States\u27 Gains, Labor\u27s Losses: China, France, and Mexico Choose Global Liaisons, 1980-2000

[Excerpt] Putting it differently, I inquire, then: why did countries that elected to act similarly globally turn out to vary so strikingly internally, at the domestic level, when it came to resultant interactions between unions and the state? That the book focuses on three very dissimilar states serves to demonstrate the wide sweep of countries that, rather comparably, were compelled to confront the global economy in new ways at a critical historical moment. By picking pioneers and an outlier, it also deals with unlikely cases. Thus, the book sets out to explain this concurrent asymmetry at different levels of analysis after 1980 in France, China, and Mexico, drawing on features of the domestic political economies of three countries that, counterintuitively—given all their apparent variation—had much in common at the outset but then diverged so much in the end. The first half of the book sets up the similarities, inspecting these states and exploring their predicaments and their leaders\u27 choices in the late-twentieth-century world economy; the second half tackles the tale of these same states at home, as they encountered their own angry workers. In short, the work takes countries that began, as of 1979, by sharing traits, experiences, and inclinations, and then pits comparison of relative behavioral sameness (an unexpected sameness) at one level, the global one, against contrast at another level, the domestic one

The new crowd of the dispossessed: factory layoffs and the informalization of the urban economy

This paper contrasts the old "crowd" of the revered urban proletariat from the days of Mao Zedong to the new "crowd" of laid-off workers. It utilizes concepts from the book, CROWDS AND POWER, by Elias Canetti, to characterize the opposed characteristics of the two crowds, and details the plight of the current crowd, as well as highlighting some continuities in the behavior and treatment of the working class by the regime. It also provides some statistics on unemployment, reemployment, benefits, and poverty among the old working class, and shows how its members have become informal workers

Interview with Dorothy Bloom, May 28, 1993

Dorothy Bloom, wife of Robert Bloom, a professor of history at Gettysburg College, was interviewed on May 28, 1993 by Michael Birkner about her experience as a spouse of a faculty member from 1949 to 1981. She discusses other faculty members and administrators at the time, her husband\u27s work and the events they participated in on campus. Length of Interview: 91 minutes Collection Note: This oral history was selected from the Oral History Collection maintained by Special Collections & College Archives. Transcripts are available for browsing in the Special Collections Reading Room, 4th floor, Musselman Library. GettDigital contains the complete listing of oral histories done from 1978 to the present. To view this list and to access selected digital versions please visit -- http://gettysburg.cdmhost.com/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16274coll

Social and Economic Decline as Factors in Conflict in the Caucasus

We argue that the conflicts in the Caucasus are the result of the abrogation by the elite of the earlier, Soviet era, social contract. This process was accompanied by the collapse of the formal economy; evidenced by huge national income compression, falling public goods provision, and growing inequality and poverty. In the absence of state provision of basic amenities and governance, ordinary people are compelled to fall back on kinship ties. Declining standards of governance facilitate state-sponsored corruption and criminality in a setting where the shadow economic activity is increasingly important to individual survival strategies. Oil pipelines and the right to control the transit of goods both legal and illegal also underlie conflict in the region. Criminality has replaced ethnicity as the major motivation for conflict and conflict per se has become a lucrative source of income.Caucasus, conflict, natural resources

Employing and Accommodating Individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries

This brochure on individuals with spinal cord injuries and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of a series on human resources practices and workplace accommodations for persons with disabilities edited by Susanne M. Bruyère, Ph.D., CRC, SPHR, Director, Program on Employment and Disability, School of Industrial and Labor Relations – Extension Division, Cornell University. Cornell University was funded in the early 1990’s by the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research as a National Materials Development Project on the employment provisions (Title I) of the ADA (Grant #H133D10155). These updates, and the development of new brochures, have been funded by Cornell’s Program on Employment and Disability and the Pacific Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center

Montane lakes (lagoons) of the New England Tablelands Bioregion

The vegetation of montane lagoons of the New England Tablelands Bioregion, New South Wales is examined using flexible UPGMA analysis of frequency scores on all vascular plant taxa, charophytes and one liverworts. Seven communities are described: 1. Hydrocotyle tripartita – Isotoma fluviatilis – Ranunculus inundatus – Lilaeopsis polyantha herbfield; 2. Eleocharis sphacelata – Potamogeton tricarinatus sedgeland; 3. Eleocharis sphacelata – Utricularia australis – Isolepis fluitans, herbfield; 4. Utricularia australis – Nitella sonderi herbfield; 5. Eleocharis sphacelata – Utricularia australis – Ricciocarpus natans sedgeland; 6. Carex gaudichaudiana – Holcus lanatus – Stellaria angustifolia sedgeland; 7. Cyperus sphaeroides – Eleocharis gracilis – Schoenus apogon – Carex gaudichaudiana sedgeland. 58 lagoons were located and identified, only 28% of which are considered to be intact and in good condition. Two threatened species (Aldovandra vesiculosa and Arthaxon hispidus) and three RoTAP-listed taxa were encountered during the survey