| Harvard Trade
Union Program: 65th Anniversary Weekend Celebration
SAVE THE DATE!
OCTOBER 5-7, 2007
Since 1942, the Harvard Trade Union Program has been training labor leaders from
China to South America.
And now we're celebrating all the hard work of our HTUP graduates!
Celebration will include:
Welcome dinner party
All day symposium on current and future labor issues
Other social activities
Contact lbaptist@law.harvard.edu
for more information.
[HTUP Alumni Association Invitation
] |
| Union Blues
By Alex Bryson and Paul Willman
To be published in Centrepiece
at the London School of Economics (LSE)
Trade unions are in the doldrums. The reasons for this are clear. Unions are less able to organize new workplaces and new workers than they used to be. As a consequence, an increasing proportion of all workers have never been union members, and new workplaces rarely recognise unions for pay bargaining.
Union Blues - full text.
|
From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks:
Ian Ruskin's One Man Play on the Life and Times of Harry Bridges
***Get Your Tickets Today!***
This event is open to the public but is ticketed!
Please RSVP via email: lbaptist@law.harvard.edu
- or -
phone: 617.495.9265
Date:: Saturday, October 6th, 2007
Time:: 2 - 4 PM
Location: Harvard Law School, Pound Hall (1563 Mass. Ave), Ropes Gray Room, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA.
Map It
|
Harvard Meets Hollywood: Who Needs Sleep?
The Labor and Worklife Program partners with writer, director and cinematographer Haskell Wexler
The Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School teams with filmmaker and multiple-Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler in response to what many consider a work-life crisis, with sometimes devastating effects of long hours and sleep deprivation taking tolls on the lives of workers and their families.
[Who Needs Sleep? Trailer]
[Full Press Release]
More Coming Soon! |
The Science Education Myth
By Vivek Wadhwa, LWP Wertheim Fellow
October 26th, BusinessWeek - Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China.
[Full Article in BusinessWeek]
Picture by Atli Haršarson |
Graduation 2008: Congrats to the HTUP Class of 2008!
Congratulations to one of the most talented and diverse classes in HTUP history!
|
***Upcoming Event***
Science and Technology Trends: Exploring the Production of Knowledge
Seminar on the Economics of Science & Engineering
Date: March 3, 2008 (Monday) @ 3:30 pm -5pm
Location: Harvard Hall Room 103
Speaker: Paula Stephan, Professor of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,
Georgia State University
Paula Stephan, who recently co-edited Science and the University (University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), provides analysis of the economics of knowledge production in science. Please mark your calendars, and join Professors Richard Freeman and Daniel Goroff for a lively seminar on the economics of science & engineering.
|
Organizing the Organized
By Elaine Bernard
Numbers - whether of strikes, members or union density - are important measures of a union's strength, but they don't tell us much about members' understanding of and commitment to unions. Rather, the future of unions and their power rests with an informed, committed, membership who understand that they are the union and that the power of the union rests with them.
[Full Article
from Our Times Magazine]
|
Pensions Take the Hit In Corporate Cutbacks
By Larry Beeferman, Project Director, Pensions & Capital Stewardship Project
Private pension plans
have been under attack for a while in
both Canada and the US.
In the US, the AFL-CIO currently identifies
pension threats in 17 states, including
four direct privatization threats.
[Full Article in the Fall 2006
Education Forum]
|
WorklifeWizard Answers Workers' Most Pressing Questions
Harvard's WorklifeWizard, a web-based resource and research tool, is
expanding its offerings to provide an opportunity for American workers
to ask their most-pressing work-related questions.
[Full press release]
[Worklife
Questions and Answers]
|
****Special
HTUP Forum *** Thursday, Feb. 8, 4-6 p.m., Radcliffe Gym,
18 Mason St., Cambridge - Radcliffe Yard
Communities Without Borders: Globalization and Labor Migration
Chair: John Womack Jr., Professor of Latin American History and Economics, Harvard University
Featuring: The photojournalism of
David Bacon , author of Communities Without Borders and The
Children of NAFTA
Map of Radcliffe Yard
General Directions to Radcliffe
|
Sisters on the Frontline
Conference explores the challenges faced by women labor organizers
April 9th, 2007
From the Cornell Chronicle
More than 200 women labor organizers gathered for one of the first national events of its kind, March 30 to April 1, in New York City. During the conference, "Sisters on the Frontline: Organizing Women, Building Power," women leaders showcased traditional and nontraditional organizing drives and identified the bottom line for women organizers in the labor movement: to enlarge women's presence in the labor ranks to achieve equality and economic security.
[Full article from the Cornell Chronicle]
[Read the conference summary]
[Find out more about the conference from the Institute for
Women and Work] |
WorklifeWizard Meets the American Association for the Advancement
of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco
Speaking at the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual
Meetings, Professor Kea Tijdens, research coordinator of the international
WageIndicator program, remarked, “Never before have we had the opportunity
to take the pulse of workers and worklife in such a comprehensive manner.
