Description
Lexington Books The Daily Grind How Workers Navigate the Employment Relationship 2014 Edition by Marquita R. Walker
The Daily Grind: How Workers Navigate the Employment Relationship introduces students to the tensions between labor and management within the U.S. employment relationship and explores how workers, operating in a socially and culturally structured system of capitalism, are influenced and manipulated by economic institutions and polity which exploit, devalue, and dehumanize workers in the name of corporate profit. The text covers how the American work ethic of the early nineteenth century helped shape the current perspective on the labor-management relationship, and how, over time, the Protestant and patriarchal influences of that period have countered the collective actions of workers in profound ways. The text further explores the effect of societal, cultural, and economic structures, both global and local, which limit workers' ability to achieve the "American Dream" and result in depressed economic conditions and discouraged workers. The text's focus on the current economic inequality and lack of social mobility challenges the current neoliberal ideology that capitalism is the best economic system. The overarching framework for The Daily Grind: How Workers Navigate the Employment Relationship is situated in Labor Process Theory (LPT) which explores the control and resistance dichotomy between labor and management, the systematic deskilling of the workforce in order to increase production and increase owners' profits, and examines conflict over control of the labor process. An extension of Marxist theory about the organization of work, LPT explores the employment relationship, the control of work, the payment of work, the skills necessary for work, and the facilitation of work. Table of contents :- The Daily Grind: How Workers Navigate the Employment RelationshipTable of ContentsOverviewAbout the AuthorAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: An Overview of the Field of Labor Studies1.What is Labor Studies?2.The American Work Ethic3.Workers, Culture and Social Class 4.Worker's Place in the Social Structure5.Labor's Place in the Social StructureChapter 2: Employment Relations in Historical Perspective, 1870-19351.The First and Second Industrial Revolutions2.Union Formation and Strikes3.Social Environment: Early 20th Century4.Court Decision, Legislation, and Public OpinionChapter 3: Employment Relations in Historical Perspective, 1935-present1.Changing of the Guard2.The New Deal3.WWII Begins4.Labor in Crisis and Transition 5.Labor's Structural and Organizational Response Chapter 4: Theoretical Models Associated with the Labor Movement A. The Compulsory Nature of UnionismB. Theories of the Labor MovementC. Social Movement UnionismD. Militancy and Social MovementsChapter 5: The Current State of the U.S. Employment RelationshipA. Poverty, Wealth and Income Inequities, and Equality versus EquityB. Poverty in the U.S.C. Wealth and Income InequalityD. Policies to Alleviate Poverty: Minimum Wage and the Earned Income Tax CreditE. Equality versus Equity: The Role of FairnessChapter 6: The Evolution of the Employment Relationship1.Standard and Nonstandard Employment Relationships2.The Nature of the Employment Relationship3.Employment Relationships over Time4.Job Insecurity in Employment Relationships5.Globalization's Effect on WorkersChapter 7: Compensation for American WorkersA. Time-oriented versus Task-oriented LaborB. Human, Social, and Cultural CapitalC. Work versus LeisureD. American Workers and Leave TimeE. Wage TheftChapter 8: Race and Ethnicity in the Employment RelationshipA. Definitions of Race and EthnicityB. Racial and Ethnic Immigration FlowsC. Causes and Continuations of Racial and Ethnic DisparitiesChapter 9: Gender and the Employment RelationshipA. Brief History of Women's Devalued StatusB. Women's Participation in the Labor ForceC. Women as Primary Care-giversC. Wage Disparities Resulting from GenderD. Gender Discrimination in the WorkplaceE. Gender Disparities in UnionsGlossaryReferencesIndex