Revitalizing Labor In Today\u27s World Markets

[Excerpt] Competitiveness for firms is possible via the high road or low road, or some combination of the two. For a nation, however, if competitiveness means the ability of a country\u27s firms to sell on world markets while contributing to rising average incomes and living standards at home, then only the high road will do, especially for advanced industrial societies such as Germany and the United States. The tragedy of today\u27s touted American model is that it is based too much on the low road, and as a result includes growing income polarization and a deep representation gap. American workers, in spite of the long 1990s miniboom, don\u27t earn enough and don\u27t have enough voice in the workplace. The decline of the labor movement has gone hand in hand with growing economic and social polarization. Perhaps the best remedy, and certainly the one that allows workers themselves to solve these problems, is a revitalization of American unions. In today\u27s world economy, union revitalization requires both the capacity to organize and mobilize and a proactive willingness to use new strength and representation to contribute to firm and national competitiveness. German unions are strong to the extent they can do both of these, within an institutional environment that is far more supportive than that in which American unions must operate. German unions today, however, among many other problems, are being badgered by employers about the virtues of the American model, which in part means roll back the unions, to drive down labor costs and raise productivity. On their own turf, German unions have done a good job fending off the attacks. However, in the long run, their continuing influence may well depend on the strength of unions in other countries, throughout Europe and elsewhere. Especially in the United States, where a revival of the labor movement could do much to revise the American model and remove downward pressure on the German high road. The revitalization of the unions in the United States, therefore, is important not only for American workers and society, but for German unions and society as well. Economic growth and improved productivity and firm competitiveness may not require strong unions in the U.S. or Germany, but as past performance in many countries has shown, neither are strong unions incompatible with growth, productivity and competitiveness. Strong unions, we do know, raise wages, improve benefits and employment security, and offer protected representation in the workplace, all of which are all too often missing in the American workplace

Rank-and-File Participation in Organizing at Home and Abroad

[Excerpt] We know that we need labor law reform. But it is also clear that this is not all we need; nor can we expect to achieve legal reform simply by electing Democrats. That strategy did not work in 1978-79 or in 1993-94, and it will not work in the future. In the face of inevitably powerful and well-organized business opposition, even the most well-financed and articulate lobbying campaign for labor law reform can fail. What was missing in 1978-79 and in 1993-94 and is urgently needed now is the pressure of a massive social movement, mobilized to transform and democratize the American workplace. The potential is there for such a movement, fueled by falling real wages, growing income polarization, and a widespread desire for expanded voice in the workplace (Appelbaum and Batt 1994; Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations 1994b; Kochan 1995; Levine 1995). But the potential will not be realized unless people are allowed and encouraged to participate fully in the building of their own union organizing drives, union mobilization efforts, including labor-community coalitions, and grassroots political campaigns. This chapter presents case studies of success and failure in union organizing campaigns in the United States and Germany to support the cross-national — and thus to some extent universal—validity of this argument. Comparative analysis is especially useful in developing and testing causal relationships. If, for example, rank-and-file participation can be shown to have similar effects in organizing efforts in contrasting institutional and cultural contexts, the explanatory power of the hypothesis suggested here may well be significant (thus meriting further and more extensive testing). Germany affords the context of a comparable advanced industrial society but one with very different traditions and institutions of industrial relations (such as codetermination and comprehensive collective bargaining) and historically strong unions facing a parallel need for contemporary revitalization

The East in Open Conflict: The Great Strike of 1993

[Excerpt] Because it is impossible in one book to examine all German institutions of negotiation, this book focuses on one important set of relations at the heart of social market regulation: the social partnership between labor and management. Social partnership, a term widely used throughout the European Union but little known in the United States, refers to the nexus—and central political and economic importance—of bargaining relationships between strongly organized employers (in employer associations) and employees (in unions and works councils) that range from comprehensive collective bargaining and plant-level codetermination to vocational training and federal, state, and local economic policy discussions. To some extent, I use social partnership in this book to represent other, parallel processes of regularized negotiation throughout the German political economy. From the perspective of economic citizenship and democratic participation, however, social partnership itself is the most critical of social market mechanisms of negotiation and inclusion. And what is most remarkable, social partnership has not only coexisted with but proactively facilitated the strong export-oriented economic performance of the Federal Republic of Germany ever since its founding in 1949

Gamblization: The Rise of Sports Gambling and the Need to Repeal PASPA

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission, in its final report to Congress, estimated American’s bet as much as $380 billion per year on sports, making it by far the largest form of illegal wagering, and that report was released in 1999. With the growth of the Internet and technology, there is no doubt that these staggering figures are far larger today. Based on the current structure, 99% of sports gambling continue to operate untaxed and unregulated in defiance of state and federal law. The time has come for the United States to repeal the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (“PASPA”) and develop modern laws to regulate the sports gambling industry and cash in on the billions of dollars it generates in revenue

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Luther on revelation: foundation for proclamation and worship

Luther\u27s struggles in the monastery were characterized by his preoccupation with a theology of glory (God Hidden; God in glory and majesty; Christ the King; human attempts to reach God; works righteousness). His evangelical breakthrough led him to a theology of the Cross (God revealed in Christ; the humility of Christ in the Child of Bethlehem and Man of Calvary). His liturgical forms, and those of later Lutherans, reflected this. Recently, a theology of glory has returned (majestic attributes of God; triumphalism; \u27celebration theology\u27 and reenactment of saving acts rather than proclamation and hearing). The distinction of law and gospel provides the corrective

Work or Study: Different Fortunes of U.S. Latino Generations

Examines the way different Latino generations -- immigrants and their U.S.-born offspring -- perform in the labor market, with a focus on young adults. Explores the challenges and opportunities this presents to employers and policy-makers