Convergence and Diversity in International and Comparative Industrial Relations

[Excerpt] In this essay, we reexamine a critical paradox in international and comparative industrial relations, a paradox that already decades ago demonstrated its ability to intrigue scholarly curiosity (Galenson, 1952,1963; Kerr et al, 1960). As we see it, convergence along a number of important dimensions, such as labor law and organizational and bargaining structure, is occurring simultaneously with widespread cross-national and local divergence, or diversity, in industrial relations practices and outcomes. Along with economic and political interdependence and with intensifications of market competition, convergence and diversity both appear to be product of an increasing spread of markets and ideas sometimes referred to as globalization. In employing this term, we intend to make the point that the conduct of global business is no longer confined to the sort of international trading and related activities that have been carried on for centuries already. In the modern era, the production and exchange of both goods and services occur increasingly on a global scale (Reich, 1991). At this level, as capital mobility expands and trade agreements proliferate (NAFTA, CATT, the single European market), national governments find it increasingly difficult to regulate markets. This globalization of markets, we suggest, is the dominant force driving change (whether toward convergence or diversity) in the contemporary period. Our observations are especially applicable to the advanced industrial countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the primary focus of this paper, although the trends identified here probably also hold to some extent for newly industrialized countries and less developed societies as well

Employers and Employers Associations in the Netherlands Industrial Relations Systems

Dans les Pays-Bas, la sauvegarde des intérêts des employeurs concerne surtout les associations d'employeurs. L'importance de ces associations découle de plusieurs raisons ; les unes sont historiques, les autres sont contemporaines.Durant les deux premières décades du XXe siècle, années qui correspondent à la période de formation de la plupart des associations d'employeurs, les entreprises industrielles étaient généralement trop petites pour faire face aux pouvoirs grandissants des unions.N'étant pas suffisamment équipées en personnel professionnel, pour faire face au problème, ces entreprises utilisèrent de plus en plus les services d'associations d'employeurs pour les orienter dans leurs rapports avec les unions et pour les aviser sur les politiques à établir en matière de personnel. L'influence des associations d'employeurs s'accentua davantage avec l'imposition de centrales économiques après la deuxième guerre mondiale et par suite de la centralisation de la négociation collective.D'une façon générale ce sont maintenant les associations d'employeurs qui prennent charge de la négociation alors que les entreprises se préoccupent surtout de l'établissement de leurs politiques dans le domaine du personnel.Des fédérations centrales d'employeurs existent pour chacun des trois secteurs économiques : l'agriculture, la petite entreprise (surtout le commerce de détail) et l'industrie (la grande entreprise).La structure administrative interne des fédérations centrales d'employeurs se subdivise comme suit : un conseil des membres qui est virtuellement sans pouvoir, un comité général qui établit les politiques générales, un bureau exécutif qui est le centre du pouvoir et un secrétariat très influent.Dans chacun des trois secteurs économiques, les fédérations centrales ont créé des organismes qui ont pour but de coordonner les différents points de vue et les intérêts divergents. Il existe en plus un « Governing Board for Labor Affairs » auquel toutes les fédérations centrales sont affiliées.La centralisation des décisions a considérablement accru le pouvoir des organisations centrales, tant du côté des employeurs que de celui des unions. Il est difficile d'aller plus loin dans une société démocratique. On peut prévoir que dans un avenir rapproché la tendance ira vers une décentralisation et une diffusion des responsabilités.This article analyzes the organization of employers in the Netheriands for their industrial relations tasks. After first describing the role of individual employers and explaining why that role is a relatively small one, the article emphasizes the structure and functioning of employers associations in industrial relations. Special attention is given to the existence of pluralistic associations in a country where by tradition most if not all social organizations are pluralistically organized. The postwar wage and economic policies of the Dutch government have encouraged a high degree of centralized decision-making among employers as well as among labor organizations. The article concludes with some observations about the likely consequences of a current trend toward greater decentralization

