The Seattle Teamsters and the procedural state, 1935–1942

The Teamsters Union often clashed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Seattle between 1935 and 1942. At times the Seattle Teamsters resisted the NLRB, yet in other cases the union worked within the agency's procedures to expand. In the years after the Wagner Act, the Teamsters exploited the NLRB to block employees from choosing their own union. This article uses archival records to explore cases where the Seattle Teamsters successfully adapted to federal regulation of collective bargaining between 1935 and 1942. Seattle workers opposed to the Teamsters bravely fought to protect their right to organize, yet these employees faced a union skilled at working with the procedural state. These cases show the increasing ability of the Seattle Teamsters to enroll workers wary of the union by complying with NLRB rules.     

Divergent fates: company unions and employee involvement committees under the railway labor and national labor relations acts

Well known is that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, 1935) in the United States places a largely per se ban on nonunion employee representation (ER) groups which deal with employers over a term or condition of employment. Much less well known is that America’s other labor law, the Railway Labor Act (RLA, 1926), takes a different approach and permits employers to operate such councils and committees as long as they do not perform a collective bargaining function or interfere with workers’ free choice of a bargaining agent. Thus, under the RLA Delta Air Lines is able to operate what is today the closest living approximation to a 1920s-style ER plan while hundreds of other companies (e.g. Polaroid) under the jurisdiction of the NLRA have been forced over the years to disband similar groups on grounds they are a proscribed company union. No study to date has explored the history behind the RLA and NLRA’s divergent treatment of nonunion ER groups so this article takes a first look. The main part of the story covers the 1920–1935 period and examines the events, people, and experiences associated with company unions and ER in, respectively, the rail and manufacturing industries and why the legislative outcome in the former was a permissive stance on nonunion committees but prohibitive in the latter. The last part of the paper fast-forwards the RLA-NLRA story from the 1930s to contemporary law and practice in order to demonstrate how “history matters” when it comes to what employers can and cannot do with nonunion representation groups, such as works councils, participation and involvement committees, and dispute resolution forums.     

Labor radicalism and the local politics of Chinese exclusion: Mayor Jacob Weisbach and the Tacoma Chinese expulsion of 1885

ABSTRACT

The 1885 Chinese expulsion from Tacoma, Washington Territory highlights the importance of local political economy in shaping how a wider anti-Chinese movement played out in a particular community. Tacoma was a newly emerging city where white residents felt the threat of corporate domination in the form of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In this context, the city’s German immigrant mayor, Jacob Weisbach, could draw upon his longstanding labor radicalism to mobilize a broad anti-Chinese coalition that blurred the divide between white workers and the local business class. The result was the forceful removal of Chinese residents following a year-long campaign that culminated in mob action and became known as the ‘Tacoma Method’. This local violence in turn fed into ongoing national efforts to secure Chinese exclusion. Tacoma’s Chinese expulsion illustrates how radical labor traditions could be turned, under particular conditions, to the politics of racial repression even as the proponents of expulsion framed their efforts in terms of an egalitarian and democratic agenda. The participation of the Knights of Labor and other labor radicals in a politics exemplified by the Tacoma Method was accordingly tied to the larger racialized American state-building project as it unfolded in the late 19th Century.     

All the labor problems fit to print: the New York Times and the cultural production of the U.S ‘labor problem’, 1870–1932

The period that spanned the Gilded Age to the onset of the Great Depression saw the rise and relative decline of the US labor movement. The salient events of labor movements over these years undoubtedly shaped public perception about labor issues, and some scholars have been attempting to unpack the mechanisms through which depictions and characterizations of the ‘labor problem’ were produced in authoritative venues that could have shaped the future of the movement. This study goes beyond the standard practice of explaining news report volume to feature the political valance of the reports on the labor problem over a 63-year time period. The aforementioned period also saw significant changes in news reporting practices, with the rise of objective informational writing and the embrace of journalism as a profession. The change within journalism itself could potentially shape the depiction of the labor problem, yet such change has been overlooked by existing literature pertaining to the topic. This research makes a theoretical case for integrating social processes central to the labor movement and journalism from 1870 to 1932 and explains patterns in the cultural production of the labor problem in the New York Times by analyzing these two tracks of history in conjunction using both qualitative and quantitative data.     

