<p> The power of union membership has declined in the United States substantially. Many manufacturers have moved many of their operations to new jurisdictions, to America&rsquo;s south and to other low wage countries, to take advantage of the tax incentives many jurisdictions have to offer in most instances, a nonunion workforce. Teachers&rsquo; unions have experienced other external factors, such as the results of Right to Work legislation, and the charter school movement.</p><p> This study researched the history of teacher labor union leadership and explored the internal and external factors that have affected unions over the past 50 years. This study included 3 research questions: (a) What are the qualities of an effective teach labor union leader? (b) What are the internal and external factors that have affected teachers&rsquo; unions for the past 50 years? Using the survey results and the literature, what model emerges that describes and effective teacher labor union leader? In spite of the adverse external factors that have affected teacher union members: the quality of labor union leadership has been a factor in the sustainability and strength of union membership.</p><p> The study found an effective teacher labor union leader must possess the following qualities: ability to collaborate, have a shared vision with the members of the organization, be influential, and possess an adaptive capacity, possess the intelligence to adapt to the internal and external factors that may impact their organization. An effective teacher union leader, must build and strengthen organizational capacity to alleviate member apathy and to increase member engagement.</p><p> Teacher union members must be able to identify the qualities of an effective teacher labor union leader and teacher union leaders must be able to know when they are effective. This study has suggested a systems model approach from the local school district to the State, CTA, as an assessment tool, where there is personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking, where individuals are working together at their best in order to build capacity to continue to learn in order to create the results the members and the organization envision for the future.</p><p>

<p> The National Labor Relations Act sets forth limited definitions of what it means to be an employer and an employee in the twentieth-century industrial economy, and bestows on the National Labor Relations Board the authority to classify employees and employers. The past half-century has witnessed the growth of triangular staffing arrangements such as franchises, independent contractors, temporary help services firms, and a service sector in which many contingent workers may not qualify as employees, leaving them unprotected by the Act. By examining Board decisions addressing joint-employer and independent contractor status since 1960, this paper has identified increased polarization&mdash;the tendency of Democratic and Republican Board members to vote in opposing, and often politicized directions&mdash;in Board decisions classifying employers and employees. The findings suggest that in determining worker eligibility for protection under the Act, the Board is more polarized than at any point in 50 years.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines how neoliberalism and immigration enforcement between 1980 and 2010 changed the nature of &lsquo;sweated&rsquo; work in the U.S. This dissertation focuses on the particular case of Latino undocumented workers in New York State and the organizations fighting to win them protections. In order to answer my research questions, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews over the course of 2 years (2013&ndash;2015), examined immigration enforcement data, and analyzed U.S. immigration and welfare policies between 1980 and the present. Research interviews made clear that both the lack of social and legal protections alongside the threat of immigration enforcement have a definitive impact on working conditions in low-wage sectors. Staff and volunteers from worker justice centers and immigration rights organizations also emphasized the fact that some of the old protections that were hard fought and won by prior generations of labor activists are ill-suited to address the needs of low-wage, non-citizen workers who face a number of new challenges. By focusing on undocumented Latino workers and worker centers in New York State this dissertation shifts the conceptual lens from a particular &lsquo;worksite&rsquo; to the forces&mdash;historical, legal, and social&mdash;which make sweating possible once an individual enters a workplace. This dissertation contends that the specters of wagelessness and deportation collaborate to ensure the flexibility of undocumented labor and that these are the distinctive features of the contemporary U.S. sweatshop.</p><p>