To collaborate on a global scale not only speaks to the opportunities
we have as researchers but also the considerable potential for awareness
and engagement.”
[Full Press Release]
[Find Out More About the Annual Meeting]
|
Children Found Sewing Clothing
For Wal-Mart, Hanes & Other U.S. & European Companies
From the National Labor Committee
According to a new National
Labor Committee report, an estimated 200 children, some 11 years
old or even younger, are sewing clothing for Hanes, Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney,
and Puma at the Harvest Rich factory in Bangladesh.
The children report being routinely slapped and beaten, sometimes
falling down from exhaustion, forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, even
some all-night, 19-to-20-hour shifts, often seven days a week, for wages
as low as 6 ½ cents an hour.
[continue reading "Children Found Sewing
Clothing For Wal-Mart, Hanes & Other U.S. & European Companies"]
[read
the full report from the National Labor Committee] |
New
Course: ECON E-2888a Science, Engineering, and US Economic
Progress, Seminar 2
Second seminar: Higher
Education in India: Student flows and the circulation of the highly
skilled workforce with Pawan Agarwal, Fulbright New Century
Scholar, Indian Council for Research on International Economic
Relations.
Monday October 2, 2006
53
Church Street, lower level lecture room, Harvard University, Cambridge,
MA
3:30 pm-5 pm
Join faculty co-chair and reknown labor economist Richard
Freeman and LWP research director and historian John
Trumpbour to learn about the future economy.
[Online
Registration]
[Syllabus]
[Course
Website] |
The Cartoon
and The Sword
The Islam the Riots Drowned Out by Emran Qureshi
Published in the New York Times Op-Ed Section
Sunday, February 12, 2006
In a world of wrenching change, the Danish cartoon affair has
widened a growing fissure between Islam and the West. The controversy
comes at a time when many in the Islamic world view the war on
terrorism as a war on Islam. They draw on memories of colonization
and of the Crusades, when Western invaders ridiculed the Prophet
Muhammad as an imposter.
[Click
Here] for the full article
Emran Qureshi is a
Wertheim Fellow at the Labor
and Worklife Program |
Freeriding
Union Free-riding in Britain and New Zealand
Alex
Bryson
The percentage of workers who choose not to join the union available
to them at their workplace has been rising in Britain and New
Zealand. Social custom, union instrumentality, the fixed costs
of joining, employee perceptions of management attitudes to unionization
and employee problems at work all influence the propensity to
free-ride. Ideological convictions regarding the role of unions
also play some role, as do private excludable goods. There is
little indication of employer-inspired policies substituting for
unionization where unions are already present. Having accounted
for all these factors, free-riding remains more common in New
Zealand than in Britain.
]Click
Here] for the full paper |
WorklifeWizard
Launches on Labor Day!
Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program has partnered
with the non-profit WageIndicator
Foundation and the National
Bureau of Economic Research to create the WorklifeWizard
a web-based information resource and research tool focusing on
worklife in the US.
Headed by Richard
Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard
University, the aim of the WorklifeWizard is to become the major
source of information on worklife issues in the US and to establish
a cutting-edge survey research tool for business, labor unions,
scholars, students, and others interested in the world of work.
FULL PRESS RELEASE |
Do Unions
Smooth Out the Rough Edges?
Union Effects on Employee Relations in Britain
| 
Firefighters union in Manchester, UK on strike because
they say bosses failed to honor a pay deal.
Image courtesy of the BBC.
|
Labor unions are usually characterized as obstacles to good employee-management
relations. But Wertheim Fellow Alex Bryson paints a much more
complicated picture.
In "Union effects on employee relations in Britain", Bryson conducts
a detailed, empirical study on how both employees and managers
perceive their relationship with each other.
Click
Here for the entire paper published in the journal Human
Relations |
E-Organizing:
Can Digital Unions Help Their Analog Counterparts?
NBER Working Paper Series: "From the Webbs to the
Web: The Contribution of the Internet to Reviving Union Fortunes"
| 
E-Unions.org provides
advice and support for webmasters of trade union websites.
|
In the past decade the internet has transformed politics, commerce
and even dating. Incessant bloggers supposedly propelled an obscure
Vermont governor to become the frontrunner of the 2004 presidential
primaries and while you're shopping for that new pair of jeans
at any of the thousands of online stores, you can also find a
date by weight, height and hair color to show them off to.
Businesses wasted no time hopping onto the fiber-optic roller-coaster
of the internet. In fact, most people would be shocked nowadays
if companies that made anything from bolts to bombers didn't
have a website.
But unions...they're another case, or are they? According to
Richard Freeman, faculty co-chair of the Labor and Worklife
Program, unions have slowly but effectively used the internet
to get their message out, boost membership and increase transparency.
In his paper, Freeman argues that if unions can continue to
effectively adapt the internet and new technologies, they will
have a bright future ahead of them.
