Many often identified the Catholic Church with the cause of labor and worker's rights in the United States. However that was not the common situation encountered by laborers throughout most of the nineteenth century. The proclamation of the social encyclicals: Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931)…

Gov. Wolf has indicated his willingness to modify pensions for future Pennsylvania public sector workers by using a variant of the "stacked hybrid" design proposed in 2013 by Pottsville Republican Rep. Mike Tobash. Negotiations of a compromise pension deal, however, remain stalled because Senate leaders remain committed to their own…

Back in the mid-2000s, in public and in the news media, Joseph P. Burke, then superintendent of the Springfield public schools, and Timothy T. Collins, president of the local teachers' union, often seemed to be at odds with each other. Out of the public eye, however, the two men had begun meeting regularly. When Burke left the district, the work…

This article examines the legal and political significance of teacher unionization in rural and suburban school districts between 1960 and 1975. While most historians focus on the growth of unions in urban areas, strikes in outlying districts played a determinative role in the development of public sector labor law, particularly in the arbitration…

In a global knowledge economy, filling in the bubbles on a standardized test isn't going to prepare children to succeed in life. This is the time to shed the old conflicts and come together. In this article, the author suggests a new path forward--toward a 21st-century education system, a serious and comprehensive reform plan to transform U.S.…

Arlene C. Ackerman, who took the helm of Philadelphia's public schools a little more than a year ago, is pushing for changes that would upend how teachers are paid and assigned to schools. The veteran urban superintendent is battling tradition in the 167,000-student system, but insists that increasing the effectiveness of the city's nearly 10,700…

This monograph presents an overview of Pennsylvania's law governing collective bargaining for public employees (Act 195) and reviews Pennsylvania's experience under the law since its enactment in 1970. The passage of Act 195 for the first time made it possible for Pennsylvania public employees to bargain collectively and to legally strike when…

An 18-month quality-of-working-life experiment in an underground coal mine was conducted using autonomous work groups. Increased production, motivation, and safety resulted, but discontent was created among other workers at the mine. (TA)

Intended primarily for educators, legislators, and the general public in the state of Pennsylvania, this public affairs brochure addresses the question of whether binding arbitration should be legislated in that state as a means of resolving labor disputes between a local school district and its employees. The brochure reviews the history of…

This study was designed to determine the effect of informal "meet and discuss" procedures on the parties involved in public school district collective bargaining. The authors investigated the relationships between employee organization and employer attitudes, the effectiveness of informal bargaining procedures, and the level of…

This study investigated the relationships between superintendents' management behavior and the frequency of grievances initiated by secondary teachers; the dependent variable was also tested against the rule administration behavior of secondary principals and the "mix" of behaviors at both management levels. The sample employed for…

This booklet presents a method of teaching the history of labor unions in a creative and interesting manner. The labor pioneers presented in this booklet have been chosen with the thought that they would provide inspiration for young people who are studying the 300 years or more of Pennsylvania history. These laborers, who came from the ranks of…

This booklet contains six short papers prepared for a symposium on collective negotiation in education. The opening paper presents a national overview of the subject, while the subsequent articles mainly discuss experiences under the Pennsylvania Public Employee Relations Act of 1970, which granted state and local employees full collective…