Explaining Union Organising During Corporate Mergers

With the emergence of transnational corporations and the resulting internationalisation of union co-determination, unions are found to organise themselves ineffectively in order to deal with this development. This paper attempts to offer a preliminary explanation as to why unions organise themselves in any given way during corporate mergers. A major literature review as well as an in depth case study constitute the basis for the explanation provided in this paper. Our literature study identify five major ideals of union organising, shaping the ways in which unions organise themselves in order to maintain legitimacy. Our in depth case study reveal how these ideals come into play in practice and how actors in a union organising process (re)produce these ideals in resolving issues regarding organisational identity and governance. We integrate our findings in presenting a conceptual model of union organising within transnational corporations, highlighting the diverse interrelationship between ideals as well as between ideals and actors.Union; transnational corporation; industrial relations; co-determination; corporate democracy

Eclipsing Binaries in the OGLE Variable Star Catalogs.V. Long-Period Beta Lyrae-type Systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the PLC-beta Relation

Thirty eight long-period (P>10 days), apparently contact binary stars discovered by the OGLE-II project in the SMC appear to be Beta Lyrae-type systems with ellipsoidal variations of the cool components dominating over eclipse effects in the systemic light variations and in the total luminosity. A new period-luminosity- color (PLC) relation has been established for these systems; we call it the PLC-beta relation, to distinguish it from the Cepheid relation. Two versions of the PLC-beta relation - based on the (B-V)0 or (V-I)0 color indices - have been calibrated for 33 systems with (V-I)0>0.25 spanning the orbital period range of 11 to 181 days. The relations can provide maximum-light, absolute-magnitude estimates accurate to epsilon-M_V~0.35 mag. within the approximate range -3<M_V<+1. In terms of their number in the SMC, the long-period Beta Lyrae-type binaries are about 50 times less common than the Cepheids. Nevertheless, their large luminosities coupled with continuous light variations make these binaries very easy to spot in nearby galaxies, so that the PLC-beta relation can offer an auxiliary and entirely independent method of distance determination to nearby stellar systems rich in massive stars. The sample of the long-period Beta Lyrae systems in the SMC analyzed in this paper is currently the best defined and uniform known sequence of such binaries.Comment: submitted for publication in Astronomical Journal; 8 PS figures, 2 table

Motivated for Action and Collaboration: The Abrahamic Religions and Climate Change

Leaders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have publicly advocated action to mitigate the adverse effects of human-forced climate change. Particularly prominent prior to, during, and after the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Pope Francis, and Patriarch Bartholomew. Also prominent was a group of Islamic clerics, leaders of organizations, and scholars who collaborated in issuing a declaration on climate change three months prior to COP 21. Informed by the Earth sciences, these leaders shared their faith-based rationales for acting locally to internationally as indicated in the documents explored in this article. Examples of organizations motivated by their leaders’ faith perspectives demonstrate their readiness to act informed by scientists. To work effectively, these religious leaders and activist groups require well-substantiated conclusions from data collected to counter unsubstantiated claims by climate skeptics. Earth scientists will find among the religious leaders and groups allies in the quest for a flourishing planet

Stochastic Dominance Analysis of Bioenergy Crops as a Production Alternative on an East Tennessee Beef and Crop Farm

This study evaluated prices and incentives for switchgrass stated in a biorefinery’s contract terms that induce switchgrass production on an east Tennessee representative farm when compared with traditional enterprises. The alternate contract terms imitated current subsidies/incentives offered as well as incentives and cost share terms not in the BCAP.switchgrass, contract, risk aversion, net return, Farm Management, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12,