In recent years, living wage movements have developed around the United States. In addition to advocating for living wage ordinances and laws in cities, living wage movements have developed to advocate for living wage policies at universities across the country. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine living wage movements at two universities to understand how they use communication to frame the wage issue and to push for the implementation of living wage policies. To develop an understanding of these living wage movements, two cases, Texas A&M University and Georgetown University, were selected for this study to examine through the lens of the social movement framing perspective. Data for the cases included interviews with activists and administrators, media reports, video documentaries, and internal documents. Results showed that the living wage campaign in each case prioritized the components of collective action frames, diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing, differently. The Texas A&M living wage campaign focused heavily on developing the problem at an emotional level and offering a clear solution to the problem. The Georgetown living wage campaign focused heavily on laying blame for the problem. Each case also exhibited elements of master framing which linked its campaign to preexisting values. Most notably, in both cases, the existing university values and culture were used as a basis for master framing. The results also showed that the campaign targeted different constituencies, with the Texas A&M campaign attempting to gain popular support and the Georgetown campaign focusing on the university?s administration. This, along with the degree to which each campaign was willing to accept compromise, had a large impact on the campaigns? overall strategies. Overall, the results of this study show how communication related to an issue affects the course of a social movement and how a social movement approach can be used to create organizational change.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigates workers’ perceptions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) practices on elections and living wage issues from a social movement perspective from the Apartheid (South Africa) and Unilateral Declaration of Independence (Zimbabwe) eras to 2009. The trade union social movement perspective refers to labour movements that develop a socio-political character, and concern themselves not only with workplace issues but with broad social and political issues. A study of COSATU and ZCTU practices in South Africa and Zimbabwe at this time in the field of social movements is consistent with current calls for a conceptual shift, away from looking for invariant causes and effects to looking for mechanisms and processes that occur in many different kinds of movements and that lead to different outcomes depending on the specific contexts within which they occur. The study draws insights from social movement unionsm theory to understand mechanisms and processes pursued by COSATU and ZCTU in seeking to influence policy outcomes. This study used a qualitative approach and a case study strategy. In the study, questionnaire and in-depth interview responses were drawn from COSATU secretariat, two affiliates, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and National Union of Mine Workers (NUM). Questionnaire and in-depth responses were also drawn from the ZCTU secretariat, two affiliates, the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GPWUZ) and the Zimbabwe Urban Municipal Workers Union (ZUMWU). The objective was to gain insights from a broad cross-section of union members – blue-collar workers, professionals, state or semi state institution workers and ordinarily low income farm workers. The study concludes that workers’ perceptions of the two labour social movements is that they can influence changes in the political system (through elections) as a means to securing living wages by engaging in five practices, namely, disruption mechanisms, public preference mechanisms, political access mechanisms, judicial mechanisms and international access mechanisms. However, while the study noted that workers perceive COSATU and ZCTU practices as essential in influencing elections and living wage issues, the popularity of the mechanisms was lower in Zimbabwe where workers often face persecution. In South Africa, utilisation of these practices is also affected by the less militant public sector affiliates and non- standard forms of work such as subcontracting, casualisation, informalisation, externalisation and the ballooning informal sector. Given these problems, social movement trade unionism remains a viable means of representing the interests of the working poor. Establishment of these challenges leads to areas of possible further research such as how the unions can effectively represent the unorganised workers of the informal sector. A broader research on the impact of the exponential growth of non-standard forms of work is also relevant at this time in the two countries.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Speech Communication, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-76).

