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Documents for "Labor":
  • AFL see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
  • AFL-CIO see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
  • apprenticeship system of learning a craft or trade from one who is engaged in it and of paying for the instruction by a given number of years of work. The practice was known in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and...
  • arbitration, industrial method of settling disputes between employer and employees by seeking and accepting a decision by a third party. Such arbitration may be compelled by the government, as in New Zealand (since 1894),...
  • child labor use of the young as workers in factories, farms, and mines. Child labor was first recognized as a social problem with the introduction of the factory system in late 18th-century Great Britain...
  • CIO see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
  • closed shop and open shop The term "closed shop" is used to signify an establishment employing only members of a labor union. The union shop, a closely allied term, indicates a company where employees do not have to belong to a labor union when...
  • collective bargaining in labor relations, procedure whereby an employer or employers agree to discuss the conditions of work by bargaining with representatives of the employees, usually a labor union. Its purpose may be...
  • Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), U.S. government program designed to assist economically disadvantaged, unemployed, or underemployed persons. Enacted in 1973, CETA provided block grants to state and local governments to...
  • coolie labor term applied to unskilled laborers from Asia, especially from India and China. With the discontinuance of slavery, the use of Chinese and Indian contract labor in British and French colonies...
  • direct action theory and methods used by certain labor groups to fight employers, capitalist institutions, and the state by direct economic action, without using intermediate organizations. Political measures,...
  • employment bureau a government-run establishment for bringing together the employer offering work and the employee seeking it. As a not-for-profit service, employment bureaus operate differently from privately run...
  • Equal Pay Act U.S. law passed (1963) as an amendment to the Wages and Hours Act (see Fair Labor Standards Act ) which prohibits discrimination based on sex that results in unequal pay for equal work.
  • Fair Labor Standards Act or Wages and Hours Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1938 to establish minimum living standards for workers engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including those involved in production of goods bound...
  • family leave social policy permitting workers to take a specified amount of time off from the job to attend to pressing family needs. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (1993) attempts to balance family and...
  • flextime system of assigning hours for work that permits employees to choose, within specified limits, the hours that they will be at their place of employment. In many companies, there is a "core time" when all employees must be present each workday. By allowing employees to stagger hours or by changing from five eight-hour days to four ten-hour days (a "compressed work week" ), traffic and commuting problems are eased, parents can adjust work schedules to school schedules, and expensive office equipment, such as computers, can be used more efficiently. In 1997 about 25...
  • general strike sympathetic cessation of work by a majority of the workers in all industries of a locality or nation. Such a stoppage is economic if it is for the purpose of redressing some grievance or pressing...
  • guilds or gilds, economic and social associations of persons engaging in the same business or craft, typical of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Membership was by profession or craft, and the primary function was...
  • industrial union labor union composed of all the workers in a given industry, regardless of skill, craft, or occupation (as opposed to the craft union, in which all members are of one skill, such as carpenters or...
  • Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), revolutionary industrial union organized in Chicago in 1905 by delegates from the Western Federation of Mines, which formed the nucleus of the IWW, and 42 other labor organizations. It...
  • International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), former U.S. labor union formed in 1900 by the amalgamation of seven local unions. At the turn of the century most of the workers in the garment industry were Jewish immigrants, whose...
  • IWW see Industrial Workers of the World.
  • Knights of Labor American labor organization, started by Philadelphia tailors in 1869, led by Uriah S. Stephens. It became a body of national scope and importance in 1878 and grew more rapidly after 1881, when its...
  • labor term used both for the effort of performing a task and for the workers engaged in the activity. In ancient times much of the work was done by slaves (see slavery ). In the feudal period agricultural labor was in the main performed by the serf. In medieval towns, however, the skilled artisans of the craft guilds became influential citizens. Many manual labor jobs were eliminated with the introduction of machinery (mid-18th cent.), thus creating a labor surplus (see Industrial Revolution ). With increased competition for jobs and consequent decreasing wages, a form of labor contract came into use in Great Britain and its colonies, called indenture, by which people could hire...
  • labor law legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class of...
  • Landrum-Griffin Act 1959, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. It resulted from hearings of the Senate committee on improper activities in the fields of...
  • lockout intentional closing up of a company, factory, or shop by an employer to prevent employees from working during a strike or labor dispute. The term lockout is sometimes confused with the term strike...
  • migrant labor term applied in the United States to laborers who travel from place to place harvesting crops that must be picked as soon as they ripen. Although migrant labor patterns exist in other parts of the...
  • minimum wage lowest wage legally permitted in an industry or in a government or other organization. The goal in establishing minimum wages has been to assure wage earners a standard of living above the lowest...
