Download Free Trade Unions And Class Stratification Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Trade Unions And Class Stratification and write the review.

This book examines a basic assumption behind most of the critical, progressive thinking of our times: that trade unions are necessarily tools for solidarity and are integral to a more equal and just society. Shaul A. Duke assesses the trade union's potential to promote equality in ethnically and racially diverse societies by offering an in-depth look into how unions operate; how power flows between union levels; where inequality originates; and the role of union members in union dynamics. By analyzing the trade union's effects on working-class inequality in Palestine during 1920-1948, this book shifts the conventional emphasis on worker-employer relations to that of worker-worker relations. It offers a conceptualization of how strong union members directed union policy from below in order to eliminate competition, often by excluding marginalized groups. The comparison of the union experiences of Palestinian-Arabs, Jewish-Yemeni immigrants, and Jewish women offers a fresh look into the labor history of Palestine and its social stratification.
Have de-industrialization, expanding services and occupational upgrading put an end to class divisions? Drawing on extensive empirical research, this book adds new insights to the debate about the end of class and shows that Western European societies remain decidedly stratified with respect to material advantages and citizenship rights.
First published in 1997, the U.S. labor movement has suffered from membership decline during the post-World War era. Between 1945 and 1994, the percentage of unionized workers in the non-agricultural labor force has steadily declined from 35.5% to 15.5% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1995). The size of the labor movement is critical to an understanding of the role in society of collective bargaining. This study investigates how socioeconomic status divisions within the working class affect worker dispositions to unionize.
Embrace worker rights and build a better democracy
Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff’s now classic 1984 book What Do Unions Do? stimulated an enormous theoretical and empirical literature on the economic impact of trade unions. Trade unions continue to be a significant feature of many labor markets, particularly in developing countries, and issues of labor market regulations and labor institutions remain critically important to researchers and policy makers. The relations between unions and management can range between cooperation and conflict; unions have powerful offsetting wage and non-wage effects that economists and other social scientists have long debated. Do the benefits of unionism exceed the costs to the economy and society writ large, or do the costs exceed the benefits? The Economics of Trade Unions offers the first comprehensive review, analysis and evaluation of the empirical literature on the microeconomic effects of trade unions using the tools of meta-regression analysis to identify and quantify the economic impact of trade unions, as well as to correct research design faults, the effects of selection bias and model misspecification. This volume makes use of a unique dataset of hundreds of empirical studies and their reported estimates of the microeconomic impact of trade unions. Written by three authors who have been at the forefront of this research field (including the co-author of the original volume, What Do Unions Do?), this book offers an overview of a subject that is of huge importance to scholars of labor economics, industrial and employee relations, and human resource management, as well as those with an interest in meta-analysis.
First published in 1981, Theories of Trade Unionism traces the development of trade union theory from its nineteenth-century foundations to the more advanced conceptual models present at the time of original publication. The book surveys the main tributaries of modern approaches – the moral and ethical, the revolutionary, the defensive or conservative, and the economic and political – and analyses the work of contemporary industrial relations scholars. This includes the main types and varieties of systems theory, the disparate pluralist approaches and the ‘radical school’. The book identifies links between the differing premises of the various schools of thought, and combines the main perspectives in a higher analytical and conceptual unity. It concludes with a discussion of a number of avenues for theoretical and conceptual progress. Theories of Trade Unionism is ideal for those with an interest in the history of trade union theory.
First published in 1988, Social Class, Status and Teacher Trade Unionism examines some of the causes underlying the growing resentment of public sector professionals, focusing on the teachers in the polytechnics and colleges of further and higher education and on their union, once the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions. It looks in depth at the relationship between professional commitment and trade union activism, and at the limits employee status, within a bureaucratic control structure, can impose on professional self-management and control. The book provides both an important social history of the teachers and teaching in this sector and an incisive analysis of the nature and development of ‘professional trade unions’. This book will be of interest to students of education, sociology and history.
« The book presents the findings of a four-year study of the challenges facing trade unions and their responses in ten west European countries. The project involved a substantial number of interviews with key union representatives and academic experts in each country, together with the collection of a large amount of union documentation and background material. The book gives an account of trade unionism in each country, the main recent challenges that unions have faced, and responses in terms of recruitment and mobilisation; organizational restructuring; new approaches to collective bargaining; changing political strategies; and international activities. The analytical starting point is that trade unions are conservative institutions containing significant veto points to organizational change, but at the same time can display dynamism and innovation, and that external challenges can therefore stimulate important internal adaptation. The book engages with the debates of the past two decades on union modernization and revitalization, and more generally with theories of institutional change and with the literature on varieties of capitalism. The central theme is that while trade unions do not easily change identities and core practices, they are not locked into inertia. Trade unions are not unitary actors but are internally contested organizations, and internal conflict is itself a potential source of dynamism. The literature on "revitalization" has tended to divide between the over-optimistic and the over-pessimistic; this study presents a more nuanced and differentiated account. In particular, it attempts to identify some of the key internal and external conditions for effective strategic innovation. »--
Class differences permeate the neighborhoods, classrooms, and workplaces where we lead our daily lives. But little is known about how class really works, and its importance is often downplayed or denied. In this important new volume, leading sociologists systematically examine how social class operates in the United States today. Social Class argues against the view that we are becoming a classless society. The authors show instead the decisive ways social class matters—from how long people live, to how they raise their children, to how they vote. The distinguished contributors to Social Class examine how class works in a variety of domains including politics, health, education, gender, and the family. Michael Hout shows that class membership remains an integral part of identity in the U.S.—in two large national surveys, over 97 percent of Americans, when prompted, identify themselves with a particular class. Dalton Conley identifies an intangible but crucial source of class difference that he calls the "opportunity horizon"—children form aspirations based on what they have seen is possible. The best predictor of earning a college degree isn't race, income, or even parental occupation—it is, rather, the level of education that one's parents achieved. Annette Lareau and Elliot Weininger find that parental involvement in the college application process, which significantly contributes to student success, is overwhelmingly a middle-class phenomenon. David Grusky and Kim Weeden introduce a new model for measuring inequality that allows researchers to assess not just the extent of inequality, but also whether it is taking on a more polarized, class-based form. John Goldthorpe and Michelle Jackson examine the academic careers of students in three social classes and find that poorly performing students from high-status families do much better in many instances than talented students from less-advantaged families. Erik Olin Wright critically assesses the emphasis on individual life chances in many studies of class and calls for a more structural conception of class. In an epilogue, journalists Ray Suarez, Janny Scott, and Roger Hodge reflect on the media's failure to report hardening class lines in the United States, even when images on the nightly news—such as those involving health, crime, or immigration—are profoundly shaped by issues of class. Until now, class scholarship has been highly specialized, with researchers working on only one part of a larger puzzle. Social Class gathers the most current research in one volume, and persuasively illustrates that class remains a powerful force in American society.
Few themes have been as central to sociology as 'class' and yet class remains a perpetually contested idea. Sociologists disagree not only on how best to define the concept of class but on its general role in social theory and indeed on its continued relevance to the sociological analysis of contemporary society. Some people believe that classes have largely dissolved in contemporary societies; others believe class remains one of the fundamental forms of social inequality and social power. Some see class as a narrow economic phenomenon whilst others adopt an expansive conception that includes cultural dimensions as well as economic conditions. This 2005 book explores the theoretical foundations of six major perspectives of class with each chapter written by an expert in the field. It concludes with a conceptual map of these alternative approaches by posing the question: 'If class is the answer, what is the question?'