Preferred work patterns of creative artists

Recent research has highlighted ways in which the labour market behaviour of artists differs from the predictions of conventional theory. This paper considers one particular aspect of artists’ labour supply, i.e. the extent to which preferred time allocations to creative work can be realised, given the multiple job-holding and other characteristics of artists’ working arrangements. It is suggested that greater financial security and the accumulation of human capital are likely to be associated with increased ability to achieve equilibrium between desired and actual labour supply to the market for creative work. These propositions are tested empirically using data from a recent survey of practising professional artists in Australia.     

Freedom of association in modern industrial relations

Here the author attempts to analyse freedom of association by highlighting three phenomena—trade union independence, recognition and the closed shop—and asks what protection of the freedom requires in each context.     

In Defense of 'Unbridled' Freedom of Contract

A bstract . The doctrine of freedom of contract, viz. , that each person should have the liberty to enter into and the right to insist on the fulfillment of any rights-respecting contract , is defined and defended as an implication of a Lockean emphasis on natural rights. This natural rights perspective requires the rejection of all collective social goal theories, e.g., utilitarianism , and the rejection of objections to freedom of contract which proceed from such theories. Four specific objections to freedom of contract, each of which appears to flow from an individualistic emphasis on freedom and rights , are considered. But each of these is dismissed either for misconceiving the nature of freedom or for involving an underlying appeal to some implausible social goal theory.     

Complexity and the Meaning of Freedom: The Classical Liberal View

A bstract . The classical liberal view of economic freedom as the absence of coercion in economic affairs is examined in its historical and epistemological foundations. The contributions of Descartes, Bentham, Newton and Locke are emphasized. This view is found to be unduly restrictive in relation to the complexity and synergistic interdependencies of modem technology and economic arrangements. More specifically, it is found to be atomistic, negativistic, aresponsible, and historically perverse. It is based on the notion that markets somehow exist prior to and independently of social control — an error of which Adam Smith and the classical economists were not guilty. The complex and interdependent characteristics of contemporary society , with its maldistribution of income, wealth and power , have rendered it obsolete. The instrumentalist view of freedom outlines the competing alternative.     

The Relationship Among Union Membership, Facets of Satisfaction and Intent to Leave: Further Evidence on the Voice Face of Unions

This study examined the impact of union membership on employees’ intent to leave their jobs across a number of facets of satisfaction, as a further test of unions’ voice face. Among the findings were that there were significant relationships between job, compensation, benefits, working conditions, and immediate supervisor satisfaction and intent to leave one’s job for nonunion employees. In contrast, only the relationship between job satisfaction and intent to leave was significant for union employees. Finally, over the facets of satisfaction where one would expect unions to have the most influence, the relationship between intent to leave one’s job and satisfaction was greater for nonunion employees than for union employees. These results provide a great deal of support for the effect of unions’ voice face.

A new condition for identifiability of finite mixture distributions

In this paper a sufficient condition for the identifiability of finite mixtures is given. This condition is less restrictive than Teicher’s condition Teicher H, Ann Math Stat 34:1265–1269 (1963) and therefore it can be applied to a wider range of families of mixtures. In particular, it applies to the classes of all finite mixtures of Log-gamma and of reversed Log-gamma distributions. These families have been already studied by Henna J Jpn Stat Soc 24:193–200 (1994) using another condition, different from Teicher’s, but more difficult to check in many cases. Furthermore, the result given in this paper is very appropiated for the case of mixtures of the union of different distribution families. To illustrate this an application to the class of all finite mixtures generated by the union of Lognormal, Gamma and Weibull distributions is given, where Teicher’s and Henna’s conditions are not applicable     

Defending your life: When women complain about sexual harassment

Women who complain about sexual harassment in a union work environment may find that they are the focal point of the union’s defense of the alleged harasser. The defense the union uses can be broadly defined as one of four: deny the event, blame management, blame society, and blame the victim. This study investigates the frequency with which these defenses are used and their relative effectiveness. Deny the event and blame the victim were used in more than 80% of the cases. Their use was not significantly changed over time. There was no significant difference in the arbitrator’s decision based on the defense used by the union. It is suggested that unions consider using the blame management defense because it is equally effective but does not have the same negative effects on the victim as denying the event or blaming the victim.     

