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.     

Why Women Don’t Win Literary Awards: The Saltire Society Literary Awards and Implicit Stereotyping

The purpose of this analysis is to consider the Saltire Society’s Book of the Year and First Book of the Year Awards in relation to wider issues pertaining to media representations of Scottish literary and publishing culture. Through a statistical analysis of the Society’s Book of the Year and First Book of the Year shortlists and winners between 1988 and 2014, this examination shows the extent to which the Society’s Literary Awards reflect, as opposed to subvert, historic and existing gender imbalances in Scottish literary and publishing culture. Indeed, despite critics arguing that there was a change in tide in the late 1980s and early 1990s regarding the balance in gender representation in Scottish literature, this analysis suggests that Scotland’s book award culture, and in turn, literary culture more widely, remains dominated by men. Perceptions of the apparent ‘balancing’ of the gender disparity in Scottish writing do not align with the statistics discussed here, a fact further evidence by misconceptions held by members of the Society’s own Literary Awards judging panels. Accordingly, this article contends that such inconsistencies lend credence to the argument that the Society’s judges have participated in implicit stereotyping based upon culturally pervasive stereotypes’ that Scottish women writers play a ‘minor’ role in Scottish literary and publishing culture.     

Picture–text congruence in translation: images of the Zen master on book covers and in verbal texts

The study aims to demonstrate how cover pictures and verbal texts are congruent with each other in presenting the Zen master Huineng in two English translations of the Platform Sutra. The focus is on the interpersonal/interactive meanings and the analytical tools adopted are systemic functional linguistics and Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual social semiotics. Results show that the visual techniques employed to depict Huineng on the book covers are in consistency with the verbal choices adopted to present Huineng in the translated texts. While the medium to close shot and eye-level angle complement the choice of speaker-plus “we” as dominant interactive subject person, and qualified statements and polite suggestions/commands in Wong’s translation, the very long shot matches the use of speaker “I” and addressee “you”, and categorical statements and direct commands in Cleary’s translation. In this way a consistent image of Huineng is presented in each translation: friendly and willing to be close to the viewer/audience in Wong’s translation, but authoritative and distant in Cleary’s translation.     

小额贷款公司可持续发展的制度创新研究

当前，“三农”经济的发展问题和民营中小企业的融资问题备受社会各界关注。小额贷款公司的出现给我国农村经济和中小企业融资带来了新的活力。但是小额贷款公司“只贷不存”的政策及自身原因，给小额贷款公司的可持续发展带来许多困扰。对小额贷款公司的发展历程进行回顾，分析其可持续发展过程中的制度缺陷，并提出进行制度创新的对策建议，具有一定的理论与现实意义。     

论小公司立法规制的三种模式

进入21世纪以来，一些西方发达国家纷纷大幅度调整了公司立法，其共同特点是增强了对小公司发展的促进措施。公司法在处理小公司问题上有三种不同的模式．即特殊的公司形式、公司的替代形式以及采取“小公司优先”原则。其中”小公司优先”原则又可以采取不同的实现方式。     

会展企业简介的翻译与受容

会展企业简介是参会企业借助会展平台展示企业风貌,传递商业信息的手段。会展企业简介翻译要全面考虑参会企业的目的、意图及参会客商的文化差异和审美意识,以参会客商为中心,关注参会客商的期待视野,实现参会客商与企业简介的"视野融合"。本文从接受理论的角度讨论会展企业简介的翻译,从信息效度、文体结构、审美差异等方面探讨其翻译原则和方法,旨在发挥企业简介的呼唤诱导作用,提升企业形象,实现其商业价值。     

具象修辞、符号象征与消费文化——1980年以降台湾流行绘本艺术文体解析

作为一个文学和美术结合的艺术种类,台湾绘本文体具有借助图画进行具象表达的文学修辞手段,其文本通过线条、色彩与语言结合的符号系统和技术手段实现了意义象征,其中的配图文字具有超逸于说明文字的文学功能。自1980年以降,当代台湾绘本艺术已成为一种流行娱乐文化,此种台湾绘本文化现象具有消费文化的特征,是消费社会里适合大众审美心理和现代社会文化传播及市场运营机制的成功创意范例。     

“公司社会责任”灵魂托生之正当性基础

“公司社会责任”诸性质之“责任或义务”说,不足以合理承载其灵魂,而其灵魂托生于“公司利他权”不仅是理论逻辑所必然,而且亦是实践所证明及要求之结论；再者,它之所以能够成为比较优越和正确的理论,不但因为它是被充分的实践所证明了的,并且还在于它具有强大的经济学基础、伦理学基础和颠扑不破的哲学基础这三点确定的永恒平面强有力地支...     

论股东诉权对股东权益救济的现实困境与出路

股东诉权是股东实体权益的有力保障,对于维护中小股东在公司的各项权益尤为重要。但股东通过法律赋予的诉讼权利来维护其在公司的利益明显存在很多现实困境与诸多限制条件。诉讼程序本身的复杂与大量诉讼成本的支出使股东维权困难重重。应当从公司制度本身去寻找解决之路,即立法上加强中小股东的权利配置,公司管理上实现两权分离,引进职业经理人制度,进一步加强监事会的监督作用。     

论国有独资公司治理结构的完善——基于新《公司法》的考量

完善的国有独资公司治理结构是国有独资公司规范运作的前提,也是国有独资公司健康发展的关键所在。新《公司法》对国有独资公司的治理结构作出了新的规定,但仍有许多不完善的地方,架构新的国有独资公司治理结构仍是保证国有独资公司健康发展的当务之急。我们应在明确国有资产监督管理机构职责、加强董事会决策、监事会监督、充分发挥银行在治理结构中的作用等方面对国有独资公司治理结构加以完善。