  • Molly Maguires secret organization of Irish-Americans in the anthracite mining districts of Pennsylvania. Its name came from a woman who led an extralegal, antilandlord organization in Ireland during the 1840s,...
  • National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), independent agency of the U.S. government created under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act), and amended by the acts of 1947 ( Taft-Hartley Labor Act ) and 1959 ( Landrum-Griffin Act ), which affirmed labor's right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choice or to refrain from such activities. The board of five members (appointed by the U.S...
  • pension periodic payments to one who has retired from work because of age or disability. Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility of...
  • picketing act of patrolling a place of work affected by a strike in order to discourage its patronage, to make public the workers' grievances, and in some cases to prevent strikebreakers from taking the...
  • piecework work for which the laborer is paid on the basis of the amount of work done. The system is best adapted to standardized operations in which quantity is preferred to quality. Its advocates maintain...
  • Pullman strike in U.S. history, an important labor dispute. On May 11, 1894, workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago struck to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives. They sought...
  • sabotage [Fr., sabot =wooden shoe; hence, to work clumsily], form of direct action by workers against employers through obstruction of work and/or lowering of plant efficiency. Methods range from peaceful slowing of production to destruction of property. In 1897, French workers...
  • Service Employees International Union (SEIU), labor union representing U.S. and Canadian workers in health care (doctors, nurses, health technicians), public services (government workers, school employees), building services (janitors,...
  • slavery institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. Slavery has been found among many groups of...
  • Solidarity Polish independent trade union federation formed in Sept., 1980. Led by Lech Wałęsa , it grew rapidly in size and political power and soon posed a threat to Poland's Communist government by its sponsorship of labor strikes and other forms of public protest. Rural Solidarity, a...
  • Stakhanovism movement begun (1935) in the Soviet Union aimed at increasing industrial production by the use of efficient working techniques. It was named for Aleksey Grigorevich Stakhanov, a coal miner in the...
  • strike concentrated work stoppage by a group of employees, the chief weapon of organized labor. A suspension of work on the employer's part is called a lockout. Strikes usually result from conflicts of interest between the employer, who seeks to reduce costs, and employees, who seek higher wages (or in times of depression try to stop wage decreases),...
  • sweating system method of exploiting labor by supplying materials to workers and paying by the piece (see piecework ) for work done on those materials in the workers' homes or in small workshops (sweatshops). The system (sometimes known as the cottage industry) evolved especially in those industries that did not...
  • syndicalism political and economic doctrine that advocates control of the means and processes of production by organized bodies of workers. Like anarchists, syndicalists believe that any form of state is an...
  • Taft-Hartley Labor Act 1947, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Relations Act. Sponsored by Senator Robert Alphonso Taft and Representative Fred Allan Hartley, the act qualified or...
  • Teamsters Union U.S. labor union formed in 1903 by the amalgamation of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union. Its full name is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,...
  • telecommuting an arrangement by which people work at home using a computer and telephone, transmitting work material to a business office by means of a modem and telephone lines; it is also known as telework. Although the term "telecommuting" was coined in the early 1970s, the practice became more popular in the 1990s as personal computers became more affordable and the Internet became more accessible. Government agencies and environmental groups encourage telecommuting because it reduces pollution, saves gasoline, and creates a less congested commuting environment...
  • temporary worker an employee, hired through a specialized employment agency, who generally works less than a year on one assignment, regardless of the number of hours worked per week. Temporary workers (also called "contingency staffing" or "temps" ) are utilized to accommodate fluctuations in labor requirements. While these workers may have full-time positions with companies, they are paid by private employment agencies. Such agencies...
  • unemployment condition of one who is able to work but unable to find work. Formerly assumed to be voluntary, idleness was punishable by law; however it is now recognized that unemployment arises from factors...
  • unemployment insurance insurance against loss of wages during the time that an able-bodied worker is involuntarily unemployed. The goal of such insurance is to provide a minimal livelihood to unemployed workers until...
  • union, labor association of workers for the purpose of improving their economic status and working conditions through collective bargaining with employers. Historically there have been two chief types of...
  • United Mine Workers of America (UMW), international labor union formed (1890) by the amalgamation of the National Progressive Union (organized 1888) and the mine locals under the Knights of Labor. It is an industrial union,...
  • Western Federation of Miners (WFM), a radical labor union that organized the miners and smelter workers of the Rocky Mountain states. Created in 1893 by the merger of several local miners' unions, the WFM had a reputation for...
  • white-collar workers broad occupational grouping of workers engaged in nonmanual labor; frequently contrasted with blue-collar (manual) employees. American in origin, the term has close analogues in other industrial...
  • workers' compensation payment by employers for some part of the cost of injuries, or in some cases of occupational diseases, received by employees in the course of their work. The degree of responsibility varies in...
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