No description available.

From the early nineteenth century through World War II Springfield, Massachusetts was one of the world's preeminent metalworking centers. On the eve of the Second World War hundreds of firms and thousands of skilled machinists produced machine tools, fixtures, castings, forgings, and precision components for the nation's automobile, electrical appliance, steel, and aircraft industries. However, by the mid-1950s Springfield industry commenced an inexorable decline, interrupted briefly by Vietnam War defense spending. Firms were purchased by outside investors and work moved, while foreign firms gained market share from local companies. Springfield's fall from manufacturing prominence mirrors events elsewhere in the industrial Northeast and is important to understand. The decline is examined mainly through a history of the American Bosch Company, its workers, and their union. Established in 1911, unionized in 1936, Bosch specialized in the design and manufacture of precision diesel fuel injections components. During World War II it employed thousands of skilled machinists. After the war it was purchased by Wall Street investors and in the early 1950s became part of a small corporation headquartered in New York City. By the early 1960s it had become the most profitable firm in the diesel products division of a Fortune 500 corporation. By the time it closed in 1986 Bosch was an aging plant with a few hundred workers owned by a Fortune 100 corporation. From 1950 forward management attempted to implement numerous strategies to reduce costs and maintain market share, including the construction of a low-wage plant in Mississippi, the acquisition of overseas factories, and in-plant schemes to streamline production. The union resisted in-plant restructuring efforts, but offered token opposition to the company's world-wide maneuvers. Throughout, unionists believed their machining skills coupled with their knowledge of the products being produced were assets the company needed to succeed. The company never shared this perspective, and unresolved, this disjuncture contributed to the closing of the plant. It is argued here that management's efforts failed because workers were treated as appendages of their machines.

Does the underrepresentation of women in school administration reflect differences in preferences or discriminatory selection criteria? To examine this question, this dissertation examines the criteria used to promote teachers into school administration and the consequence of these criteria for equity in promotions and school quality. In this dissertation, promotions are modelled as the joint occurrence of two sequential events: (1) teacher supply to the promotional queue and (2) school board demand for administrators. The empirical challenge is to statistically identify the supply and demand-side of promotion when only the joint occurrence of these two events are observed in the data. Drawing from a large nationally representative data set matching teachers, schools, administrators, and school districts, I test the hypotheses that access to school administration is not solely determined by qualifications, i.e. that discrimination plays a role. Key results show that when teacher desire for promotions and credentials are controlled for, men are more likely than women to be selected for promotions. Additional evidence suggests that women's promotion disadvantage may not stem from limited search strategies or an inability to manage schools. I conclude with an analysis of the pay gap between male and female principals. Results show that after controlling for a variety of human capital, school environment, school level and locale variables, male principals earn 5.4% more than female principals. This translates into a yearly $2,205.4 income gain.

The National Labor Relations Act stands as one of the most influential pieces of labor legislation in the history of the United States. The Act defines the rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees. Furthermore, the National Labor Relations Act makes the State into the chief judicial body regarding labor disputes through the National Labor Relations Board. Chiefly concerned with the circumstances that led to the passage and affected the shaping of the Act, factors such as Communist organizing, racial politics of the Deep South, and internal division within the labor movement in the 1920s are examined. Specific case studies include the Auto-Lite Strike in Toledo, Ohio (1934), the Minneapolis Teamster Strike (1934), and the West Coast Longshoremen Strike (1934).

No description available.

Parental leave schemes across the developed world are becoming increasingly more relevant in women’s decision to participate or remain in the labor market. France, Belgium and Luxembourg have very different but relatively effective parental leave schemes. A distinguishing factor in their policies is their emphasis on paternal participation. Through increased paternity leave rights, all three countries have come to better support women in the workplace and in the household. The US is the only country in the OECD that does not offer any form of paid maternity leave, let alone paternity leave. By outlining the historical and cultural context of women in all four nations including work and family habits, I will assess the nature of each policy. I find that culture and tradition play a big role is women’s decision to participate in the labor market. I uncover some of the benefits of the addition of paternity leave is in its respective country based on the female labor force participation rate and the wage gap among other indicators. Using France, Belgium and Luxembourg as case studies, I outline the benefits the US forgoes by excluding paternity leave.

The purpose of this study was to determine the county extension agents' perceptions of institutional constraints to the performance of their duties within the Arizona Cooperative Extension System. Study population was 66 county extension agents in the state of Arizona. They were surveyed by mailed questionnaire. Study results indicated, on the average, most of the institutional constraints affect slightly on the county extension agents' work performance. Considerable variation observed among respondents in their perceptions of severity of the constraints. Some of the other important findings include; (1) 4-H agents perceived constraints more severe than Agriculture or Home Economic Agents. (2) County agents perceived more constraints in salary and promotion more severe than county directors. (3) County agents with more than 5 years of service perceived more of the constraints in the area of Personnel Evaluation more severe than agents with 5 years or less service.

The purpose of this study was to appraise the attitudes of agricultural instructors providing village extension services in the northern province of Sri Lanka toward their job in the agriculture extension service. Major findings indicate in the aggregate, agricultural instructors like their job and have a good attitude toward their job. The job factors offering the agricultural instructors the positive attitudes are the communication established between agricultural instructors and various layers of administration, the intrinsic reward of the job itself, and the relationship with co-workers and the working conditions. The job factors offering the negative attitudes was the pay and its adequacy for a comfortable living. Attitudes of agricultural instructors toward the job and its relationship with service were not significantly varied with service.

This investigation attempted to ascertain whether managerial perceptions of potentially unethical business conduct, and recommendations for social control, vary according to the social characteristics of the employee committing the behavior. Subjects consisted of management personnel from a variety of industries. Data was gathered via instruments developed for this research. Instruments consisted of (1) a description of an employee; (2) a description of a potentially unethical behavior committed by the employee; and (3) scales for subjects to (a) rate the seriousness of the employee's behavior and (b) recommend the social control they would use against the employee. Perceptions of seriousness did vary significantly with variations in the employee's social characteristics. However, recommendations for social control did not vary with changes in employee characteristics. Thus, whereas observers may judge the ethicality of socially decontextualized behaviors against universally held standards of morality, observers become less adamant about these standards as the behavior becomes more contextualized.

The purpose of this research is to determine if certain demographic, health, and financial characteristics discriminate between a group of preretirees who anticipate post-retirement employment and a group of those who do not. The data for this investigation are from a study which included employees of nine western region land grant universities. The data were collected independently in each state by mail questionnaire following the Dillman Total Design Method. Discriminant functions were computed and the results suggest that for this sample of preretirees the demographic, health, and financial characteristics which were examined are not significant predictors of anticipated post-retirement employment. Although the outcome of this study did not present any outstanding significant findings, the results do indicate that there is a need to continue investigating the characteristics of those who expect to be employed during retirement.