In this essay, the author explains how teaching assistant (TA) unions work to the benefit not only of the graduate students who are their members but also of the writing programs that employ them. While university administrations understand unions to be bothersome at best and forces of evil at their worst, unions are essential to the maintenance…

Pay equity remains a problem linked to the problem of low pay. Pay equity must be understood as one solution to the problem of securing a living wage for women and men in the restructuring economy as well as a means for challenging gender equity. (JOW)

Outlines a brief history of the unionization of business and office occupations as well as the contributions of feminist organizations, trade associations, legislative bodies, and wage equity groups toward the achievement of equitable pay for women in office occupations. Also discusses what educators can do to aid business students in the pursuit…

During the early twentieth century, Eugene V. Debs supported abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work for women, and pensions for both men and women. (Author/JOW)

A salary-schedule compression is the process of reducing the number of salary schedule steps while still giving annual salary increases. Explains what school districts can do during negotiations to compress a schedule without awarding greater increases than originally intended. A sidebar shows a table for relating years of teaching experience to…

Although teacher unions promote private means of resolving labor conflicts instead of using public courts, they are engaged in a war on privatization, especially contracting out. It is surprising that the media and higher education take seriously the contention that unions do not negatively affect educational achievement. Advocates of "the…

Discusses the formation of the National Union of Women Teachers in England. Examines how it sought to combine, within one organization, elements of feminism, traditional trade union concern for members' salaries and working conditions, and a desire to protect and enhance its members' professional status. (GEA)

A panel comments on the book, Working in America, and implications for the U.S. labor market, including declining traditional internal labor markets, the need for private versus public policy interventions, international labor policy, and value-based policy. Commentators include David Neumark, Peter Cappelli, Sanford M. Jacoby, Rebecca M. Blank,…

Analyzes racial and public policy implications of establishing, within a new desegregated metropolitan school district, a uniform salary schedule for teachers who formerly worked for eleven independent school districts located in the same county. (Author/GC)

Far from ensuring effective shared governance, collective bargaining in higher education does little but clarify work rules; it concerns money, not institutional mission. In addition, the antagonism produced by faculty collective bargaining helps discredit education in the larger public arena. Collective bargaining and collegiality may not be…

The National Commission on Excellence in Education found mathematics and science programs to be deteriorating and saw an existing shortage of qualified teachers of these subjects. Many of the Commission's solutions are expected to meet with resistance from the Reagan administration and from teachers' unions. (MLF)

Structural reform in higher education collective bargaining is examined in these conference proceedings, along with recent state bargaining legislation, and legal, union, and management views concerning sex discrimination in higher education. The 19 article topics and authors include: the problem of reshaping the fringe package (Claude Campbell);…

This book presents an assessment of collective bargaining in education. During the 1970's, while student enrollment declined, organizations representing public school teachers grew. Both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers more than doubled their membership. Teacher contracts have expanded to include areas…

The bulk of this position paper consists of statements in opposition to a September 2001 referendum on adopting 'right-to-work' (RTW) legislation in Oklahoma. The statements are by Joan Fitzgerald, William Sschweke, Raymond Hogler, Steven Shulman, Stephan Weiler, Ann Markusen, Robert G. Lynch, David R. Howell, James Galbraith, Colin Gordon, Wim…

In 1982 plant closings in the United States affected approximately 1 percent of the country's manufacturing facilities and 1 percent of its manufacturing labor force. Included among the reasons cited for plant closings were low productivity, high wages, and inflexible work rules. Given the nature of the reasons for plant closings and the magnitude…