Power,poets and the people: Mozambican voices interpreting history

This article analyses the relationship between the state and the nascent African trade unions in South Africa between 1918 and 1948. It shows how the government's attempts to deal with African workers separately from white workers became increasingly difficult during this period. Pressures from African unions themselves, from liberal groups and from the increasingly important role played by Africans in the economy, forced the state to seek a coherent way of handling African trade unions. The paper shows how the state was divided over this issue, with Native Affairs and Labour Department officials conflicting with each other and with government ministers. Although the cabinet held ultimate power within the state, civil servants played a significant role in shaping government policy and determining how it was implemented. The paper concludes that, although circumstances have changed greatly since 1948, the pre‐apartheid era has important lessons for state/organised labour relations in the post‐apartheid South Africa which is currently taking shape.     

Discourses of flexibility and the rise of the 'Temp industry,or, How I met the 'Kelly Girl' commuting between public and private

This paper argues that multinational Temporary Help Service (THS) firms use gender narratives to sell labor as flexible and in doing so, they proliferate the flexibilization of labor on a global scale and contribute to economic restructuring. How do global processes become daily lived experience? In this article, it is argued that the Temporary Help Service industry expands and maintains a flexible labor force by referring to the multiple identities of women workers. This process is visible in the print advertisements produced by the industry: 943 advertisements which appeared between 1980 and 1990 were analyzed to show how the industry relies on the trope of white womanhood to position and sell its product.     

Comparing Offers and Take‐ups of Employee Health Insurance across Race,Gender, and Decade*

How often do U.S. employees receive health insurance offers from employers? When offered, how often do they take up their employer‐based health insurance? This article uses the 1992 and 2002 waves of the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) to investigate changes in access to (offers) and employees electing to accept, take, or purchase their employers’ health insurance plans (take‐ups) among wage and salaried workers. Although much research has studied employee health benefits, little has examined the intersection of gender and race regarding both offers and take‐ups of such benefits. Logistic regression results indicate that offers and take‐ups of personal health benefits declined from 1992 to 2002, net of salient controls. Further analyses demonstrate that these declines did not affect all workers identically. Offers declined somewhat for both women and men among whites and African Americans, but declined more among Hispanic women and men. Among other ethnoracial groups, offers declined the most among men, but increased among comparable women. Take‐ups declined among white men and Hispanic workers. However, white and African American women's take‐ups did not change and among African American men take‐ups increased. We discuss the need to examine gender and race simultaneously and urge researchers to more closely examine changes in health benefit offers and take‐ups.     

On the road toward the development of clothing size standards and safety devices for Chilean workers

The range of sizes used in Chile for clothing comes from criteria developed in continental Europe, mainly the EN 13402 standard. Any standard adopted by a country should consider the anthropometric dimensions of the user population, particularly to discern the ratio of garments for different size. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to propose standards for the size of clothing based on anthropometric characteristics of a sample of Chilean miners. The study was conducted in 447 male workers. The age and body weight were measured in each workers as well as their percentage of body fat. Anthropometric measurements for garments were made according to the criteria of the European Community (EN 13402-1) and ISO (8559- 1989). Body dimensions for the design of gloves, shoes, helmets and caps, clothes that cover the upper part of the body and clothes that cover the lower part were measured. The results obtained made it possible to establish the percentage of workers falling within the range of sizes that manufacturers consider as reference. One of the main conclusions of the study is the need to carefully consider a set of complementary anthropometric measures, which can help to improve the comfort of costumes, to the extent that the providers adapt their designs to the characteristics of Chilean workers.     

Strategies for work–family balance in a South African context

ABSTRACT

Finding and maintaining work–family balance has become an increasingly difficult challenge for South African families due to various factors, including economic, political, social and cultural changes that can impact negatively on family well-being. While pathways and strategies for work–family balance have been identified in other contexts, there is little available research on the topic in a South African context. Considering the knowledge that South African social workers have in this regard as a result of their training, qualifications and role in the South African context, South African social workers were selected as participants. The aim of this study was therefore to explore and describe, from the perspective of a group of South African social workers, strategies for work–family balance that can potentially contribute to family well-being in a South African context. A narrative inquiry research design was implemented. Thirteen female social workers between the ages of 23 and 46 who work in different social work contexts across South Africa were recruited by means of purposive and snowball/network sampling. Data were collected by means of written narratives and analysed by thematic analysis. The findings identify the following strategies: Setting clear boundaries, open communication in work and family domains, strengthening personal and professional support systems, planning, time management and prioritising, self-care, reasonable work environment and continuous personal and family assessment. While the findings share similarities with work–family balance strategies identified in other contexts, this study’s significance lies in the fact that it identifies strategies specifically for the South African context and that it does so from the perspective of South African social workers.     

