It's Just a Little Too Human: Questions of Vocation

SUMMARY

Among youth workers who experience moments of not-knowing what to do, many often describe their thoughts and reactions to the phenomenon in vocational and existential terms. They ask what right they have to work in the helping professions if they find themselves simply unable to be helpful. In many cases, the vocational crises following experiences of not-knowing contribute to burnout and youth workers' decisions to leave the field altogether. This chapter describes the fourth of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: questions of vocation. In addition to presenting the dominant theme, this chapter discusses the three variations on it, as described by youth worker participants: (a) What am I supposed to do? (b) Who am I to deal with this? and (c) Maybe the problem is me.     

Youth Worker Professional Development Participation,Preferences, and Agency Support

Using a Web-based survey, this study examined youth workers' professional development participation, preferences, and levels of agency support and the relationships between these variables and youth worker characteristics. Results revealed a positive relationship between participation in professional development opportunities and youth workers' self-reported job competency but also indicated low levels of agency support for participation in continuing education. Though perceptions of critical training topics varied among program staff from different geographic areas, most youth workers reported similar training experiences and interests regardless of their individual characteristics. Collaborative approaches to training and professional development may result in increased exposure to a broad range of professional development opportunities and significantly enhance the quality of youth programming.     

提升文化产业职工素质的途径探析

职工素质的提升,对于文化产业维护、展示、弘扬和创新文化内涵具有十分重要的意义。提升职工素质可以通过树立榜样形成示范力、弘扬道德凸显约束力、完善体制提升竞争力、维护权益构建原动力、举办活动打造凝聚力来激发职工的劳动热情和创造活力。     

职工文化管理推动工会工作创新探析

工会工作创新不仅是党和国家对工会提出的重大政治任务,也是全面提升我国职工队伍整体素质从而建设社会主义现代化强国的战略需要,更是工会自身发展的内在要求。作为习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的重要组成部分,职工文化对于创新工会工作尤其调动广大职工群众的积极性有着特殊的政治意义和战略价值。因此,建议要在企业中大力推动职工文化管理。     

多学科跨学科视角下劳动模范研究与劳模教育创新

劳模作为工人阶级队伍"闪光的群体",在中国革命、建设和改革开放不同历史时期,充分发挥其积极性、创造性和历史主动精神,建立了不朽功绩。作为新时代奋斗者和领跑者,劳模及其先进性,已升华为时代精神。新时代弘扬劳模精神,加强劳模教育和研究,要以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导,以多视角切入、多方面展示、多学科丰富,作为基本的逻辑遵循。高校在推动劳模教育和研究中,应充分利用不同学科和专业资源,在多学科、跨学科的不断拓展和深化中,努力探索创新路径,形成"劳模+"的理论创新局面,建构劳模学,推动劳模教育和劳模研究向纵深发展。     

服务 开放 共建 多赢——首都职工素质建设工程发展历程与运行模式

北京市总工会联合多部门组织实施的首都职工素质建设工程迄今整10年,历经酝酿启动直至深入发展五个阶段。逐步建立和完善了职工素质教育体系、技能人才培养体系、创新成果转化体系的基本框架。建构了十三家成员单位共同指导、三级工会组织层层推进、企事业单位按需实施的整体推进机制;形成以科研为导向拓展职工学习需求、多方筹资持续发展、共建共享学习资源、项目菜单多元服务、按需自选服务内容、三网培训便捷适用、职工团队学习等特色鲜明的运行模式。     

Private game farming and its social consequences in post-apartheid South Africa: contestations over wildlife,property and agrarian futures

Spaces of privatised wildlife production, in the form of game farms, private nature reserves and other forms of wildlife-oriented land use, are an increasingly prominent feature of the South African countryside. Whilst there is a well-developed literature on the social impacts of state-run protected areas, the outcomes of privatised wildlife production have thus far received little attention. It is argued here that the socio-spatial dynamics of the wildlife industry, driven by capitalist imperatives related to the commodified production of nature and ‘wilderness’, warrant both in-depth investigation in their own right, and contextualisation in terms of broader processes of agrarian change locally as well as globally. The growing influence of trophy hunting and the wildlife industry on private land can be seen as a significant contributing factor to processes of deagrarianisation that are mirrored in other parts of the African continent and elsewhere. In South Africa, these developments and their impacts on the livelihoods of farm dwellers take on an added dimension in the context of the country's efforts to implement a programme of post-apartheid land reform. Two decades after the formal end of apartheid, contestations over land rights and property ownership remain live and often unresolved. This theme issue explores these dynamics on private land partly or wholly dedicated to wildlife production, with special emphasis on two South African provinces: KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.     

Wet and wobbly harmonies: music and saloon-life in the industrial workers of the world, 1905–1920

ABSTRACT

During the first fifteen years of its existence, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) gained a reputation for being an exceedingly musical labor organization. Where did this proclivity originate? This article complements and elaborates existing explanations by sourcing the roots of IWW music to the institution that was both historically and contemporaneously integral to working-class culture – namely the saloon. It demonstrates strong and persistent links with the culture of proletariat drinking establishments. First, it investigates the ease with which individuals and songs travelled between the recreational environments of the barroom and activist environments of the IWW. Second, by comparing the values and attitudes associated with the musical cultures of the IWW and the saloon, it demonstrates an enduring compatibility between these two working-class institutions. Finally, it demonstrates the value of these findings for historians of the IWW organization, labor historians, and theorists of social movements.     

Industrial requiem: management,labor, and investment at the Lowell Machine Shop

In the 1890s, a desire for greater control of shop floor work induced Lowell Machine Shop management to mechanize components of the machine tool manufacturing process. This effort resulted in the removal of the firm’s skilled workers, who were an experienced source of ingenuity and, as others have shown, a community that diffused technical knowledge between firms. At the same time, the firm began paying larger dividends to shareholders instead of investing in the research and development of new products. These decisions damaged the firm, and shortly after the turn of the century, manufacturing operations at the Lowell plant ceased. Because in this period the Lowell Machine Shop was one of the most important capital goods firms in the United States, both in terms of national market share and reputation, this case raises questions about the degree to which specialty producers retained skilled workers and paid dividends.     

Labor conflicts in the Toronto construction industry, 1968–1973. A crossroads of ethnic issues,business innovations,class struggle,and union action

ABSTRACT

This article concerns a case study in labor history which represents an interesting example of union action in a workers’ community characterized by intersections between ethnic and class belonging.

The focus of the article is on labor conflicts in Toronto’s construction industry between 1968 and 1973. In that period, the Torontonian residential sector represented a sort of ethnic niche dominated by Italian immigrants, who populated this industry both as workers and as contractors. At the same time, important economic, technological, and organizational innovations formed part of this niche. In particular, it refers to the new Toronto real estate boom and to the introduction of new building techniques such as the drywall technique, or concrete forming, as well as business innovations such as the flying form or the creation of teamwork. This article tells the story of successful unionization in a peculiar industry dominated by continuous formal and informal bargaining. Moreover, the powerful presence of the phenomenon of mafiosi and widespread racism made the context still more difficult. In this situation, despite the ambiguities, the final result was the unionization of thousands of workers and the successful signing of collective contracts.