 U.S.
Resources
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Thursday, March 04, 2004
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News from the Association for Union Democracy
3/3/2004
1. Best Rank-and-File Websites:
#1: No Pension Freeze, Teamster Central States Pension Improvement Committee: “a great example of how to use the Internet as part of a real-world organizing campaign.. a model for campaign websites.”
#2: Free 701, The Committee to Defend [IAM] Local 701: “makes the most of member free speech and provides a vitally important space for discussion and organizing when the normal spaces (such as executive board and local meetings) have been shut down.”
#3: HEARDNY, Hotel Employees Advocating Real Democracy, HERE: “The typical rank-and-file website has to serve many purposes, spreading information, offering the prospect of change, proposing changes to be made…without losing focus. This is a challenging task, and HEARD NY is a good example of how to do it.”
Honorable Mention: ufcw.net, Members for Democracy.
See the site reviews, check out the great ideas and tools, and visit the sites: http://www.uniondemocracy.org/UDR/articles55.htm
2. New Articles from Union Democracy Review #150:
Reformers win big in California State Employees Association: “The sweeping victory of the reform caucus culminates a bitter battle for democracy that began almost 14 years ago when five members of the CSEA negotiating committee campaigned against a contract which the state CSEA leadership was pushing for adoption...”
What happened in Iowa and New Hampshire? “Promoters of labor's New Unity Partnership insist that it is pointless to pay attention to democracy inside unions at a time when it is urgent to organize the unorganized. Not union democracy but industrial democracy is their shibboleth. Perhaps they have it upside down…”
Laborers Local 78: Local wins contract, but insurgents take the election: “Alert members, with their union democracy in action, were rewarded with a fine contract...”
Who will police the Longshoremen's Ethics Code? “if enforced, the code would be a great step forward for democracy and fairness in the ILA. But…”
Other articles: Insurgents defeat trustee in SEIU Local 36 election; What happened in AFSCME District Council 37?; The RISE program: trying to discuss the future of Teamster Reform at a Cornell University Forum; UAW Local changes the rules to get a contract adopted; Leadership overturned in National Writers Union; British Columbia Carpenters vote to quit International. See http://www.uniondemocracy.org/UDR/UDRhome.htm
3. Carpenters Update: the Department of Labor has appealed the decision in the Harrington case (ordering the DOL to require direct election of Regional Council Officers). AUD Board Member Alan Hyde will file an amicus brief. AUD is helping carpenters organize a national network to push for direct elections in all councils. See the draft petition and letter from Carl Biers: http://www.uniondemocracy.org/UDR/articles56.htm
4. New links: for Teamsters: Central Pa Teamsters Reform Committee, Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Improvement Committee, Air Canada, Buster Brown, unofficial sites for Joint Council 7, Locals 70, 73, 78, 117, 399; for Postal Workers: Women Abused, Inhumanely Mistreated in the US Postal Service; for Carpenters: Local 157, Local 98, Articles on the Carpenters Union, by a student labor activist; for members of all unions: Pension Rights Center. See http://www.uniondemocracy.org/Resources/AUDLinks
5. Spring Specials: renew your tax-exempt contribution to AUD, or become a new member and receive 50% discounts on AUD t-shirts, and more. We hope you need and appreciate AUD, we certainly need you. Please contribute what you can: http://www.uniondemocracy.org/Home/joinaud.htm
6. Education on the road: looking for a way to bring coworkers together, to spread information and ideas, to overcome apathy and pessimism? AUD's hands on educational workshops are just the thing, and we may be able to come to you. See http://www.uniondemocracy.org/Education/audevents.htm 7. AUD in Japan: the Center for Transnational Labor Studies, in Tokyo, will hold a seminar by AUD Board Member Alan Hyde, in mid-March. CTLS recently concluded a two-part seminar on Union Democracy, Social Movement Unionism, and Popular Education, with AUD's Matt Noyes. See http://www.uniondemocracy.org/Education/audevents.htm [IIR Library Weblog]
4:29:13 PM 
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Thursday, February 26, 2004
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New Report Compares European Trade Agreements and NAFTA
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
From the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
Lessons of European Integration for the Americas [26 February 2004]
by Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh
February 26, 2004
http://www.ips-dc.org/EULessons/
or
http://www.ips-dc.org/EULessons/EUlessons.pdf
[full-text, 37 pages]
A new study that compares the EU integration approach with the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement. These alternative ideas are particularly timely, given the deadlock in talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas and in World Trade Organization negotiations.
