Anthropology Of Labor Unions

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The Anthropology of Labor Unions

Author : E. Paul Durrenberger,Karaleah S. Reichart
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2012-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607320432

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The Anthropology of Labor Unions by E. Paul Durrenberger,Karaleah S. Reichart Pdf

The Anthropology of Labor Unions presents ethnographic data and analysis in eight case studies from several very diverse industries. It covers a wide range of topics, from the role of women and community in strikes to the importance of place in organization, and addresses global concerns with studies from Mexico and Malawu. Union-organized workplaces consistently afford workers higher wages and better pensions, benefits, and health coverage than their nonunion counterparts. In addition, women and minorities who belong to unions are more likely to receive higher wages and benefits than their nonunion peers. Given the economic advantages of union membership, one might expect to see higher rates of organization across industries, but labor affiliation is at an all-time low. What accounts for this discrepancy? The contributors in this volume provide a variety of perspectives on this paradox, including discussions of approaches to and findings on the histories, cultures, and practices of organized labor. They also address substantive issues such as race, class, gender, age, generation, ethnicity, health and safety concerns, corporate co-optation of unions, and the cultural context of union-management relationships. The first to bring together anthropological case studies of labor unions, this volume will appeal to cultural anthropologists, social scientists, sociologists, and those interested in labor studies and labor movements.

Class Acts

Author : E. Paul Durrenberger,Suzan Erem
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2015-12-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317262312

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Class Acts by E. Paul Durrenberger,Suzan Erem Pdf

American labor leaders are constantly developing new programs to revive the union movement. What happens when these plans collide with the daily lives of front-line union staff and members? This book examines the often conflicting interests of key players in the trenches of a national effort to bring back the American labor movement. Brutally honest, funny, never dull, this anthropological ethnography shows the daily struggles of union members today to bring about positive change and hold together their urban labor union in an era of globalization, outsourcing, and deindustrialization. A union activist and an anthropologist (the authors) pair up to offer insideoutside views of labor unions and of how anthropological fieldwork is done. Explaining, coaching, and warning Paul of hazards, Suzan, the communications director for the Local, provides inside views and details of day-to-day interactions. Paul, the anthropologist, provides outside analytical views that related Suzan's experiences and his own observations to the wider view anthropology offers through ethnography, holism, and comparativism. The result is a story of one dynamic union local, one anthropological study, and the lit fuse that connects them until the end.

Uncertain Times

Author : E. Paul Durrenberger
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607326311

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Uncertain Times by E. Paul Durrenberger Pdf

In this first-ever collection of labor anthropology from around the world, the contributors to Uncertain Times assert that traditional labor unions have been co-opted by neoliberal policies of corporate capital and have become service organizations rather than drivers of social movements. The current structure of labor unions facilitates corporations’ need for a stable labor force while reducing their power to prevent outsourcing, subcontracting, and other methods of undercutting worker security and union power. Through case studies from Switzerland, Israel, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Greece, Sweden,Turkey, Brazil and Spain, the authors demonstrate that this process of neutering unions has been uneven across time and space. They also show that the potential exists for renewed union power based on more vociferous and creative collective action. These firsthand accounts—from activist anthropologists in the trenches as union members and staff, as well as academics analyzing policy, law, worker organizing, and community impact—illustrate the many approaches that workers around the world are taking to reclaim their rights in this ever-shifting labor landscape. Uncertain Times is the first book to use this crucial comparative, ethnographic approach for understanding the new rules of the global labor struggle and the power workers have to change thoserules. The volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology of work,and labor studies; labor union leadership; and others interested in developing innovative methods fororganizing working people, fomenting class consciousness, and expanding social movements. Contributors: Alpkan Birelma, Emma Braden, Maria Eugenia de la O, Christopher Kelley, Staffan Löfving, Gadi Nissim, Darcy Pan, Steven Payne, Alicia Reigada, Julia Soul, Manos Spyridakis, Christian Zlolniski

The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor

Author : Sharryn Kasmir,Lesley Gill
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 592 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022-06-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000571691

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The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor by Sharryn Kasmir,Lesley Gill Pdf

The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor offers a cross-cultural examination of labor around the world and presents the breadth of a growing and vital subfield of anthropology. As we enter a new crisis-ridden age, some laboring people are protected, while others face impoverishment and death, as they work in unsafe conditions, migrate to gain livelihoods, languish in the unwaged sector, and become targets of law enforcement. The contributions to this volume address questions surrounding the categorization and visibility of work, the relationship of labor to the state, and how divisions of labor map onto racial, gendered, sexual, and national inequalities. In addition to the emotional dimensions and subjectivities of labor, the book also examines how laborers can articulate common experiences and identities, build organizational forms, and claim power together. Bringing together the work of an impressive group of international scholars, this Handbook is essential for anthropologists with an interest in labor and political economy, as well as useful for scholars and students in related fields such as sociology and geography.

Anthropologies of Class

Author : James G. Carrier,Don Kalb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781107087415

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Anthropologies of Class by James G. Carrier,Don Kalb Pdf

A study of class and inequality from an anthropological perspective, bringing together an international team of researchers.

