Previous scholarship on labor rhetoric has concentrated on the impact of declining union membership and contemporary activist strategies on the part of unions. The press release is a common form of communication that organized labor employs in order to reach its publics. This study explores the press releases of the Texas State AFL-CIO to determine to what extent this level of labor discourse meets the criteria of a rhetorical genre. This study employs the methodology for generic criticism laid out by Foss for identifying genres. The study concludes that a genre of labor rhetoric exists and that the genre was used extensively to promote the Texas State AFL-CIO as a socially-conscious and politically motivated organization.

The SEIU and the AFL-CIO utilized similar rhetorical strategies in creating identification to further change within their organizations. Despite similar rhetorical strategies, the change efforts differ substantially in terms of success. This dissertation argues that the audience, culture and organizational structure influence the success of the change effort. The dissertation provides implications for rhetorical communication in labor unions.

The SEIU and the AFL-CIO utilized similar rhetorical strategies in creating identification to further change within their organizations. Despite similar rhetorical strategies, the change efforts differ substantially in terms of success. This dissertation argues that the audience, culture and organizational structure influence the success of the change effort. The dissertation provides implications for rhetorical communication in labor unions.

我國工會隨著新修正通過的勞動三法與全球工會密度下降的趨勢而面臨嚴格的考驗，然而這樣的考驗也可說是工會發展的契機與展望。本文透過對我國、德國與美國工會的介紹，包括這三個國家工會的歷史背景、特色、現況與困境等做一個整體性的介紹，並對這三個國家的工會相關內容進行簡單比較，除了藉此發現我國工會所面臨的問題外，也透過國外工會經驗提供我國工會做為參考。

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1962. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-209).

During the Cold War the foreign policy of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), was heavily criticized by scholars and activists for following the lead of the U.S. state in its overseas operations. In a wide range of states, the AFL-CIO worked to destabilize governments selected by the U.S. state for regime change, while in others the Federation helped stabilize client regimes of the U.S. state. In 1997 the four regional organizations that previously carried out AFL-CIO foreign policy were consolidated into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center). My dissertation is an attempt to analyze whether the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO in the Solidarity Center era is marked by continuity or change with past practices. At the same time, this study will attempt to add to the debate over the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the post-Cold War era, and its implications for future study. Using the qualitative “process-tracing” detailed by of Alexander George and Andrew Bennett (2005) my study examines a wide array of primary and secondary sources, including documents from the NED and AFL-CIO, in order to analyze the relationship between the Solidarity Center and the U.S. state from 2002-2009. Furthermore, after analyzing broad trends of NED grants to the Solidarity Center, this study examines three dissimilar case studies including Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region to further explore the connections between U.S. foreign policy goals and the Solidarity Center operations. The study concludes that the evidence indicates continuity with past AFL-CIO foreign policy practices whereby the Solidarity Center follows the lead of the U.S. state. It has been found that the patterns of NED funding indicate that the Solidarity Center closely tailors its operations abroad in areas of importance to the U.S. state, that it is heavily reliant on state funding via the NED for its operations, and that the Solidarity Center works closely with U.S. allies and coalitions in these regions. Finally, this study argues for the relevance of “top-down” NGO creation and direction in the post-Cold War era.

