please write a summary on the attached reading materials and your thoughts on them. its for a labor management class. Link and pdf. Kiechel, Walter:The Management Century.Harvard Bus. Review.HTTPS://HBR.ORG/2012/11/The-Management-Century.
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tive may be understood to encompass attention to the
interaction of a host of labels, social positions, or roles. In
this early set of critiques, Hagan also posited “psychological difference” as one such preexisting difference that
labeling theory does not attend to with enough rigor.
However, research does support that preexisting differences such as class, race, and gender are among the prime
concerns of the perspective, even if psychological differences per se are not.
Hagan’s late-twentieth-century work introduced the
Power-Control theory, which emphasizes inherent power
relations in determining delinquent actions and what is
considered deviant; for example, “the class structure of the
family plays a significant role in explaining the social distribution of delinquent behavior through the social reproduction of gender relations” (1988, p. 146). This is an
explicit acknowledgement of the problem of failing to live
up to a variety of labels (e.g., girl, middle-class, white).
However, this position does not seem to acknowledge that
interaction across “vertical, hierarchical lines of power”
has indeed been the major theme of labeling theory. For
example, “[P]ower usually brings preferential symbolism”
(1988 p. 2) seems to be another way to say, “In the eyes of
the police and school officials, a boy who drinks in an
alley and stands intoxicated on a street corner is committing a more serious offense than a boy who drinks to inebriation in a nightclub or a tavern and drives around
afterwards in a car” (Chambliss 1973, p. 10). “What distinguishes a structural criminology is its attention to
instrumental and symbolic uses of power, both in relation
to criminal behavior and in the study of reactions to this
behavior” (Hogan 1988, p. 2), is not unlike Nancy J.
Herman’s argument—albeit in the lifeworld of the excrazy—on such negotiations of power. Thus, the newer
perspectives of critical criminology and structural criminology are in many ways permutations of the general
themes of the labeling perspective: “rules are the product
of someone’s initiative” and “duties are imposed upon us
that we have not expressly wished. Yet it is through a voluntary act that they arose” (Becker 1963, p. 147;
Durkheim 1982, p. 174). In other words, members of
society must negotiate over their labels, even if they do so
from within unequal positions of social power.
SEE ALSO
Deviance
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Becker, Howard S. 1963. The Outsiders. New York: Free Press.
Chambliss, William. 1964. A Sociological Analysis of the Laws
of Vagrancy. Social Problems 12 (1): 67–77.
Chambliss, William. 1973. The Saints and the Roughnecks.
Society 11 (2): 4–31.
Durkheim, Émile. 1982. The Rules of the Sociological Method.
Trans. W. D. Halls. New York: Free Press. (Orig. pub. 1896).
300
Fisher, Sethard. 1972. Stigma and Deviant Careers in School.
Social Problems 20 (1): 78–83.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Moral Career of the Mental
Patient. Psychiatry 22 (2): 123–142.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of a
Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hagan, John. 1973. Labeling and Social Deviance: A Case Study
in the “Sociology of the Interesting.” Social Problems 20 (4):
447–458.
Hagan, John. 1988. Structural Criminology. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
Hagan, John. 1994. Crime and Disrepute. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Pine Forge Press.
Herman, Nancy J. 1993. Return to Sender: Reintegrative
Stigma-Management Strategies of Ex-Psychiatric Patients.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22 (3): 295–330.
Lazarus-Black, Mindie. 1994. Legitimate Acts and Illegal
Encounters: Law and Society in Antigua and Barbuda.
Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Lemert, Edwin M. 1951. Social Pathology. New York: McGrawHill.
Kitsuse, John I. 1964. Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior:
Problems of Theory and Method. In The Other Side:
Perspectives on Deviance, ed. Howard S. Becker. New York:
Free Press of Glencoe.
Marshall, Gordon. 1998. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Merton, Robert K. 1938. Social Structure and Anomie.
American Sociological Review 3 (5): 672–682.
Tannenbaum, Frank. 1951. Crime and the Community. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Vaz, Edmund W., ed. 1967. Middle-Class Juvenile Delinquency.
New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Sarah N. Gatson
LABOR
Labor is one of the three primary factors of production,
next to capital and land. However, different from the
other two, labor deals with the work of humans rather
than money or the property it can rent or buy. Being part
of labor requires thus that one is paid for one’s labor
services.
The provision of labor was seen by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) as part of the identification of a worker with society or part of the struggle of
the personality with society. The laborer as the member of
a class—the working class—is also a recurring theme in
sociology. Two classical expositions come from the political philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), who offers a historical analysis of class struggle, and the sociologist Max
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Weber (1864–1920), who uses class more as a classification of stratification. The reward of wages in the context
of labor, especially its share of the entire production
process encompassing all factors of production, also mirrors the importance and power of the class within society.
ANCIENT LABOR TO
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Ancient labor markets, especially in ancient Greece and
Rome, were based on agriculture and manufacturing.
Both relied heavily on slave labor, which provided both
skilled and unskilled labor.