Reflections on PATCO’s Legacy: Labor’s Strategic Challenges Persist

The 1981 PATCO strike stands out as a symbol of union decline. The penchant to stigmatize PATCO detracts from important aspects of the union’s unorthodox strategy. Preparations for 1981 negotiations were coordinated by rank-and-file activists who referred to themselves as ‘choir boys’. An extensive mobilization network cultivated by the ‘choir boys’ contributed to cohesiveness and in effect democratized PATCO. The union’s effectiveness in building internal solidarity was its most notable accomplishment. Twenty-first-century labor-movement revitalization will require not only strong, creative leadership but also rank-and-file mobilization in the mold of PATCO’s ‘choir boy’ system. It is this type of grassroots activism that has the potential to promote an internal culture of militant action which can serve as the foundation for union growth.

Arbitrators’ characteristics and decision-making records,gender of arbitrators and grievants,and the presence of legal counsel as predictors of arbitral outcomes

Labor arbitration helps define employee and employer rights and responsibilities. Evidence indicates that the advocates at arbitration tend to concern themselves with issues unrelated to the facts of the case or to the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. More specifically, before the hearing, management and union advocates often dwell on issues such as the importance of the arbitrators’ personal characteristics and their decision-making history, the likely effects of the gender of arbitrators and grievants, and whether the presence of legal counsel impacts the arbitral outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine whether these non-case-related factors actually can be associated with differing awards by arbitrators. This study may be the first in which the arbitrators’ decision-making history (award orientation) is a primary issue. Of all the issues studied, the arbitrator’s disciplinary award orientation is the only one with a consistent impact on arbitral outcomes. We conclude that the energy and resources expended by the advocates concerning non-case-related issues would be better spent in preparing their cases for arbitration and in examining the potential impact of arbitration on the rights and responsibilities of management and its employees.     

Union Mergers: The New Interest and Some Old Questions

When the merged union UNITE HERE was recently torn apart by internal dissent, the labor movement’s attention turned to some longstanding questions about how union mergers are negotiated, why some fail and others succeed, how members are affected by merger, and how the big, diverse unions created by mergers—the super-unions—manage to stay intact. This article addresses these questions, arguing throughout that little is actually known about the union merger process and outcomes. In doing so, it also suggests that some union mergers, such as the one forming UNITE HERE, may not always make sense and that bigger unions created by mergers are not necessarily better unions.     

Convergence or divergence: human resource practices and policies for competitive advantage worldwide

A the overall level of union membership has fallen in a number of advanced industrialized economies from the 1980s, researchers have become increasingly interested in the potential role of management actions in bringing about such reductions in union organization. Management opposition to union organization may take a number of different forms, with union de–recognition being the individual manifestation most frequently discussed and examined in Britain at the present time. The present paper, however, examines another possible manifestation of management opposition to union organization, namely the practice of multi–establishment organizations operating individual establishments on both a union and a non–union basis. This examination involves the analysis of two sets of survey data which contain evidence on the related phenomena of recognition by extension arrangements and non–uniform recognition arrangements. The basic picture which emerges is that recognition by extension arrangements has historically been of some considerable importance in Britain, although their future strength and influence may well decline as the extent of non–uniform recognition arrangements is now quite considerable and quite likely to increase over time.     

Representation at Suncorp – what do the employees want?

It is apparent from existing research that little is known about the effectiveness of non‐union employee representation (NER) voice arrangements in Australian firms. This article examines both the non‐union Suncorp‐Metway Employee Council (SMEC) and union voice arrangements at an Australian financial services firm, Suncorp, and assesses their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees. This study is unique because it is one of the few examples of dual representation channels at a single firm. Overall the findings suggest that the effectiveness of union and NER arrangements is dependent on the union and NER voice channels being perceived by the workforce as both representative and able to act effectively or independently. However, while trade unions may provide greater voice than non‐union arrangements, the strength of voice is dependent on the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade unions in representing employees' interests at the workplace. The findings also suggest that the marginalisation strategy used by the union in excluding SMEC from its industrial campaigns, coupled with employees' perception of a lack of effective union voice, could impact negatively on the influence that unions may have on management decision‐making. This could also be perceived by employees as an inappropriate response by the union to management substitution strategies. As a consequence, any changes to industrial relations policy or trade union strategies regarding NER should be considered in the light of these findings.     