弱人工智能时代的劳动价值论与劳动制度

随着弱人工智能时代的到来,物质生产与非物质生产全面自动化。这个正在生成的社会现实意味着经典劳动价值论“一切价值均来自人类劳动”的命题必须被重新思考。笔者以为,弱人工智能应被视为介于人与物之间的特殊劳动者。这样才能解释弱人工智能时代的价值创造问题。从这个角度出发,将弱人工智能视为物或工具就是一种未经反思的意识形态,其建构方向是资本原则与弱人工智能结合的永续生产模式。因此,只有强调并确立弱人工智能的劳动者地位,才能有效破除资本原则对社会发展模式的控制,将弱人工智能强大的生产能力服务于人类自由发展的目的。     

不订立书面劳动合同应付二倍工资之诉讼时效探讨

通过分析《劳动合同法》第82条及相关法律条文的立法原意及其基本法理，可以认定“视为已订立无固定期限劳动合同”之日即是用人单位应当订立书面劳动合同的起始时间，劳动者主张二倍工资的诉讼时效从“视为已订立无固定期限劳动合同”之日起计算，也可以认定加倍支付的“工资”即为劳动报酬，诉讼时效从劳动合同终止之日起计算。这符合我国劳动立法的目的和基本价值。     

雇主不当劳动行为的民事救济——基于我国和美国不当劳动行为救济制度之比较

我国《工会法》第52条规定的责令雇主承担不当劳动行为的民事责任,与美国《国家劳资关系法》第10(c)条的规定看起来很相似,相比之下,这一规范在美国劳动法的实践中很有效,在我国却极少被适用,解释方面也存在较大的分歧。美国是世界上最早创设不当劳动行为救济制度的国家,从《瓦格纳法》规定的雇主不当劳动行为的禁止规范及救济措施,到《塔夫托—哈特莱法》将适用对象扩大到工会和雇员,在雇用自由原则和劳资自治模式的背景下,其演变始终以保护雇员团结权的松紧程度和收放态度为线索。我国《工会法》现正处于第三次修改阶段,适时检讨第52条的解释和适用的障碍,还可以解决其与《劳动合同法》规范的竞合问题。     

英国“第三条道路”评析—兼评布莱尔十年执政之功过

布莱尔十年执政中铸就了一个第三条道路的时代。"第三条道路"是界于欧美现实资本主义的两种模式———美国的新自由主义模式和欧洲大陆的社会民主主义模式之间的一种资本主义模式。在"第三条道路"新型理念的引导下,布莱尔在政治、经济、外交、社会诸多方面取得了成就,备受称赞与好评;但布莱尔在战争与丑闻方面屡犯错误,这也使他备遭非议与责难。布莱尔执政十年的功过是非,从长远来看,应该是功大于过。     

基础设施网络整合与跨区域治理——“哈大齐”工业走廊与松花江水污染案例分析

在全球化和信息化背景下,区域管理正在从传统的都市区(Metropolitan)管理过渡到巨型都市区(Megapolitan)或者城市走廊(City Corridor)的管理.从社会技术系统(Societal-techno System)视角,将区域管理作为一个涉众系统(Multi-actor System)考虑,研究物理系统与社会网络之间的交互作用,通过研究基础设施网络和跨区域治理关系,探索涉众系统情境下的政策制定模型.采用理论分析和案例研究相结合的方法,利用哈大齐工业走廊案例和松花江水污染案例进行了研究.结果发现,基础设施整合具有嵌入性特征;基础设施整合和专业化分工网络的形成,是跨区域治理的基础,所形成的城市网络,其核心功能体现在"分散的集中化"上,以保证有效的基础设施整合、分工网络的形成和提供高级生产者服务;在跨区域治理政策制定中,应该采用自上而下和自下而上组合的基于规则和过程的涉众情境下的政策制定过程,以实现社会、政府和市场之间的均衡.     

结合新的实际深化对马克思劳动价值论的认识

现代科学技术的发展,使科学技术和人的智力在生产中的作用与以往根本不同,使生产要素在价值形成中的作用发生了重大变化。社会主义市场经济的建立和发展,使按生产要素分配成为今天的现实。这些变化为我们今天的实践提出许多重大的理论和实际问题,我们必须按照江泽民同志“七一”讲话的要求,在新的历史条件下,结合时代特点,深化对马克思劳动和劳动价值论的认识。