In medieval times, the common agricultural laborer,
or peasant, produced for self-sufficiency, and there was little exchange economy. Labor was dependent on the aristocrats, who were the landowners. The feudal landlords
granted protection and the right to use the land in
exchange for taxes that included labor services, which is
commonly called bondage. This hierarchy from lord to
serf was common from higher to lower aristocracy and
from aristocrats to peasants. Extortion of both goods and
labor services were enforced not only by the aristocracy’s
ownership of the land, but also by their executive and
judicial power.
Manufacturing, which was usually strong in the free
cities (i.e., those not under the rule of an aristocrat), was
in the hands of guilds whose members organized themselves to protect their interests. Workers had to learn a
craft by going through the apprenticeship as journeyman,
and they depended on their guild master both financially
and also professionally as the guild masters decided upon
elevation to the master level. While labor was in this sense
not free, moving to the free cities to become a craftsman
allowed one to free oneself from aristocratic rule.
Factory work forms the core process of industrialization, moving away from small-scale production at home
and toward large-scale, specialized production. This specialization process is described with the example of the pin
factory by the Scottish economist Adam Smith
(1723–1790):
[I]n the way in which this business is now carried
on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade,
but it is divided into a number of branches, of
which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades.
One man draws out the wire, another straights it,
a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it
at the top for receiving the head; to make the head
requires two or three distinct operations; to put it
on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is
another; it is even a trade by itself to put them
into the paper; and the important business of
making a pin is, in this manner, divided into
about eighteen distinct operations, which, in
some manufactures, are all performed by distinct
hands. (Smith 1776, p. 15)
While Smith understood the importance of specialization, in his time the impact of machines was probably
still underestimated. Mechanization using the steam
engine in the eighteenth century led to a higher productivity of factory work, which is commonly seen as the
breakthrough in the process of industrialization.
Smith did provide the intellectual underpinning of
the capitalist model in which the pursuit of self-interest
under free competition leads to higher wealth for society.
His influential work was even used in English courts to
prohibit union activities, as the unionization of labor was
seen as a hindrance to free competition.
Together, mechanization and specialization led to a
certain alienation of the laborer toward the production
process. Labor became, next to capital, a true factor of
modern production. During the period of industrialization, peasant workers moved away from agricultural work
and toward that of unskilled labor in the newly established
manufacturing plants. These laborers were no longer
dependent on landowners but became wage workers,
forming the working class. The process of industrialization
was a long one. Exploitation of the workers was the norm
rather than the exception as sufficient labor arrived from
the ranks of agricultural workers. Edward P. Thompson, in
“The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the
Eighteenth Century” (1971), writes of the formative years
from 1780 to 1832 in England. He describes in detail the
life and the movements of the English working class of that
time. It was through the struggle of the workers that the
notion of a working class evolved, which was necessary to
develop labor organization.
It took about a century for wage labor to become the
norm in the nineteenth century as increasingly more
workers were employed, replacing work on the land with
work in the newly established factories. The movement
from larger workshops to mechanized industries took two
centuries, from the late eighteenth century into the early
twentieth century. Industrialization commenced in
England and was started in continental Europe several
decades later, starting with Flanders, France, and later in
Germany, Switzerland, and some southern European
countries.
LABOR ORGANIZATION
Labor organization commenced in Europe in the eighteenth century, first within an urban setting or within factories, solely to perform the social functions of exchange
and insurance against illness. National organization arose
in Europe in the late nineteenth century. It was the skilled
worker, at a level between owner and unskilled labor, who
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participated in the organization of labor in unions. Labor
organization was not at first a reaction to hardship. In fact,
the living standards of workers, unionized or not, were
steadily rising throughout Europe from 1850 to 1900.
The history of unions in the United States started in
the nineteenth century. In the turbulent decades from
1870 to 1890 the groundwork for organized labor was
laid. The National Labor Union (NLU), founded in
1866, was the first federation of unions, followed by the
Knights of Labor in 1869. The latter disintegrated after
the Haymarket Riot on May 1, 1886, in Chicago in
which unions unsuccessfully demanded the eight-hour
working day.
The American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded
in 1886, organized mainly skilled workers, while the more
radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded
in 1905, provided a federation for unskilled labor. The
membership in the IWW declined with the Palmer Raids
(1918–1921), named for Alexander Mitchell Palmer, the
U.S. attorney general after World War I who led the government attack on the radical left during the “Red Scare”
period.
Unions in the United States did not become a political factor in those years. This has been attributed to several reasons: The U.S. political system was fragmented
between states and the federal level, and it discouraged
worker movements. Furthermore, employers’ associations
reacted very strongly against the labor organizations. Janet
Currie and Joseph Ferrie argue in the Journal of Economic
History (2000) that despite some legislative changes in
favor of the laborer, unions refrained from a national
political influence and instead sought to negotiate on a
company level.
This changed after the Great Depression and especially under the New Deal programs of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. The labor movement was strengthened, and
the government found its role in brokering agreements
between businesses and labor unions. The government’s
aims were to provide some assistance to poor and unemployed workers and to establish the rights of labor unions,
which culminated in the Wagner Act.
