Labour History最新文献

Speed-Ups and Related Problems: The UAW and Grassroots Grievances in the Immediate Post-World War II Period 提速及相关问题：二战刚结束后的美国汽车工会与基层不满情绪

IF 0.6 4区历史学

Labour History Pub Date : 2024-07-22 DOI: 10.3828/labourhistory.2024.28

Timothy J. Minchin

{"title":"Speed-Ups and Related Problems: The UAW and Grassroots Grievances in the Immediate Post-World War II Period","authors":"Timothy J. Minchin","doi":"10.3828/labourhistory.2024.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/labourhistory.2024.28","url":null,"abstract":"Scholarship on the United Automobile Workers – for many decades the largest industrial union in the USA – has focused heavily on the landmark wage and benefit gains that the union won, especially through pattern bargaining in the post-World War II era. The UAW has been praised as an “American Vanguard” that secured landmark wages and benefits for its members in widely publicised national contracts, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. This article interrogates this image through the lens of the UAW’s executive board minutes, its top decision-making body. Although bargaining gains in these years were real, the national “pattern” was not as uniform as was reported and was constantly under pressure. Despite the gains, post-war autoworkers had many grievances, especially over workloads and “speed-ups.” Workers testified before the board about these complaints, showing that plant conditions were more important to many than wages and benefits. Usually precipitated by these issues, local strikes were a constant problem. As these records show, there was more to the UAW’s history in these years than pattern bargaining. These findings build on literature that has explored rank-and-file dissatisfaction in the auto industry, but extend it beyond local studies, showing how the union’s top leaders experienced the impact of members’ restlessness. The article also demonstrates that workers’ dissatisfaction occurred much earlier than the 1960s and 1970s, the era that has received more attention, throwing light on the roots of subsequent discontent.","PeriodicalId":44167,"journal":{"name":"Labour History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141816629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

So How Did We Get Here? A Historical Case Study of Migrant Employment in the New Zealand Hotel Sector 我们是如何来到这里的？新西兰酒店业移民就业历史案例研究

IF 0.6 4区历史学

Labour History Pub Date : 2024-07-22 DOI: 10.3828/labourhistory.2024.29

David Williamson, Candice Harris

引用次数: 0

Explaining Union Decline: Remaking Power Relations in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry 解释工会衰落：重塑皮尔巴拉铁矿业的权力关系

IF 0.6 4区历史学

Labour History Pub Date : 2024-07-22 DOI: 10.3828/labourhistory.2024.27

B. Ellem

{"title":"Explaining Union Decline: Remaking Power Relations in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry","authors":"B. Ellem","doi":"10.3828/labourhistory.2024.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/labourhistory.2024.27","url":null,"abstract":"How have scholars tried to explain marked union membership decline in the Global North, and how have they assessed consequent “union renewal” strategies? In this journal in 2020, Bowden argued that most accounts of unionism failed to explain decline, relied too much on state policy as causation and were too optimistic about those renewal strategies. One way to respond to these important general claims is to assess, as this article does, a striking and important local instance of decline and unsuccessful strategy – Pilbara unionism, once an archetype of mining workers’ power – and to do so over the entire history of an industry. In explaining the fall of the Pilbara mining unions, which for 20 years until 1986 had seemed so strong, “power resources” and geography itself were remade by capital in ways that were entwined with, but did not always rely on, state action. This argument recasts debate about decline in two ways: by drawing on a longer timeframe than is common in industrial relations scholarship and by adopting a more theoretically explicit, and inter-disciplinary, framing than is usual in the labour historiography addressing these issues. The explanation offered here shows how, after just 20 years of mining, union power in the Pilbara unravelled. Employer strategy, the precise nature and timing of state intervention, and the geographically textured nature of employer and union power explain the rise and fall of these unions.","PeriodicalId":44167,"journal":{"name":"Labour History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141816195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Mary Davis, UNITE History Volume 5 (1974–1992): The Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU): From Zenith to Nadir? Mary Davis，UNITE 历史第 5 卷（1974-1992 年）：运输与总工会（TGWU）：从顶峰到低谷？

IF 0.6 4区历史学

Labour History Pub Date : 2024-06-05 DOI: 10.3828/labourhistory.2024.16

Bobbie Oliver

引用次数: 0

Jared Davidson, Blood & Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand 贾里德-戴维森，《血与污垢：监狱劳工与新西兰的形成

IF 0.6 4区历史学

Labour History Pub Date : 2024-06-05 DOI: 10.3828/labourhistory.2024.15

Hamish Maxwell‐Stewart

引用次数: 0

Lee-Ann Monk and David Henderson with Christine Bigby, Richard Broome, and Katie Holmes, Failed Ambitions: Kew Cottages and Changing Ideas of Intellectual Disabilities Lee-Ann Monk 和 David Henderson 与 Christine Bigby、Richard Broome 和 Katie Holmes 合著，《失败的抱负》：邱园小屋与智障观念的变化