Global Unions, Local Power

Author : Jamie K. McCallum
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2013-10-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780801469473

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Global Unions, Local Power by Jamie K. McCallum Pdf

News about labor unions is usually pessimistic, focusing on declining membership and failed campaigns. But there are encouraging signs that the labor movement is evolving its strategies to benefit workers in rapidly changing global economic conditions. Global Unions, Local Power tells the story of the most successful and aggressive campaign ever waged by workers across national borders. It begins in the United States in 2007 as SEIU struggled to organize private security guards at G4S, a global security services company that is the second largest employer in the world. Failing in its bid, SEIU changed course and sought allies in other countries in which G4S operated. Its efforts resulted in wage gains, benefits increases, new union formations, and an end to management reprisals in many countries throughout the Global South, though close attention is focused on developments in South Africa and India. In this book, Jamie K. McCallum looks beyond these achievements to probe the meaning of some of the less visible aspects of the campaign. Based on more than two years of fieldwork in nine countries and historical research into labor movement trends since the late 1960s, McCallum’s findings reveal several paradoxes. Although global unionism is typically concerned with creating parity and universal standards across borders, local context can both undermine and empower the intentions of global actors, creating varied and uneven results. At the same time, despite being generally regarded as weaker than their European counterparts, U.S. unions are in the process of remaking the global labor movement in their own image. McCallum suggests that changes in political economy have encouraged unions to develop new ways to organize workers. He calls these "governance struggles," strategies that seek not to win worker rights but to make new rules of engagement with capital in order to establish a different terrain on which to organize.

Industry and Inequality

Author : Mark Holmström
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 1984-11-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0521267455

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Industry and Inequality by Mark Holmström Pdf

This Book, Co-Published With Cambridge University Press, Breaks New Ground In The Field Of Industrial Anthroplogy. The Focus Of The Book Is On The Uneasy Relationship Between The Permanent (Organised Sector) Industrial Workers, Who Have The Protection Of The Factory Act And The Trade Unions, And The Temporary (Unorganised) Workers. The Author Questions Whether India Has A Dual Economy And Society In Which These Two Groups Of Workers Act As Distinct Classes With Opposed Interests. Dr Holmstrom Uses A Wide Range Of Material, From The Opinions And Life Stories Of Workers To Accounts Of Recent Union Movements In The `Unorganised Sector`, And Contributes Critically To The Debate On `Dualism` And Its Underlying Assumptions.

The Brave New World of European Labor

Author : Andrew Martin,George Ross
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 438 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1571811680

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The Brave New World of European Labor by Andrew Martin,George Ross Pdf

Using a common framework developed by a collaborative Harvard University and Brandeis University affiliated research team, this volume surveys and analyzes the strategic responses of national unions in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain to the last two decades of economic change. Also evaluated is the response of Sweden, long seen as the most successful variation of the European model, as well as EU level transnational unionism. The volume concludes with a reflection on new union positions and their implications, particularly on the question of what will happen to the "European model of society" as a consequence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Blood and Fire

Author : Sharryn Kasmir,August Carbonella
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2014-08-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781782383642

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Blood and Fire by Sharryn Kasmir,August Carbonella Pdf

Based on long-term fieldwork, six vivid ethnographies from Colombia, India, Poland, Spain and the southern and northern U.S. address the dwindling importance of labor throughout the world. The contributors to this volume highlight the growing disconnect between labor struggles and the advancement of the greater common good, a phenomenon that has grown since the 1980s. The collection illustrates the defeat and unmaking of particular working classes, and it develops a comparative perspective on the uneven consequences of and reactions to this worldwide project. Blood and Fire charts a course within global anthropology to address the widespread precariousness and the prevalence of insecure and informal labor in the twenty-first century.

Labour, Unions and Politics under the North Star

Author : Mary Hilson,Silke Neunsinger,Iben Vyff
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2017-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781785334979

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Labour, Unions and Politics under the North Star by Mary Hilson,Silke Neunsinger,Iben Vyff Pdf

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden today all enjoy a reputation for strong labour movements, which in turn are widely seen as part of a distinctive regional approach to politics, collective bargaining and welfare. But as this volume demonstrates, narratives of the so-called “Nordic model” can obscure the fact that experiences of work and the fortunes of organized labour have varied widely throughout the region and across different historical periods. Together, the essays collected here represent an ambitious intervention in labour historiography and European history, exploring themes such as work, unions, politics and migration from the early modern period to the twenty-first century.