During the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) organized industrial workers who
were part of the emerging large-scale corporations. This
represented a movement from crafts-based unionism
toward industry unions. The CIO argued that craftsbased unionism was no longer suitable to many industries
in which several crafts were undertaken, thus artificially
dividing the unionized workers within a firm. One union
organized within the CIO was the United Auto Workers
(UAW). The CIO split off from the AFL to form its own
entity in 1938. After World War II (1939–1945), as most
302
differences were settled, the two combined into the AFLCIO, under which most unions are aligned.
NEW MODES OF PRODUCTION,
LABOR SAVINGS, AND
GLOBALIZATION
The 1960s marked the beginning of steady decline in
union membership. After the economically strong years
following World War II, workers faced increasingly more
plant shutdowns. During the 1970s the fear of mechanization and the displacement of men by machines was a
recurring theme. In the 1980s cheaper foreign labor began
replacing domestic labor. This was most explicit within
the automobile industry, in which European and especially Japanese manufacturers provided fierce competition
against the American car manufacturers. Under this pressure, union power eroded over time. The fear of globalization was amplified during the negotiations about the
North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened up
the markets of Mexico, Canada, and the United States in
1994. The opponents feared U.S. workplaces being
moved to Mexico, with cheaper labor and lower working
standards. In consecutive years, intensifying trade and the
outsourcing of labor-intensive industries, especially to
Asian countries, weakened the union even more.
This increasing globalization was anticipated in
Robert Reich’s book The Work of Nations (1991). His
main theme is that the division of workers into skilled and
unskilled occupations is extended to a threefold partition
into routine producers, in-person service providers (services that have to be provided person to person), and
knowledge workers. The last type is rather broad as it
includes some people who are usually not considered part
of labor, such as entrepreneurs. It is this last type of
worker for whom Reich foresees the best prospects, while
the routine producers in particular will be replaced either
by foreign competition or machines. The in-person service workers are somewhat protected from foreign competition as they require the physical availability of labor.
While the traditional struggle between the capitalist
class (the providers of capital) and the labor class seems
outdated, Stanley Aronowitz argues in How Class Works
(2003) that labor still struggles over institutional arrangements such as working hours, overtime pay, and working
conditions. These social movements are in essence class
struggles over the division of power between capital and
labor. In the United States capital is still the decisive element, argues Aronowitz, as the workers did not unite the
aims of the different groups (immigrants versus native,
black versus white, male versus female), but Aronowitz
argues labor should still strive to unite as a force in order
to strongly support its common goals.
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U.S. FEDERAL LABOR LAW
Labor law reflects the struggle and achievement of labor in
a nation. In the United States, the following legal developments show the evolution of current laws. While not
intended to forbid the labor unions, the Sherman
Antitrust Act of 1890 was used for many years to hinder
union work. Its unspecific nature prohibiting “combinations in restraint of trade” allowed its use against combined, unionized demands from workers. The Clayton
Antitrust Act, Section 6 (1914), remedies this shortcoming as it explicitly exempts labor unions. The National
Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act (1935), allowed
union representation and established the National Labor
Relations Board. It allowed for collective bargaining and
strikes to enforce demands. However, the Wagner Act
does not encompass all workers; agricultural workers, for
example, are excluded.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) enacts minimum wages and overtime pay, and it abolishes oppressive
child labor. While it originally included many exemptions, over time several of those have been eliminated so
the act covers all blue-collar workers while excluding
supervisory functions.
During World War II, the Fair Employment Act
(1941) was introduced, prohibiting racial discrimination.
Initially it was intended only for the national defense
industry, but it was later extended to encompass all labor
relations and to prohibit many forms of discrimination in
the workplace.
The Taft-Hartley Act (1947), or Labor-Management
Relations Act, and the Labor Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act (1959) amended the National Labor
Relations Act to restrict union power. The acts prohibit
unfair labor practices by unions, which were previously
only prohibited for employers. Unions were no longer
allowed to influence the employers in their allocation of
work to different plants. Secondary boycotts—for example, the refusal to handle the goods of non-unionized
companies—were also prohibited. Closed-shop agreements—that only union labor could be hired by employers—were also outlawed.
constitution of the ILO, as peace can only be achieved
along with social justice. An economic motivation for the
establishment of the ILO was concern over the cost of
upholding humanitarian working standards. It was generally agreed that international standards for working conditions would avoid a race to the bottom—that is, a
competition among nations over low labor costs, to the
detriment of the workers. The organization of the ILO is
tripartite. Each member country has two representatives
of the government, one of the employers’ associations, and
one of the labor unions.
In 1926 the ILO introduced a supervisory system to
control the implementation and enforcement of its standards. This was an important step toward a more functional organization that went beyond discussing pressing
issues. The United States, which was involved in several
aspects of the founding and establishment of the ILO,
became a member in 1934. One of the main steps forward
was the Declaration of Philadelphia, adopted in 1944,
which introduced freedom of association for workers. In
1969, the ILO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The U.S. Department of Labor is the governmental
organization responsible for labor in relation to occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment
insurance benefits, reemployment services, and labor statistics. On the national level, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics is the principal organization within the United
States to provide statistical information and research for
the government. While it is part of the Department of
Labor, it serves as an independent st …
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