Thesis advisor: Kevin Kenny / The present study examines the Catholic social critique of U.S. immigration law from the introduction of literacy testing in 1917 to the removal of the national origins quota system in 1965. During this period, Catholic thinkers developed a distinctive theology of migration and engaged in a long campaign for reform of federal immigration policy. They did so at a time when the debate over that policy was characterised by a number of contentious issues: discrimination against prospective immigrants on the basis of race and national origins; the importation of migrant labor; the obligation to respond to an international refugee crisis; and the imperatives of Cold War national security. Catholic thinking on these issues involved a constant negotiation between a liberal policy position emphasizing the dignity of the individual and man's natural right to migrate, and a restrictive outlook which acknowledged sovereign states' right to control immigration and citizenship in the national interest. The Catholic philosophy was an important dimension of a national debate that oscillated between exclusionary and inclusionary approaches. In keeping with Catholic social doctrine, Catholic intellectuals and immigration experts insisted that the debate over policy and implementation should give priority to the integrity of the migrating family and the attainment and protection of a living wage for all. These priorities coalesced with a post-New Deal political and social emphasis on the heteronormative family as the core consuming and breadwinning unit in American life. Current historical understanding of the debate over American immigration policy elides the significance of religious thought. This study demonstrates that religious ideas and institutions were used to give the Post-World War II campaign for immigration reform and the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965 the weight of moral authority, inclusive of their liberalizing and restrictive features. By giving the 1965 law their imprimatur, Catholic social thinkers helped efface the law's retention of restrictive and selective measures. Examination of the Catholic social critique of immigration policy reveals that socio-economic and moral ideals - as embodied by the idealized nuclear, male breadwinner-headed family - pervaded the debate over immigration reform in this era of restriction. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, DEpartment of English. / Includes bibliographical references.

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Yes / In this paper we explore how paying a living wage in global supply chains might affect employment and carbon emissions: Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 13. Previous work has advocated using wage increases for poorer workers to increase prices for wealthier consumers, thereby reducing consumption and associated environmental damage. However, the likely effects of such an approach remain unclear. Using an input-output framework extended with income and demand elasticities, we estimate the employment and carbon effects of paying a living wage to Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese (BRIC) workers in the Western European clothing supply chain. We find negligible effects on carbon emissions but a substantial increase in BRIC employment under 3 scenarios of consumer behaviour. Changes in Western European consumption lead to small decreases in global carbon emissions and BRIC employment. However, the increase in BRIC wages increases demand in BRIC. This increased demand increases production which largely cancels out the carbon savings and generates net increases in BRIC employment. We conclude by arguing that paying higher wages in global supply chains represents a good but not sufficient step toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Yes / This paper explores the issue of fairness in global supply chains. Taking the Western European clothing supply chain as a case study, we demonstrate how applying a normative indicator in Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) can contribute academic and practical insights into debates on fairness. To do so, we develop a new indicator that addresses some of the limitations of the living wage for SLCA. We extend the standard form of living wage available for developing countries to include income tax and social security contributions. We call this extension 'living labour compensation'. Using publically available data, we estimate net living wages, gross living wages, and living labour compensation rates for Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) in 2005. We then integrate living labour compensation rates into an input-output framework, which we use to compare living labour compensation and actual labour compensation in the BRIC countries in the Western European clothing supply chain in 2005. We find that in 2005, actual labour compensation in the Western European clothing supply chain was around half of the living labour compensation level, with the greatest difference being in the Agricultural sector. Therefore, we argue that BRIC pay in the Western European clothing supply chain was unfair. Furthermore, our living labour compensation estimates for BRIC in 2005 are ~ 35% higher than standard living wage estimates. Indeed, adding income taxes and employee social security contributions alone increases the living wage by ~ 10%. Consequently, we argue there is a risk that investigations based on living wages are not using a representative measure of fairness from the employee's perspective and are substantially underestimating the cost of living wages from an employer's perspective. Finally, we discuss implications for retailers and living wage advocacy groups. Living labour compensation extends the living wage, maintaining its strengths and addressing key weaknesses. It can be estimated for multiple countries from publically available data and can be applied in an input-output framework. Therefore, it is able to provide a normative assessment of fairness in complex global supply chains. Applying it to the Western European clothing supply chain, we were able to show that pay for workers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China is unfair, and draw substantive conclusions for practice.

No / In this chapter we use global multi-regional input-output analysis to explore how globalisation has impacted fairness along Western European clothing supply chains. Our analysis shows that while globalisation has made the Western European clothing supply chain ‘fairer’ by increasing employment opportunities and income for workers in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), it has failed to make the supply chain fair. Despite large increases in the labour compensation received by BRIC workers in the Western European clothing supply chain, labour compensation is still insufficient to support a decent standard of living and cannot, therefore, be considered fair.