American Toussaints: Symbol,Subversion, and the Black Atlantic Tradition in the American Civil War

During the American Civil War, Toussaint Louverture was for African Americans the touchstone of a transatlantic identity, which joined their violent struggle for freedom and equality to a black revolutionary tradition that was deeply rooted in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. White abolitionists reinforced the construction of this identification, for when they saw armed and uniformed black men, they likewise imagined American Toussaints, committed, disciplined, and talented slave soldiers who were eager to both die and kill for freedom. The men and women who seized upon the revolutionary symbols of Toussaint and the Haitian Revolution at this critical moment in the history of the American republic advanced a subversive ideology that undermined the white supremacist ideas that buttressed both the institution of slavery as well as the republic itself.     

The North American Free Trade Agreement and Women

This article discusses some of the effects of NAFTA on women workers in Canada and Mexico. The main purpose is to show that NAFTA represents a continuation of the capitalist dynamic, which is characterized by the enormous mobility of capital across countries and regions, and which privileges the search for profit. Through an analysis of the labour conditions in Canadian and Mexican manufacturing, the article reveals how this new capitalist period has produced de-industrialization in developed countries while depressing labour conditions in both developed and developing countries. The study indicates that women workers most affected in this process are those working in industries (especially the clothing industry) that seek to reduce their costs of production in order to remain competitive in national and international markets. In addition, those working in regions important to transnational industries, such as the Mexican Free Zones where maquiladoras abound are also seriously affected.     

Glass Ceilings and Productivity: The Effects of Ethnicity and Sex in the Presence of Agreed-upon Productivity Measures among Collegiate Basketball Coaches

Abstract

Workers from traditionally disadvantaged groups sometimes find their career paths blocked by glass ceilings that prevent them from acquiring top jobs. In the presence of clear and agreed-upon measures of productivity, however, employers should be able to set aside stereotypical proxies of productivity that may favor white male workers and hire the most productive candidates regardless of ethnicity and sex. In this paper, I utilize bivariate probit analyses of 3,642 managerial workers in an industry (collegiate basketball) with readily available and agreed-upon measures of productivity to examine whether glass ceilings persist under such conditions. Results suggest that women supervising women experience no disadvantage in achieving top jobs, but minority workers experience a glass ceiling. In addition, groups receive different returns to their productivity.     

The influence of gender and ethnicity on judgments of culpability in a domestic violence scenario

Using an experimental analog design, in this study we examined 503 European American, African American, and Latino undergraduate students' responses to a domestic violence scenario in which the ethnicity and gender of the perpetrator were manipulated. Results indicated that participants perceived perpetration of domestic assault significantly more criminal when committed by a man than when committed by a woman. That finding was robust across European Americans, African Americans, and Latinos and was expressed by both genders. Also, European American participants expressed significantly more criticism toward African American perpetrators of assault than they did toward European American and Latino perpetrators of the exact offense, suggestive of racial bias consistent with stereotypes about African Americans being excessively aggressive. Finally, Latino participants expressed significantly more sympathy toward women who assault their husbands than toward assaulting husbands. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Social upgrading in globalized production: The case of the textile and clothing industry

Vertical specialization generated by the international fragmentation of production within global networks is driven not only by comparative advantage, but also by the locational decisions of lead firms which determine the role and bargaining power of local producers in their value chain. This study examines the consequences of such specialization in textiles and clothing for 26 labour‐abundant countries from 1990 to 2007. Fixed effects regressions based on panel data reveal that the industry does not always reap the benefits of the resulting international trade integration. Rather, the authors observe a negative relationship between vertical specialization and relative real wages in the textile and clothing industry.     

Safaris into Subjectivity: White Locals,Black Tourists,and the Politics of Belonging in the Okavango Delta,Botswana

The elite safari lodges in Botswana's Okavango Delta provide an intriguing site through which to explore processes of identity construction, as people from vastly different backgrounds meet and explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. Drawing on a dinner table dispute between an African American tourist and his white Motswana guide, I explore contested notions of what constitutes African identities. The encounter shows that colonial histories and the racialization of space continue to be central to African identity politics, and I describe how white citizens' claims to belonging are challenged on these grounds. In response to such challenges, white Batswana assert a strongly nationalistic identity, distancing themselves from other southern African white populations and their colonial histories. They staunchly defend their claims to belonging through mobilising a partial view of Botswana's history and contemporary sociopolitical conditions, which has made possible a deep sense of emplacement within the social and natural environments of the Okavango.     