4. The School Develops

Between 1947 and 1953, when M.P. Catherwood left the deanship to become New York’s industrial commissioner, the ILR School developed into a full fledged enterprise. These pages attempt to capture some of the excitement of this period of the school’s history, which was characterized by vigor, growth, and innovation. Includes: Alumni Recall Their Lives as Students; The Faculty Were Giants; Alice Cook: Lifelong Scholar, Consummate Teacher; Frances Perkins; Visits and Visitors; Tenth Anniversary: Reflection and Change; The Emergence of Departments at ILR; Development of International Programs and Outreach

Building Faith: Ethiopian Art and Architecture during the Jesuit Interlude, 1557–1632

This dissertation examines the relationship between royally-sponsored Roman Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox art and architecture during the 1557 to 1632 Jesuit Ethiopian mission. The first part of the dissertation examines key religious and secular sites, demonstrating how these structures combined elements drawn from classicizing architectural treatises, the Portuguese estilo chão, and Ethiopian architecture. The second part of the project assesses the role of books, prints, and religious art as tools of conversion and as artistic models. In contrast to studies that posit that European visual culture supplanted the Ethiopian during the mission era, the dissertation argues that the period’s art and architecture demonstrates the Jesuit strategy of cultural accommodation, and that far from being apart from Ethiopian art history, it shares stylistic and iconographic hallmarks with the so-called “Gondärine style.”

From the Farm to the Faculty: The Educational Odyssey of Paulus Falck

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, thousands of immigrants from Denmark settled in the American Midwest. Some of them brought with them educational concepts and religious convictions they hoped to pass on to future generations; to do so they created a variety of educational and religious institutions scattered across several Midwestern states. What follows is a study of Paulus Falck, who passed through several of these institutions

Building Resistance and Resilience: Regeneration Should Not be Left to Chance

Contemporary forest planning has tasked managers with developing goals associated with resistance and resilience. In practice, silviculturists use forest structure and tree species composition to characterize goals and desired future conditions, write prescriptions, and monitor outcomes associated with resistance and resilience. Although rarely discussed in the exploding literature relating to forest resistance and resilience, silvicultural regeneration methods are important and underutilized tools to meet these goals. We propose alternative silvicultural systems for building resistance and resilience to two common large-scale bark beetle disturbance agents in the Intermountain West, United States: mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) and spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis Kirby). Shelterwood, and shelterwood-with-reserves, silvicultural systems provide the desirable facilitative characteristics of a mature overstory on maintaining advance reproduction and the establishment of new cohorts of desirable tree species. These also allow the timely regeneration of large treatment areas necessary to rapidly promote desired future conditions in the face of inevitable disturbance. When implemented proactively, regeneration treatments allow silviculturists to take advantage of currently existing vegetation for the creation of age class and tree species diversity. In general, these examples illustrate the need for proactive planning for regeneration in response to any disturbance where desired future conditions include particular species. Furthermore, we argue that timely silvicultural interventions that focus on regenerating trees may be a key factor in achieving goals relating to resilience to specific disturbance types. Waiting until after the disturbance has occurred could result in the lost opportunity to establish desired species composition or stand structure—and may well result in a considerable restoration challenge

Landscape-Scale Drivers of Resistance and Resilience to Bark Beetles: A Conceptual Susceptibility Model

Bark beetle (Dendroctonus spp.) outbreaks in the middle latitudes of western North America cause large amounts of tree mortality, outstripping wildfire by an order of magnitude. While temperatures play an important, and direct role in the population dynamics of ectothermic bark beetles, an equally important influence is the nature of the host substrate—the structure and composition of forested communities. For many of the dominant tree species in the western United States, “hazard” indices have been developed for specific bark beetles, which generally include three key variables—host tree size, absolute or relative density of the stand, and percentage of host composition. We provide a conceptual model to apply these three variables across forest ecosystems and bark beetles that shifts the thinking from a species–specific model to a model which focuses on the underlying ecological factors related to bark beetle outbreak susceptibility. We explored the use of our model across multiple scales using the Forest Inventory and Analysis database: Interior West, USA; the states of Colorado and Arizona; and specific national forests within Arizona that are implementing a large-scale restoration effort. We demonstrated that across the Interior West and Colorado, the vast majority of forests have moderate to high susceptibility to bark beetles. Our conceptual model maintains the simplicity of previous “hazard” models but acknowledges the need to consider scale when managing bark beetles. It also shifts the management approach from resistance thinking to the development of “associational resilience”, where the focus is not on any one individual stand or area but the longer-term perspective of forest persistence across the landscape