Workers with developmental disabilities have recently entered the work force as a result of human service agency efforts to integrate these individuals with their non-disabled peers. Much of the integration efforts have occurred without the input of those individuals with developmental disabilities. Research completed regarding the work lives of the worker with developmental disabilities has focused mainly on wages and social integration. The majority of research data was collected from individuals other than the workers with developmental disabilities themselves. In order to effectively learn what is of importance to the worker with developmental disabilities, interviews with these individuals needed to be conducted. As suggested by others who have conducted research in the field of developmental disabilities, a qualitative research approach was used to obtain data. Quality of Work Life criteria established for non-disabled workers was used as a guide throughout the study. The data obtained through this study indicated that the Quality of Work Life improved for the participants once they left sheltered employment and were employed in integrated employment sites with non-disabled peers. Of importance to the participants was not only wages and having the opportunity to be with non-disabled peers, but also the opportunity to complete a variety of job tasks, keeping busy throughout their work day, and having some autonomy on the job. The participants also had an imbalance between their work and non-work time, most wanting the opportunity to work more hours per week. In addition, as a result of experiencing success in the work place, the participants began to identify with their non-disabled co-workers rather than their peers who still were employed at the sheltered workshops.

Identity has long been a prolific research interest for organizational scholars. Its popularity can be attributed to the development of post-bureaucratic organizations, where control is no longer achieved through external forms (i.e. rules and procedures), but rather, "softer" mechanisms, such as organizational culture and values. Examining identity therefore becomes crucial for understanding how employees internalize organizational goals to exhibit desired behaviors. While the predominant approach has been to analyze how organizations help shape, control, and regulate member identity, this project calls into question the assumption of organizational employment to explore the micro-processes of identity construction among a growing class of worker in the U.S.: the self-employed professional. This investigation is grounded in the world of personal coaching, an emerging profession organized largely by self-employment. Between 2007–2011, I immersed myself in the "field" of coaching, generating data via ethnographic methods—i.e. participant observation, in-depth interviews, informal interactions—and secondary archival sources. Applying a critical interpretive lens to conceptualize identity not as a "thing" but as an ongoing social accomplishment, the analysis reveals three main insights. First, intense identity working was provoked by tensions and anxiety arising from conflicts, contradictions, and challenges, as informants tried to construct a positive identity as a self-employed professional, while simultaneously performing vital (and mostly unrecognized) identity work for the wider coaching profession. Second, since "doing" identity and material conditions are mutually constitutive, identity efforts can be categorized as having a profitable, proficient, or pragmatic orientation; I contend that this typology is applicable to other self-employed professionals. Third, as a socially negotiated process, identity working is one which recruits many participants—both within and outside of the coaching community. Furthermore, geographically-dispersed members actively regulate and control each other's identities to maintain professional standards, via new organizing forms, like social media. This investigation contributes to knowledge about the nuances of identity working, and linkages between such micro-processes and the wider historical, socio-economic conditions. Extending beyond the coaching profession, the data produced serve as a contextual exemplar for exploring how individuals navigate the restructuring of labor and changing employment relations, which increasingly characterize the "new world of work."

The surge of inequality in the past three decades in the United States is associated with the financialization of the US economy. By financialization I refer to two interdependent processes. One is the increasing influence of the financial sector over the US economy. The second process is the increasing participation of the non-finance firms in the financial markets. Evidence presented in this dissertation shows that financialization has profound impacts on income dynamics and employment growth in the United States. As the centrality of the finance sector increases, financial firms and their favored workers capture more resources from the economy. When non-financial firms channel their resources and attention from the productive units to their financial arms, they exclude labor from the revenue generating process and therefore diminish the bargaining power of workers. Furthermore, as resources are engineered toward speculative activities and the shareholders, employment growth and security decline, particularly for middle-class workers. I discuss the policy implications at the end.

How have the neoliberal concept of "comparative advantage" and the neostructuralist concept of "systemic competitiveness" interacted with State and capitalist efforts to exert control over labor during the transition from ISI to export-oriented accumulation? How have neoliberal and neostructuralist modes of conceptualizing export competitiveness impacted upon the organization of production, the labor process and the reproduction of labor power in Chile? Grounded on these questions, this dissertation examines how these two schools conceive export-competitiveness and make it operational through different export-promotion policies. Particular attention is placed on the neostructuralist claim that there exist two distinct and separate paths to reach competitiveness: a spurious form attained at the expense of workers' wages and a genuine form rooted in the absorption of technical change. Based on aggregate macroeconomic and macrosocial data, ISIC data at the 3 digit level for manufacturing, as well as three case studies--in textile and metal-working--this dissertation examines whether productive efficiency and export-competitiveness has been attained through a reduction of labor costs, technological innovation, or a combination of both that defies the clear-cut dichotomy posited by neostructuralism. Based on the study of manufacturing exports--where allegedly a 'virtuous circle' would allow for concomitant increases in wages, productivity and the establishment of social accords at the enterprise-level--this dissertation concludes that export competitiveness is rooted in socially constructed relations of power ignored by both neoliberal and neostructuralist theories.