Click Here for Professor
Freeman's NBER working paper.
Union Sites of Interest in the United States
Communications Workers Union Techs
Unite, www.techsunite.org
- A national site for IT workers around the country with organizing
groups in 7 different geographic areas. Created by the Communications
Workers of America (CWA).
International
Association of Machinists Cyberlodge, www.cyberlodge.org
- Organized entirely on the internet, a guild-like structure where
workers retain their traditional employee-employer relationship
while enjoying benefits normally reserved for employees with collective
bargaining agreements. A one year charter membership of $120 gives
access to portable health insurance, free web hosting and other
benefits.
United Steel
Workers Associate Membership, www.uswa.org
- Offers membership to the United Steel Workers for both employed
and unemployed Americans. At $40/year, membership gets you access
to "confidential workplace assistance, health care savings, job
training and educational opportunities."
AFL-CIO:
Working America, www.workingamerica.org
- "Connects union and non-union workers and retirees to America's
union movement."
AFL-CIO:
Working America, www.workingamerica.org
- "Connects union and non-union workers and retirees to America's
union movement."
SEIU: Purple Ocean Open Source Union,
www.purpleocean.org -
Non-collective bargaining organization created in 2004. seeks
to "ensure fundamental human rights in the workplace and ensure
that workers here and abroad are treated with dignity." Hopes
to build a "powerful grassroots network dedicated to social justice.
PurpleOcean.org members will 'spotlight' employers who respect
workers and 'hotlight' those who don't. IN addition to direct
action, PurpeOcean.org will be a place for discussions and education,
where workers and their allies can debate and discuss today's
paramount issues - from outsourcing and offshoring to health care
and pensions." |
China,
India and the Doubling of the Global Labor Force: Who Pays the
Price of Globalization?
| 
Worker prepares Coca-Cola display in Shanghai. 2004 Shanghai
Global Institute photo by Miranda Ko.
|
Harvard Economist Richard Freeman shows us that a specter
is haunting the industrialized societies, and above all the
workers of these countries. Though little recognized in Japan
and elsewhere, there has been an effective doubling of the global
labor force (that is workers producing for international markets)
over the past decade and a half, through the entry of Chinese,
Indian, Russian and other workers into the global economy. The
effective supply of capital, on the other hand, has virtually
remained unchanged. With such a massive increase in the supply
of labor, its relative share of the returns from production
inevitably decline. One important dimension of this decline
is the ability of increasingly footloose capital to find cheaper
labor to employ.
26 August, 2005 Japan Focus
Click
Here for the full article
|
Nanotechnology & Society
| 
A mite next to a gear set produced using MEMS, the precursor
to nanotechnology. Courtesy Sandia National Laboratories,
SUMMiTTM Technologies, www.mems.sandia.gov
|
The Labor and Worklife Program is proud to announce its selection
for a $1.725 million, 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation
to study the societal implications of nanotechnology. The NSF
has also named Arizona State University, U of California Santa
Barbara, and University of South Carolina for major grants on
this topic.
Over the last two decades or so, a “miniature”
revolution has gained momentum through the development of nanotechnology.
The term Nano, which comes from the Greek word for "dwarf",
is generally used in science to describe matter on the molecular
level or, if you can imagine, on a scale of 109 meters,
about 100 times smaller than the average human red blood cell.
Nanotechnology refers to the engineering of devices on a nanoscale
level, where the size of these devices are usually measured
in nanometers.
This technology, which is already being used in electronics,
high performance textiles and other industries, has the potential
to revolutionize markets and society. And although there’s
been a great deal of speculation about the possibilities and
dangers of nanotechnology, few studies have examined its potential
societal impact.
Over the next five years, the Labor and Worklife
Program, headed by faculty co-chair Richard Freeman, will study
the economic, social and ethical issues that this groundbreaking
technology will bring. Freeman has previously contributed several
studies on the science and engineering workforce both globally
and in the United States.
Click
Here for the NSF Press Release
Click Here for information
about the NSF's Nanotechnology Initiative
Visit this page for updates and information on the Nanotechnology
Project
|
A New Approach Toward Improving Public Services
Working Better Together: A Practical Guide to Help Unions, Elected
Officials and Managers Improve Public Services
Making government services effective is a difficult task. Politicians
lose re-election bids when promises to improve public services are unfulfilled
and in the US the word "bureaucracy” has become synonymous
with “inefficiency.” But maybe that’s just because
policymakers haven’t been paying attention to the workers
that provide these services.
In Working Better Together: A Practical Guide to Help Unions,
Elected Officials and Managers Improve Public Services, Linda
Kaboolian, a Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program
and Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government
along with Allyne Beach, executive director of the Public Sector Labor
Management Committee housed in the Working for America Institute,
have put together a guide to improving public services from the ground
up: through changing the way labor and management relate to each other
in the public sector and by altering how work is done.
Right Click on Image and select "Save Target As" to
Download the Full Guide |
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