Animal Collective

Imagine going to work everyday for over twelve hours with only a thirty minute break, and only getting paid two dollars per week. For many working class americans in the late nineteenth century this was a reality. As a result of the injustice placed on the working class new literary movements arose, including the muckrakers. The muckrakers sought to highlight the social issues plaguing the country. One of the most prominent muckrakers during this time was Theodore Dreiser. He is well known for…

In the book, Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century, Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin D.G. Kelley tell the compelling and intriguing stories of the working class throughout the 20th century. Howard Zinn tells the gruesome story of the Ludlow Massacre and the politics of corporate power. Dana Frank tells the story of the not very well known sit in strike organized by the “counter girls” at one of the largest companies in America. Lastly,…

The purpose of the NLRA is to authorize the employees the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representation of their own choice, and to engage in activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other aid and protection. In addition, the act protects employees by restricting certain private practices that can harm the welfare of the employees and the surrounding workplace environment. The act protects employees from…

“Employment-at-Will is a a doctrine in which both the employee and the employer can terminate the relationship at time and for any legally permissible reason, or for no reason at all” (Cihon, 2014). Exceptions to employment-at-will includes whistleblowers, public policy exception and implied employment contracts. A whistleblower is an employee who reports his/her employer’s illegal activities to the appropriate governmental entity or, under some state statutes, to the board of directors or…

E. (2002). Statutory supplement to cases and materials on labor law collective bargaining in a free society. St. Paul: West Group (Law). Ross, J. (2010). Employment law. Dundee: Dundee University Press. Holley, W. H., Jr., Jennings, K. M., & Wolters, R. S. (2012). The labor relations process (10th ed.). Mason, OH:…

of the employers and courts. Naturally, the Norris–LaGuardia Act of 1932 ushered in other pieces of legislation to restructure the laws governing the workforce legally. The Wagner Act clarified Labor as more than a commodity, and notated that collective bargaining is essential to workers’ best interest, and employee have a right to have a voice (Budd, 2013,…

In “Defining, Conceptualizing, and Theorizing Terrorism”, author Asafa Jalata says it is impossible to adequately define and understand all forms of terrorism until one recognizes that it has been an integral part of “the global capitalist system since the late fifteenth century” (9). He goes on to say although there are people that are able to live in peaceful coexistence with other groups, history shows that since time “immemorial” certain individuals, groups, and organizations have engaged in…

A Change in Economy A Political Scientist, Cas Mudde wrote, "Many observers have noted that populism is inherent to representative democracy; after all, do populists not juxtapose the pure people against the corrupt elite?" In the late 1800s, at the time of the Gilded Age – an era of economic growth and development -- monopolies dominated the economy, and the wealthy controlled the working class. Subsequently, due to the advanced technology and brilliant inventions that overtook manpower, and…

IKEA, a well-known furniture company, opened a U.S. factory in Danville, Virginia. Residents of the town were thrilled to hear this at first because it was thought to be bringing good, well-paying jobs. A few years after the plant opened the employees for IKEA were pissed off and wanted to form a union. The workers complained about the “eliminated raises (Los Angeles Times) and also “mandatory overtime. Several said it's common to find out on Friday evening that they'll have to pull a weekend…

In the early 1900s employers hire people to spy on workers in unions and report back to them with information on what was going on. The Wagner act of 1935, also known as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), was created by Senator Robert R. Wagner and signed into action by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in July of 1935. President Roosevelt and the Wagner Act had an immense influence on the labor movement and the American work force we know today. Before the NLRH employers had monarch…