Marginalizing the Self: A Study of Citizenship,Color, and Ethnoracial Identity in American Society

From 1870 to 1952, naturalization legislation in the United States of America restricted citizenship to “free white persons” and “persons of African nativity” or “African descent.” Individuals categorized as “members of the Mongolian race” or as of neither “free white” nor “African descent or nativity” were excluded from membership in the American political community and designated “aliens ineligible for citizenship in the United States.” Examination of the appellate and Supreme Court adjudications of these matters reveals a juridical rhetoric that functioned to marginalize all those declared ineligible for civic status. Although the reasoning process employed by the courts was not dissimilar from that arising whenever individual disparate aggregates must be classified according to a limited set of categories, in the situations under study, it produced and legitimated an invidious hierarchy of peoples, a race-prejudicial sense of vertical group position, and a fundamental departure from the universalistic and individualistic claims that defended America as a thoroughgoing civil society.     

Introduction

Abstract

This article discusses why it is important to consider how cultural racism contributes to the construction of motives and justifications among individuals who have committed acts of structural violence, including, lynching, hate crime and police violence against African Americans. Cultural racism is also discussed as a factor that contributes to interpersonal structural violence in situations involving black offenders and victims.     

Cognitive skills and Black–White wages in the United States labor market

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this study analyzes the effects of cognitive skills on the wages of Whites and African Americans in white and blue collar occupations. The results show that cognitive skills, net of education, are important predictors of wages across all occupations. Mathematics skills, in particular contribute to significant wage premiums for workers in white and blue-collar occupations, with the exception of Blacks in blue-collar professions. English skills lead to significant wage premiums only for Blacks in blue-collar occupations. While the incorporation of cognitive skills narrows the Black-White wage gap considerably, the effects of skills on the wages of Blacks and Whites are far from uniform. The results also show that despite using detailed controls for the quality of education, an extra year of schooling yields the highest wage premium for Whites in all occupations.     

The Problem People and the Hard Workers: whiteness and small town response to economic decline

This paper explores the role of race and class in post-industrial economic decline and revitalization in a predominantly white town in the northeastern United States. Ethnographic research in this small town revealed that residents commonly identified lazy, welfare-dependent substance abusers as the source of local problems. At the same time, they lauded workers, drawing on a national white hard worker mythology. Poor and underemployed workers themselves thus negotiated between the problem people and white worker ideals. I argue that the white worker myth provides a symbolic escape hatch, which reinforces hegemonic whiteness and the US racial order despite the lack of material payoff for economically marginalised white workers. As such, I call for a shift away from measuring degrees of white privilege towards an analysis of how people in various classed and gendered positions mobilise or contribute to white power differently.     

Shaping ethics: youth workers matter

The authors propose that youth workers and educators committed to informing and shaping the ethical understandings of young people first need to explore and become aware of their own ethics. This requires front-line staff and caregivers to critically reflect on the impact their day-to-day choices and decisions have on youth. Once they become clearer about their own ethics and the consequences of their decisions, youth workers are then in a position to promote opportunities for youth to make ethical choices. The authors use observations and ideas from their experiences with the Minnesota Youth Work Institute. Their overarching aim is to promote ethical congruence between what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is practiced in daily work with youth.     

Signs of change in Turkey's working class: workers' age-related perceptions in the modern manufacturing sector

This paper explores the possible effects of the increasing exposure to modernity on younger workers in some sectors of developing countries with special reference to those employed in advanced manufacturing in Turkey. In recent decades Turkey has undergone considerable urbanization, improvements in literacy and rising levels of formal education. The paper systematically examines differences in the work-related attitudes and expectations, commitment and aspirations of younger and older workers, who have been exposed to these processes to different degrees. It is broadly confirmed that younger workers have higher expectations and aspirations that make them relatively less satisfied with a number of aspects of their work and which are likely to make for a less committed more critical workforce.     

‘Green‐Collar Crime’: Environmental Crime and Justice in the Sociological Perspective

One of the more neglected areas of research in the field of criminology are the crimes committed by ‘white collar’ offenders. An even more understudied area is the corporate crimes that are committed against the environment for profit. Despite this dearth of research, there have been several sociologically significant examinations into some of the more serious environmental crimes committed over the last three decades. While some of this research is theoretically underdeveloped, more recent studies have attempted to develop a coherent framework to study environmental crime. By linking and synthesizing two literatures in both white‐collar criminology and environmental justice, sociologists have begun to develop a framework for examining ‘green crimes’, the motivations, opportunity context, victimology, and enforcement issues. This article will be a survey of these studies and development literature along with some typological and definitional issues relevant to the subfield. This aims to map where criminology has been in the sub‐field of environmental crime and provides directions for where future research should be headed.