The Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Health and Education Spending and Outcomes: Evidence from Ethiopia

This thesis explores the impacts of fiscal decentralization on woreda level spending and local health and education outcomes in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Using fiscal decentralization theory, we predict that local conditions will affect future local spending patterns because local governments possess superior information and respond to heterogeneous preferences. In similar fashion, we also predict that local spending patterns will impact future outcomes. Government collected household survey data and local government expenditure data are used to investigate this theory. While results indicate that some woreda conditions have an effect on future local spending behavior, the effect of local spending on future outcomes is ambiguous

The Mission as a Master Signifier: Documentary Film, Social Change and Discourse Analysis

This field note explores the ways in which the documentary MIND ZONE: Therapists Behind the Front Lines (2014), directed by Dr. Jan Haaken, moves viewers into innovative and critical stances towards the U.S. military mental health program. Using a discourse analysis of the film and transcripts of interviews conducted by Haaken, I trace the deployment of the term “the mission” to show how the film teases apart problematic military discursive practices. Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses is used to analyze how MIND ZONE’s content challenges audiences to produce their own critically informed opinions

A Different Set of Rules? NLRB Proposed Rule Making and Student Worker Unionization Rights

This article presents data, precedent, and empirical evidence relevant to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to issue a new rule to exclude graduate assistants and other student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The analysis in three parts. First, the authors show through an analysis of information from other federal agencies that the adoption of the proposed NLRB rule would exclude over 81,000 graduate assistants on private campuses from the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Second, the article presents a legal history from the past half-century about unionization of student employees at private and public sector institutions of higher education, including the NLRB’s oscillation on the question of whether student employees are protected under the NLRA. The inconsistencies of the NLRB is in stark contrast to state and Canadian provincial precedent during the same period.. Lastly, the authors analyze the terms of 42 current collective bargaining agreements covering student workers, including 10 at the private sector institutions. The empirical evidence from five decades of relevant collective bargaining history, precedent, and contracts demonstrates consistent economic relationships between student employees and their institutions

A Different Set of Rules? NLRB Proposed Rule Making and Student Worker Unionization Rights

This article presents data, precedent, and empirical evidence relevant to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to issue a new rule to exclude graduate assistants and other student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The analysis in three parts. First, the authors show through an analysis of information from other federal agencies that the adoption of the proposed NLRB rule would exclude over 81,000 graduate assistants on private campuses from the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Second, the article presents a legal history from the past half-century about unionization of student employees at private and public sector institutions of higher education, including the NLRB’s oscillation on the question of whether student employees are protected under the NLRA. The inconsistencies of the NLRB is in stark contrast to state and Canadian provincial precedent during the same period.. Lastly, the authors analyze the terms of 42 current collective bargaining agreements covering student workers, including 10 at the private sector institutions. The empirical evidence from five decades of relevant collective bargaining history, precedent, and contracts demonstrates consistent economic relationships between student employees and their institutions

The State of the Unions 2022: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States

New York City leads the recent uptick in private-sector union organizing at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. A new report released by the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, State of the Unions 2022: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, analyzes new union membership and union election wins across the nation’s major cities. The report also details the geographic, demographic, and occupational makeup of union membership in New York City, New York State, and the nation

Comments from the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions in Response to Proposed NLRB Rule Concerning Graduate Assistants and Other Student Employees

These are public comments submitted by National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College, City University of New York in response to a proposed NLRB rule that would exclude student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The comments include information and data showing that the proposed rule would exclude from NLRA coverage 81,390 graduate assistants working at 518 private institutions in occupations that other federal agencies treat as distinct from the classification of graduate student. The comments also present a half-century of history and legal precedent concerning collective bargaining by graduate assistants and other student employees under state constitutions and collective bargaining laws in 14 states and in Canadian provinces. The authors analyze the bargaining unit composition and terms of 42 current collective bargaining agreements in the higher education industry involving graduate and undergraduate student employees. The most common contract provisions (100%) address wages and grievance-arbitration procedures. The next most common provisions are non-discrimination, and terms of appointment clauses, which are found in 41 agreements (97.62%), followed by management rights and union security provisions contained in 40 agreements (95.24%). Over 90% of the 42 agreements address health care benefits (39), health and safety (38), union access (38), and no-strike clauses are included in over three-quarters of the agreements (32). More than 80% of the contracts have provisions concerning employee leave (37), workload (35), and workplace discipline (35). Academic freedom is specifically addressed in over 30% of the agreements, and intellectual property is a negotiated topic in over a quarter of the contracts. Retirement is a subject in 19% of the contracts. The authors urge the NLRB to closely examine the submitted data, empirical evidence, and precedent. The primary evidence should be the negotiated terms in the current collective bargaining agreements, the experiences of administrators and labor representatives who have bargained and administered those contracts, and the half-century of experience with collective bargaining concerning graduate assistants and other student employees

Graduate Student Employee Unionization in the Second Gilded Age

In debates on the future of work, a common theme has been how work became less secure through the denial of employee status. Though much of the attention has focused on other industries, precarity has also affected those working in higher education, including graduate student employees, contributing to what is now called the “gig academy.” While universities have reassigned teaching and research to graduate assistants, they have also refused to recognize them as employees. Nevertheless, unionization has grown considerably since 2012, most significantly at private institutions. Utilizing a unique dataset, this chapter demonstrates that between 2012 and 2019, graduate student employees voted overwhelmingly for representation. The chapter contextualizes this growth within the history of their unionization movement. We argue that legal rights have been a predominant factor, with graduate assistants confronting, and frequently overcoming, their misclassification. Those experiences provide lessons for workers in other industries facing similar obstacles