Representation is hallowed in American jurisprudence. Under the adversary approach manifested in the judicial system of the United States, the right to assistance of counsel is a tenet of the Constitution for those accused of crimes as well as a protection accorded by the Wagner Act for unionized workers facing discipline at the hands of their employers. Of more recent vintage, soaring caseloads have increasingly clogged the courts and, some would contend, have served to deny justice through its delay. Consequently, those enmeshed in disputes have turned to alternate means to resolve their differences equitably and efficiently. Chief among these new methods is a process, mediation, in which adversarial relations are anathema. Parties that consent to mediation choose a neutral who fosters their attempt to negotiate a settlement. In the juxtaposition of our historical reliance on adversaries pitted against each other in the pursuit of justice with a modern dispute resolution venue that demands cooperation in the quest for agreement, is representation still a cherished right? One overarching question prompts this Investigation. Does the presence of a Representative in mediation affect the client's perception of Procedural Justice as well as the likelihood of reaching a settlement? A mixed-design empirical study was conducted in which emic, between-subjects variables (obtained from self-report surveys) and etic, within-subjects variables (experimentally manipulated in a manner akin to policy capturing) were measured in a sample of upper-class undergraduates. In sum, results demonstrate that representation has a positive effect on subjects' perception of Procedural Justice generally and, more particularly, that Facilitators--representatives who empower their clients to directly negotiate with their opponent--augur higher perceptions of fair process and predicted outcomes among their clients than those represented by Advocates, who dominate negotiations, or the Unrepresented. This exploratory Investigation will advance Organizational Justice theory by shedding light on the impact of representation on a client's perception of process control, voice and overall fairness in mediation. Also, the evidence informs mediation practice by suggesting a greater use of representatives who support their client's direct participation.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between the frequency that nurses and physicians believe they practice collaboratively and the frequency that nurses report job stress related to variables surrounding conflict with physicians. The study also compared nurse and physician responses to questions dealing with acceptance of a definition of collaborative practice, satisfaction with the degree of collaboration that is present in the test facility, and the significance of nurse/physician collaboration to the recruitment and retention of nurses. A proportionate sampling of 100 nurses and 50 physicians was selected randomly to participate in the study. A survey design was utilized which included; The Nursing Stress Scale and Nurse Collaborative Practice Scale (distributed to nurses) and The Physician Collaborative Practice Scale (distributed to physicians). Both groups were asked to complete demographic data sheets and respond to three independent questions concerning collaborative practice. Noteworthy findings of the study include that (a) conflict with physicians ranked third out of a total of seven stressful work related categories, (b) a significant correlation exists between the degree of dissatisfaction expressed by nurses concerning the present collaborative environment and the high degree of job stress resulting from nurse-physician conflict in the hospital setting, and (c) based upon self assessment, nurses report lower scores on collaborating with physicians than physicians report on collaborating with nurses. Implications of the study are presented and discussed and recommendations for further study are provided.

This dissertation explores the relationship between technical innovation, product innovation, and industry structure in culture-based industries, taking the music recording industry as a case study. It investigates how technical change may stimulate the entry of new firms and examines the role of new firms as product innovators. Evidence is provided which suggests that the two periods of significant competition in the recording industry have occurred as a consequence of technical innovations that facilitated the entry of new innovative firms. These technical innovations reduced the level of fixed costs and the scale of efficient operation in production and manufacture. Horizontal mergers and increased vertical integration are major factors in subsequent periods of renewed industry concentration. It is suggested that a consequence of a high level of industry concentration is a lower level of product diversity and variety.