Structural and Compositional Patterns in Forest Communities in the Intermountain West Across Multiple Scales

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) strives to use science-based research to both protect and enhance the management of natural resources. From this overarching goal, the USDA has a specific objective to protect the health and sustainability of forest and rangeland ecosystems. Based on this specific objective, an Advisory Board of natural resource scientists within the Quinney College of Natural Resources (QCNR) was awarded a National Institute of Food and Agricultural (NIFA) grant to train two PhD and two MS students. Their research would focus on managing for resilient forest ecosystem in the Intermountain West. With input from the advisory board and my PhD committee, my research focused on how to increase forest resilience at multiple scales. Locally, on the T.W. Daniel (TWD) Experimental Forest on the Logan Ranger District, three silvicultural trials were evaluated for resistance and resilience to the spruce beetle (partially funded by the TWD Forestry Fellowship). At the regional scale, a conceptual model was developed to classify forest communities based on structural features. The model was tested with data collected from 15 mountain ranges across the Intermountain West. Additionally, basic forest dynamics of limber pine (Pinus flexilis James.) were summarized across the Intermountain West. All three of these studies will aid in developing and implementing sound forest management practices to increase forest resilience

Democracy in trade unions, democracy through trade unions?

Since the Webbs published Industrial Democracy at the end of the nineteenth century, the principle that workers have a legitimate voice in decision-making in the world of work – in some versions through trade unions, in others at least formally through separate representative structures – has become widely accepted in most west European countries. There is now a vast literature on the strengths and weaknesses of such mechanisms, and we review briefly some of the key interpretations of the rise (and fall) of policies and structures for workplace and board-level representation. We also discuss the mainly failed attempts to establish broader processes of economic democracy, which the eclipse of nationally specific mechanisms of class compromise makes again a salient demand. Economic globalization also highlights the need for transnational mechanisms to achieve worker voice (or more radically, control) in the dynamics of capital-labour relations. We therefore examine the role of trade unions in coordinating pressure for a countervailing force at European and global levels, and in the construction of (emergent?) supranational industrial relations. However, many would argue that unions cannot win legitimacy as democratizing force unless manifestly democratic internally. We therefore revisit debates on and dilemmas of democracy within trade unions, and examine recent initiatives to enhance democratization

Perfil del liderazgo y clima laboral estudio de caso en una burocracia profesional de Medellín

Uno de los ejemplos utilizados por Mintzberg (2003), para definir una Burocracia Profesional son las instituciones educativas tales como universidades y colegios. En este caso, el colegio en estudio no fue la excepción, pues desde su organigrama, pasando por los procedimientos hasta llegar a las responsabilidades y competencias que debe tener un directivo, es evidente que cada uno de los docentes que allí trabajan subsisten en un ambiente que busca la estandarización de profesionales que, si bien dominan el saber, deben seguir ciertos procedimientos o protocolos que den cuenta del proceso pedagógico definido institucionalmente. En este tipo de sector, en donde la tendencia al nombramiento de líderes se basa generalmente en la excelente labor que realizan como docentes, pero sin asegurar que el licenciado o profesional se encuentre formado en habilidades necesarias para administrar y direccionar equipos de trabajo, están dejando en manos inexpertas temas tan delicados como lo son: el crecimiento profesional de otros, motivación y empoderamiento del capital humano. Los métodos utilizados en esta investigación fueron cuantitativos, obtenidos de los resultados de un estudio diagnóstico de Clima Organizacional, al igual que cualitativos, usando la observación participativa en el entorno en que se desenvuelven los directores académicos y sus equipos de trabajo, y mediante la aplicación de cuestionarios que buscaban los tipos de estilos de personalidad y liderazgo. Esta investigación facilitará las recomendaciones que podrán ser implementadas para acortar las brechas que se tienen en los perfiles de los directores académicos, generando un perfil más holístico a la hora de intervenir el hacer desde el ser