Thiefing a Chance

Author : Rebecca Prentice
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2015-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607323754

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Thiefing a Chance by Rebecca Prentice Pdf

When an IMF-backed program of liberalization opened Trinidad’s borders to foreign ready-made apparel, global competition damaged the local industry and unraveled worker entitlements and expectations but also presented new economic opportunities for engaging the “global” market. This fascinating ethnography explores contemporary life in the Signature Fashions garment factory, where the workers attempt to exploit gaps in these new labor configurations through illicit and informal uses of the factory, a practice they colloquially refer to as “thiefing a chance.” Drawing on fifteen months of fieldwork, author Rebecca Prentice combines a vivid picture of factory life, first-person accounts, and anthropological analysis to explore how economic restructuring has been negotiated, lived, and recounted by women working in the garment industry during Trinidad’s transition to a neoliberal economy. Through careful social coordination, the workers “thief” by copying patterns, taking portions of fabric, teaching themselves how to operate machines, and wearing their work outside the factory. Even so, the workers describe their “thiefing” as a personal, individualistic enterprise rather than a form of collective resistance to workplace authority. By making and taking furtive opportunities, they embrace a vision of themselves as enterprising subjects while actively complying with the competitive demands of a neoliberal economic order. Prentice presents the factory not as a stable institution but instead as a material and social space in which the projects, plans, and desires of workers and their employers become aligned and misaligned, at some moments in deep harmony and at others in rancorous conflict. Arguing for the productive power of the informal and illicit, Thiefing a Chance contributes to anthropological debates about the very nature of neoliberal capitalism and will be of great interest to undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in anthropology, labor studies, Caribbean studies, and development studies.

How We Struggle

Author : Sian Lazar
Publisher : Anthropology, Culture, and Soc
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2023-01-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0745347517

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How We Struggle by Sian Lazar Pdf

'A masterful book - a resource that makes anthropology matter' - Andrea Muehlebach, Professor of Anthropology, University of Bremen When it comes to labour movements, unionised industrial workers on the factory floor have only ever been part of the picture. Across so many different workplaces, sectors of the economy and geographical contexts, the question of how working people struggle in the day-to-day has no single answer. Here Sian Lazar offers a unique anthropological perspective on labour agency that takes in examples from across the globe, from heavy industry and agriculture, to the service and informal sectors. She asks: how do people strive to improve their lives and working conditions? How are they constrained and enabled in that struggle by the nature of the work they do, and by their own positionality in local histories, cultures and networks? How We Struggle explores worker action across the spectrum from organised trade unionism to individualised strategies of accommodation, resistance and escape. The book marries a discussion of global political economy and Marxist feminist theories of labour with ethnographic approaches that begin from a perspective of human experience, kinship and radical heterogeneity.

Immigrants Unions & The New Us Labor Mkt

Author : Immanuel Ness
Publisher : Temple University Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2005-06-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781592130412

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Immigrants Unions & The New Us Labor Mkt by Immanuel Ness Pdf

In recent years, New Yorkers have been surprised to see workers they had taken for granted—Mexicans in greengroceries, West African supermarket deliverymen and South Asian limousine drivers—striking, picketing, and seeking support for better working conditions. Suddenly, businesses in New York and the nation had changed and were now dependent upon low-paid immigrants to fill the entry-level jobs that few native-born Americans would take. Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market tells the story of these workers' struggle for living wages, humane working conditions, and the respect due to all people. It describes how they found the courage to organize labor actions at a time when most laborers have become quiescent and while most labor unions were ignoring them. Showing how unions can learn from the example of these laborers, and demonstrating the importance of solidarity beyond the workplace, Immanuel Ness offers a telling look into the lives of some of America's newest immigrants.

The Anthropological Study of Class and Consciousness

Author : E. Paul Durrenberger
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2011-12-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781607321576

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The Anthropological Study of Class and Consciousness by E. Paul Durrenberger Pdf

Presenting prehistoric, historic, and ethnographic data from Mongolia, China, Iceland, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States, The Anthropological Study of Class and Consciousness offers a first step toward examining class as a central issue within anthropology. Contributors to this volume use the methods of historical materialism, cultural ecology, and political ecology to understand the realities of class and how they evolve. Five central ideas unify the collection: the objective basis for class in different social orders; people's understanding of class in relation to race and gender; the relation of ideologies of class to realities of class; the U.S. managerial middle-class denial of class and emphasis on meritocracy in relation to increasing economic insecurity; and personal responses to economic insecurity and their political implications. Anthropologists who want to understand the nature and dynamics of culture must also understand the nature and dynamics of class. The Anthropological Study of Class and Consciousness addresses the role of the concept of class as an analytical construct in anthropology and how it relates to culture. Although issues of social hierarchy have been studied in anthropology, class has not often been considered as a central element. Yet a better understanding of its role in shaping culture, consciousness, and people's awareness of their social and natural world would in turn lead to better understanding of major trends in social evolution as well as contemporary society. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of anthropology, labor studies, ethnohistory, and sociology.

The Myth of Mondragon

Author : Sharryn Kasmir
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1996-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0791430030

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The Myth of Mondragon by Sharryn Kasmir Pdf

This is the first critical account of the internationally renowned Mondragon cooperatives of the Basque region of Spain. The Mondragon cooperatives are seen as the leading alternative model to standard industrial organization; they are considered to be the most successful example of democratic decision making and worker ownership. However, the author argues that the vast scholarly and popular literature on Mondragon idealizes the cooperatives by falsely portraying them as apolitical institutions and by ignoring the experiences of shop floor workers. She shows how this creation of an idealized image of the cooperatives is part of a new global ideology that promotes cooperative labor-management relations in order to discredit labor unions and working-class organizations; this constitutes what she calls the "myth" of Mondragon.