Economic Freedom and Women's Emancipation in the MENA Region

The position of women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is a complex topic, difficult to comprehend without allowing for socio‐cultural norms, legal frameworks and the global gender context. In thinking about a practical framework for action, the free market perspective is relevant and necessary. However, this alone does not seem to provide a complete answer to the problem of promoting women's economic status. This article makes the case for the importance of market‐friendly, but also gender‐sensitive, policies to promote women's economic freedom and hence women's emancipation in the MENA region.     

福柯美学思想中的审美自由观念

审美自由是福柯美学思想的核心观念。福柯从古希腊美学思想的研究中发现,审美自由是人的自我塑造的方式。这种审美自由是感性与理性的统一,与理性主义所谓感性与理性统一的审美自由有根本区别。表现在文学活动中,福柯所谓审美自由意味着文学的开放性,即文学书写就是作家自我呵护心灵的方式。     

Union democracy and the labor-management reporting and disclosure act: An alternative reform proposal

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 gives union members certain democratic rights, including a decision-making role in various matters affecting their organizations’ finances. The informed exercise of these rights requires access to meaningful financial data, and the LMRDA mandates disclosure of such information. Recently, the Department of Labor has revised disclosure requirements in order to promote these union democracy objectives. This article provides an analytical framework for examining the adequacy of existing and future disclosure requirements. The analysis reveals weaknesses in the disclosure formats, and proposes a set of alternative reforms. In addition, the article attempts to facilitate the financial analysis of unions by applying standard accounting measures to a selected set of unions’ finances. In so doing, it shows the potential utility of suggested reforms.     

The Primacy of Space in Politics: Bargaining Rights,Freedom and Power in an İstanbul Neighborhood

This article explores and theorizes the ways in which urban space and political contestations are mapped onto each other. The ethnography illustrates the multifaceted transformations in a notoriously secularist neighborhood of ?stanbul, Te?vikiye, as it first turns into a high‐consumption locality in the post‐1980s, then into a high‐conflict urban space in the new millennium on the arrival of Muslim high‐spenders, particularly headscarved women. Aiming to fill the gap left by the absence of spatial analysis from political science and political sociology, I argue that the urban neighborhood becomes central for political contestation when both government and opposition fail to protect and secure liberties and rights. Now that devout Muslims are integrated into highly contested urban sites and share bourgeois lifestyles, ordinary people act in defense of their ‘sphere’ of freedom and privacy. This new territoriality is largely symptomatic of increasing fears of losing freedom, privacy and social status. This spatial defensiveness is reinforced by people's decreasing trust in, and increasing demands from, the state for the protection and security of their rights and liberties. My overarching argument is that exclusive attention to the bipolar clash between devout Muslims and secularists under the rubric of ‘neighborhood wars’ obscures multipolar conflicts around the discontents stemming from authoritarianism and democratization.     

Global human development: accounting for its regional disparities

This study’s multilevel statistical models quantify the effects of civilization zones and instrumental factors on the capacities for human agency that a country provides its citizens. These capacities are measured by the UN’s human development index, which synthesizes measures of literacy, longevity, and income. Indicators of political democracy, slavery, national debt, corruption, and internal conflict gauge the instrumental factors. Political freedom and emancipative employment coupled with civil order account for the regional differences in human development scores; civilization zones, heavily indebted poor countries, and corruption influence the variability among countries within the regions.     

浅谈大学学术自由的教学理念

本文结合自身在学术和教学过程中的经历从狭义方面谈了一下自己对学术自由的看法,结合实践提出三个观点:学术自由是推动学术发展的动力;学术自由是产生创新的源泉;学术自由是提高教学质量、促进知识吸收的有效途径。     

Does Australia's Unfair Contracts Act Limit Or Enhance Contractual Freedom?

In late 2015 Australia banned ‘unfair’ contract terms between large and small businesses. This article explains the context of the legislation and defends it from a free‐market perspective. It argues that the legislation enhances contractual freedom by codifying the elements that define a commercial contract at common law, and so protects the trust that is embedded in the structure of the contract.     

Social Structural Inquiries,Part 1, Qualitative and Quantitative Theories

A tightened linkage between theory and data would enhance cumulative sociological knowledge. Toward that end this article selectivity reviews and develops social structural theories – theories that explain data. To reestablish that qualitative as well as quantitative theories can be structural, it presents examples that are organized by the qualitative versus quantitative division and the level of analysis – micro, meso, macro, and the world. Boudon’s structural schematics cover all of the examples, suggesting a basic perspective that can refocus much of the diversity of current sociology.