The AFL-CIO established and maintained a foreign affairs organization, independent of the U.S. State Department, between the years 1954 and 1962. It engaged in foreign affairs activities as a means to protect itself and its ideology from domestic and foreign interference, to maintain or enhance domestic power and to satisfy its leaders' interests. What were the union's foreign policy commitments? Why were these chosen and by whom? How were these policies implemented? How effective was the union in fulfilling its commitments?The purpose of this paper is to answer these questions using the AFLCIO's activities in support of the Algerian independence movement, 19541962, as the primary example. Algeria was chosen because American labor actions on behalf of Algerian independence clearly demonstrated labor's principal foreign policy, commitment, viz. anti-Communism, and illustrated two of the main components of this basic policy: ending colonialism and gaining allies for the West.The Algerian example demonstrated the lengths to which labor would go in its struggle against Communism. Algeria was not a colony but an integral part of France, much like Alaska is of the United States. However, because the AFL-CIO leaders feared Communist infiltration of Algeria, they refused to recognize Algeria's legal status and supported its secession from France.In support of independence, American labor used the full range of its foreign policy options, including direct assistance to Algerian trade States to urge France to surrender Algeria. Labor's pursuit of its policies in and for Algeria did not go smoothly. The U.S. continued to supportunionists and indirect assistance to the revolution by pressuring the United France. The French were unrelenting in their opposition to labor's activities. The Algerian nationalists refused to compromise their conditions for accepting direct aid from American labor. Even after Algeria achieved independence, American labor could not be sure it had accomplished its goals. Algeria outlawed the Communist Party but it also refused alignment with the West and muzzled its trade union. American labor had difficulty implementing its policies in Algeria because most American labor leaders held unrealistic expectations regarding the role of labor in independent Algeria.Since it is necessary to document the existence of a separate labor foreign policy organization, an historical sketch is included in this paper. Further, to understand the circumstances surrounding the Algerian independence movement which affect labor's and the U.S. State Department's attitudes and activities, it is useful to know the nature of the relationships among Algeria, France and the U.S. Another historical sketch accomplishes this.The paper demonstratesthat the AFL-CIO (between 1954 and 1962) maintained an independent foreign affairs organization which established and pursued foreign policies. These policies were determined by the AFLCIO leadership and were primarily directed toward combatting Communism by developing free democratic trade union(s). The Algerian example will show that the implementation of union policies yielded inconclusive results due to circumstances largely beyond the union's control, viz. Algeria's determination to become an unaligned nation and its unwillingness to permit its trade union to become a source of potential political and economic opposition.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-218).

Abstract: A CASE STUDY: U.S. LABOUR RELATIONS WITH THE TRADE UNION COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA 1960-1973 The aim of this study is to examine US policies towards the South African labour movement through the American Federation of Labour - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and US official institutions, such as the State Department and the Labour Department of the United States, US universities etc. with particular focus on the period between the 1960s and mid-1970s. The study is shaped as a case study. In the study, the labour relations between the US and South Africa in the beginning of the 1960s and the middle of 1970s are examined by specifically focusing on TUCSA. The study is composed to six chapters. Following the first two chapters devoted for introduction and literature review, the developments of the post-Second World War era, such as the internationalization process of capital accumulation around the world, the cold war and the formation process of new international organizations are dealt with. The re-structuring process of the international labour movement under the cold war conditions and the development of overseas labour policies of the ICFTU and the AFL-CIO are also handled in this chapter. In the fourth chapter, the capitalist development process of South Africa in the post Second World War Era is discussed. The capital accumulation process under the apartheid and the developments within the labour movement are the main issues dealt with in this chapter. In the fifth chapter, US investments in South Africa between the beginning of the sixties and the mid seventies and the effects of these investments in the capital accumulation process of South Africa are evaluated. In the last chapter, the main focal point of the study, US labour relations with South Africa between the 1960s and the middle of the 1970s is focused on with particular reference to the relations between TUCSA and the US labour institutions including the AFL-CIO and other official organizations of the US. In the study, a historical framework is developed by focusing on developments in international scale and South African scale. In the third, fourth and fifth chapters, extensive literature on international labour, capitalist development of South Africa, labour history of South Africa and US investments in South Africa is given to elaborate the issue. The sixth chapter, which is the main chapter of the study, is relied principally upon archive materials of TUCSA.

In this dissertation project, I make three separate contributions to the study of the political economy of automation which center the agency of workers and society over technological change. The papers presented here each take a historical approach, both to contextualize modern debates over new technologies and to describe political responses that may have fallen out of contemporary awareness. In the first paper, I examine the origin of the term “automation” to reveal the ways that this concept has been shaped by social and political imperatives. I then propose a new definition and conceptualization of automation which respect this reality and open new avenues for research into this form of technological change. In the second paper, I examine the role played by the occupational structure of unions in determining their responses to automation. Drawing on a comparison of the cases of 1) the AFL-CIO and its Industrial Union Department and 2) New York Typographical Union No. 6 from approximately 1950–1975, I show that industrially-organized unions are more receptive of automation than are unions organized along craft lines. In the final paper, I examine the role that the different approaches to labor force control adopted by craft unions play in shaping both their responses to new technologies and their inclusion or exclusion of women workers. Through a comparison of the histories of the typographical unions in the United States and the United Kingdom over 150 years, I show that unions adopting an apprenticeship-based system of labor force control are both more resistant to new technologies and more exclusionary of women than are unions adopting a strategy of incorporation. Taken together, these papers show that workers and unions have been neither helpless cogs nor implacable wrenches in the machinery of technological change.