[From press release]
The remaining Democratic Presidential contenders have committed to changing U.S. trade policy. But when it comes to specific
alternatives, the leading candidates tend to recite a similar refrain that is limited to incorporating labor and environmental issues in
future trade pacts. [Perhaps they could learn something from this study].
_____________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
12:02:57 PM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
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Study: Women make few gains in appointed government jobs. In 1999 women held 29.8 percent of leadership posts appointed by governors. That number rose to 35 percent in 2001, but then dropped to 32 percent two years later, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Women in Government & Civil Society at the University at Albany.
"The glacial rate of change is discouraging," said Judith Saidel, the study's project director. "Gubernatorial appointees across the country do not look like the people they are serving." Boston Globe Feb 19 2004 2:16PM GMT[Janice Kimball's Radio Weblog]
8:26:35 AM
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POLICYMAKER'S RESEARCH GUIDE
Free reports available online through UC's Institute for Labor and Employment
January 2004
http://www.ucop.edu/ile/guide/index.html
Union Density Rises in California
| Ruth Milkman and Daisy Rooks use data from the ILE’s 2001–02 California Union Census and selected Current Population Survey data to analyze recent trends in union membership in California. The focus is the recent divergence of California from the United States as a whole: while union density has continued its long decline nationwide, in California density has increased over the past few years. |
Employer Attitudes Towards Healthcare Reform
With the enactment of SB2, the Health Insurance Act, which was signed into law in October 2003, medium and large businesses in California will be required by 2006 either to provide health insurance for their workers or to pay into a state fund to cover the uninsured.
State and Local Labor Legislation
| The effective stalemate over national labor law reform that began in the 1970s has prompted both employer groups and organized labor to increasingly shift their attentions to legislation at the state and local levels, especially in California. |
Employment Policy
How are workers finding jobs in an economy in which employment insecurity and growing inequality are the norm? Manuel Pastor and his co-authors take up this question by examining the role of labor market intermediaries (LMIs), institutions or organizations that pair workers with employers, which have become increasingly important in the past three decades.
UC Admissions Policy
| The University of California (UC) is a pathway into many of the most coveted jobs in the California economy, and the promise that all Californians will have the equal opportunity to acquire a UC education is a core part of California’s social contract. ILE Postdoctoral Fellow Isaac Martin, Jerome Karabel, and Sean W. Jaquez describe UC’s admissions policy and explore inequalities in the access that California secondary schools provide to UC— inequalities associated with the race and socioeconomic status of the student bodies of these schools. | | |
[IIR Library Weblog]
8:24:10 AM
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004
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Call for Papers
Symposium on Trends in Intergenerational Mobility
To be published in Industrial Relations
A large and growing literature has examined the persistence of economic status across generations in many countries. With new data and better techniques a great deal has been learned about this topic. However, there is still much that is unknown about how intergenerational linkages between parents and their offspring might have changed over time. For example, is the United States becoming more or less economically mobile? Do other nations have different trends?
Changes over time in intergenerational mobility may help us understand more about the underlying factors (e.g. human capital, social networks, genetic and non-genetic characteristics) that cause an association in economic outcomes between parents and their children. To what extent have the factors that influence economic mobility been changing over time?
We welcome papers that examine how and why intergenerational linkages in economic status (broadly construed) might have changed in recent decades.
The New Deadline for Submission is December 1, 2004
Submissions:
Please mark all submissions as for the "Symposium on Trends in Intergenerational Mobility". The preferred format for submissions is electronically in Word, WordPerfect or PDF, e-mailed to irjrnl@socrates.berkeley.edu or sent by mail on a 3.5 -inch floppy disk. Electronic submissions should be accompanied by a single hard copy of the paper, and mailed to: Editorial Assistant, Institute of Industrial
Relations, University of California, 2521 Channing Way,
Berkeley, CA 94720-5555.
