidsbestel wat die politieke credo van hierdie persorgane bepaal en befuvloed het. Die mobiliseringsmag van die pers is treffend dem stakerblaaie gemustreer. Dem militante ekstremisme te verkondig, kon sodanige blaaie dikwels daarin slaag om nywerheidsonrus onder werkers tot die vlak van geweld op te sweep sodat die owerheid dan genoop was om hierdie publikasies dem middel van Krygswetproklamasies te onderdruk. Synde op die periferie van die politieke spektrum, sou die SAAP, en veral die sosia1istiese organisasies, sonder kommunikatiewe ondersteuning van hulle spreekbuise waarskynlik slegs 'n kortstondige politieke bestaan in die Suid-Afrikaanse politiek gevoer het.

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43

McIntosh, Jean Elizabeth. "Mark Mosher's reconstruction of the development of the woodworkers union in the Alberni Valley 1935-1950 : a participant's history." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26872.

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This thesis presents a participant's history of the development of the woodworkers' union in the Alberni Valley of British Columbia during the period 1935 to 1950. It is developed through Mosher's own accounts, which are treated as narratives, as the way of most effectively presenting his "insiders point of view". Mosher's interpretation, from his position as a logger, a local union leader, and a Communist Party member, adds to our understanding of the union movement by providing the perspective from the Left and information on the processes of unionization. In spite of the central position held by the union movement in the social structure of British Columbia, and the importance of the IWA within that movement, both have been under researched. Mosher's accounts are given in the context of the documentary history of the union movement and the IWA, and his narratives create a challenging interpretation in response to those established accounts. Comparisons are drawn between the interpretations of the same issues given by Mosher and by the documentary sources. Mosher's accounts express the themes and values important to his alternative history, such as the need for a union and the leadership role of the Communist Party in improving work conditions, which he claims has not before been acknowledged. This thesis is based on the assumption that there is no one true version of history. History is viewed as a process in which differing interpretations continually add to our overall understanding of a subject.
Arts, Faculty of
Anthropology, Department of
Graduate

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44

Bryans, Andrew Nils. "The response to left-wing radicalism in Portland, Oregon, from 1917 to 1941." PDXScholar, 2002. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3565.

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In the early twentieth century industrial, political, and social conflicts occurred throughout the United States during a period of rapid industrialization and modernization. Examples of these disputes, such as labor strikes and political struggles, have frequently been the subjects of scholarly investigations. Yet certain aspects of these conflicts remain relatively unknown, particularly on the community and local levels. The purpose of the present study was to explore and provide the context for a better understanding of the motives behind the responses of antiradicals to left-wing radicalism. What were some of the social, cultural, and economic motivations of local antiradicals in the city of Portland from 1917 to 1941?

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45

Pragnell, Bradley John School of Industrial Relations &amp Organisation Behaviour UNSW. "???Selling Consent???: From Authoritarianism to Welfarism at David Jones, 1838-1958." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Industrial Relations and Organisation Behaviour, 2001. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/18241.

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This thesis investigates the history of labour management at David Jones, the major Australian retailer and manufacturer, between the years 1838 and 1958. This thesis examines the development of consent-based approach to labour management at David Jones, in particular the development of paternalism and welfarism. In doing so this thesis explores both general questions regarding the factors that influence why certain firms adopt a consent-based approach to labour management, as well as informing debates around the existence of nineteenth century paternalism and the origins of twentieth century welfarism. The historical material contained at the David Jones Archives and elsewhere reveals little evidence of paternalism as a deliberate management strategy. This brings into question the usefulness of paternalism as a concept in the historical study of Australian labour management. The inability to trace paternalism also undermines explanations of twentieth century welfarism premised on the pre-existence of nineteenth century paternalism. The historical materials, however, do note that twentieth century welfarism was a deliberate labour management strategy adopted by David Jones management. Welfarism, combined with systematic management and training, was initially adopted following the First World War to deal with the threat of industrial turmoil. However, in the 1930s, welfarism increasingly became a pro-active strategy designed to create skilled selling and raise the profile of the firm within the community. Further, welfarism at David Jones in the inter-war period was more than merely a new form of paternalism, somehow transformed by being in a larger, more bureaucratic setting or a result of employers confronted an increasingly feminised workforce. Welfarism at David Jones was a deliberate strategy, informed by overseas experiments, management consultants and the new science of psychology. Welfarism at David Jones continued into the post World War Two period. However, new forms of retailing, in particular self-service, undermined attempts to create skilled selling. Elements of welfarism remain at David Jones and continue to support the firm???s corporate image as a provider of high-quality customer service.

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Güntzel, Ralph Peter. "The Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the idea of independence, and the sovereigntist movement, 1960-1980 /." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60027.

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During most of the 1960s, the CSN was both an advocate of provincial autonomy and a defender of federalism. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, a majority of its leaders and militants came to favour separatism. Many of them saw independence as a precondition for the creation of a socialist Quebec. In 1972, the CSN rejected capitalism, endorsed socialism, and envisaged an internal referendum on the independence issue. The internal debate, however, took place only after the Parti quebecois was elected to power in 1976. Fearing internal divisions and disaffiliations, the CSN did not endorse separatism. Being disappointed with the Parti quebecois' governmental record, the CSN was content to give a critical support to a yes vote in the referendum in 1980.

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Balfour, Sebastian Michael. "The remaking of the Spanish labour movement : social change, urban growth and working class militancy, Barcelona, 1939-1976." Thesis, Bucks New University, 1987. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.714455.

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48

Roy, James A. "Support pending, the Canadian autoworkers' struggle for adjustment assistance at a time of industrial change, 1960-1965." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ52365.pdf.

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49

Kahn, Miriam B. "Werner and His Empire: The Rise and Fall of a Gilded Age Printer." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1321975558.

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Mirri, Larrubia Maria Teresa. "El proceso de formación del proletariado en un barrio industrial : el caso de Sant Martí de Provençals: integración y diferenciación social, 1862-1925." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/405460.

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Abstract:

La tesis estudia el proceso de formación del proletariado en Sant Martí, desde los inicios del intenso proceso de industrialización que lo convertiría en el segundo núcleo industrial de Cataluña. Se ha investigado sobre la naturaleza del aporte inmigratorio, en base a fuentes demográficas constituidas básicamente por partidas matrimoniales y hojas de altas y bajas del antiguo municipio. Asimismo se analiza el comportamiento matrimonial y el asentamiento por barrios como indicios de la constitución de "redes urbanas" constitutivas del tejido social que suavizo y facilito la inserción en el nuevo hábitat urbano. Se presta especial atención a la formación de la "cultura popular", en que jugó un papel decisivo el movimiento asociativo y la dinámica impulsada por diversos estratos sociales.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Labor unions – Organizing – History'

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