More Guidelines for authors can be found at:
Please send questions/comments to:
[IIR Library Weblog]
11:17:58 AM
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New material from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Articles on Collective Bargaining
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cba.htm
Looking Back at the Early Settlement between the Teamsters and UPS (06/25/2003)
What Can You Tell Me About Collective Bargaining Expirations and Work Stoppages? (05/28/2003)
A Look Back at the Kaiser Aluminum and United Steelworkers Dispute (01/30/2003)
2001 Major Work Stoppages (01/30/2003)
Articles on Safety & Health
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/osh.htm
An Analysis of Workplace Suicides, 1992-2001 (01/28/2004)
Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in Grocery Stores (12/19/2003)
Regional Variations in Workplace Homicide Rates (11/24/2003)
Amputations: A continuing workplace hazard (01/30/2003)
Articles on Compensation
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/comp.htm
Long-term Care Insurance Gains Prominence (01/28/2004)
Janitors in 2000: An Overview of NCS Data (11/24/2003)
Health Spending Accounts (10/29/2003)
What is a Pension Equity Plan? (10/29/2003)
Questions and Answers on Cash Balance Pension Plans (09/22/2003)
New Law Moves Insurance Plans Closer to Total Mental Health Parity (09/22/2003)
Health Insurance Series Now Available from the Employment Cost Index (08/27/2003)
Relative Pay Rates among Census Divisions and Occupational Groups (08/27/2003)
Tiered Hospital Plans (07/29/2003)
Retiree Health Care Benefits: Data Collection Issues (07/29/2003)
Differences in Union and Nonunion Earnings in Blue-collar and Service Occupations (06/25/2003)
Source: IWS Documented News Service, School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Cornell University
[IIR Library Weblog]
11:16:09 AM
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004
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Global Labour Survey
Eric Lee, LabourStart
February 12, 2004
Every year, the World Economic Forum -- you know, the people who meet at Davos -- produces a "Global Competitiveness Report." They ask the World Bank and corporate executives around the world about economic conditions in different countries. But they don't ask us -- people who know the labour scene -- about how workers and unions fare around the world.Our friends at Harvard University's Labor and Worklife Program thought it would be a good idea to try to conduct a survey of our own. They're calling it the Global Labour Survey. It is aimed at people like yourselves and when the results are announced in May 2004, they expect to receive worldwide attention.We interviewed Richard Freeman, author of the survey, and you can hear what he has to say about it on Radio LabourStart, http://radio.labourstart.org
We're convinced that if we can get a large number of you to take the time to fill out this online survey, we can present an alternative view to the one the WEF is presenting. A view based on your own experience as trade unionists.It's hugely important and we'll need thousands of you to respond in order to get this right.
The survey is located here: http://gls.law.harvard.edu/
It's available in English, French and Spanish.
This survey is completely confidential. You will not be identified nor will you be added to any mailing lists. We know that it takes a few minutes of your time to fill this in, and we appreciate the effort that you'll be making. You have our gratitude.Once you've filled in the survey yourself, please pass on this message and make sure that your union's publication mentions the survey as well.
[IIR Library Weblog]
11:20:06 AM
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Friday, November 07, 2003
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Rural Migration News
Department of Agfricultural and Resource Economics
UC Davis
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/index.php
A quarterly newsletter that summarizes and analyzes the most important migration-related issues affecting immigrant farm workers in California and the United States during the preceding quarter. Topics are grouped by category: Rural America, Farm Workers, Immigration, Other, and Resources. It is available in print and electronic formats.
The current issue (October, 2003) includes articles such as Data, Mobility, Census - "NASS. USDA reported that there were 1.3 million hired workers employed on US farms the week of July 6-12, 2003, including 75 percent directly hired..." and
H-2A, H-2B, Braceros - "DHS reported that 15,600 H-2A workers were admitted in FY02, down sharply from 27,700 in FY01, while the number of H-2B worker admissions jumped to ..."
5:02:24 PM
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Friday, September 26, 2003
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Disclaimer
Links on these pages to commercial sites do not represent
endorsement by the University of California or its affiliates. The
opinions expressed on this Weblog are the responsibility of the
contributing authors and do not reflect the opinion of the Institute
of Industrial Relations, The University of California, or the Regents
of the University of California
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