A survey of 44 institutions of higher education with full-time faculty and staff between 800 and 5,500 were surveyed for information about personnel office staffing patterns, workload, benefits program participation, record-keeping, coverage by union contracts, and provision of personnel services. Results are summarized, and institutions are…

Educators embarking on school-based management/participative decision-making report changes in relationships not only between administrators and teachers and between management and unions, but also between teachers and their union. Decentralization means teacher empowerment at the local level, collaborative bargaining, union involvement with…

Finds that, for 147 Florida migrant farm workers interviewed in 1978, support for unionization was related, in descending order, to being Black, to perceiving mechanization as a threat, and to being dependent on farm work, married, a non-citizen, illiterate, and poorly educated. Contains 22 references. (SV)

Linkage between students, the Chinatown community in Boston (Massachusetts), and labor solidarity are examined. The focus is on students as supporters of Chinese immigrant workers displaced by the closing of a large garment factory. Aided by the students and the Chinese Progressive Association, the workers organized themselves and won their…

Union response to unemployment in Britain has been the development of Trade Union Congress Centres for the Unemployed. In partnership with university adult education programs, day schools and residential courses are being offered. Universities' education and research role provides a forum for unemployed activists to contribute to the policy…

Two trade union organizations in New York City have begun a workplace literacy program in response to the needs of adult workers, especially immigrants, for literacy, job skills upgrading, and problem-solving skills. Four case studies tailored to specific needs and workplace settings illustrate the shift in focus from worker literacy to workplace…

The background, content, and implications for the practitioner of the National Labor Relations Board's rule on appropriate bargaining units in the health care industry are discussed. (MSE)

Academics give away their written work without compensation and do not require a voice in determining the conditions under which their scholarship is published and disseminated. Joining forces with a writer's union would help bring equity to the publishing industry, faculty benefit, and fellow writers' benefit. (MSE)

An Ohio superintendent's need to contain administrative costs, replace aging buses, and improve his district's financial health prompted consideration of contracting for student transportation. After 2 years of contracting out, students are safer, a $215,000 savings has been realized, the bus drivers (former district employees) are happier, and…

Presents a framework for dealing with the issue of mandatory student activity fees at state universities. Reviews court decisions and proposes that student groups that engaged in any political activity during the prior academic year be listed and subject to students' checking off those groups that they wished to fund. (172 footnotes) (MLF)

In Australia, an extensive system of competency-based training (CBT) has been established. Business, education, and unions contend that CBT is more equitable in matching training with task needs, broadening the range of abilities, and enabling portability. But little evidence shows that it reduces divisions between vocational education and general…

Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, is the site of conflict between the teacher union and the school board. The board has hired Alternative Public Schools, Inc. to manage Turner Elementary School and has given the company permission to hire a new staff at Turner. State legislation may kill the union's court case. (MLF)

Recent study of emergent collaborative bargaining processes in several urban school districts charts typical bumpy progression from wrangling to genuine cooperative problem solving among teachers, administrators, and unions. Rules of power game change when one party makes first move toward open communication and trust building, when teachers and…

A pooled, cross-sectional, time-series analysis of state manufacturing growth rates for 1970-85 indicates that manufacturing growth was influenced by workforce quality, population density, and elements of states' political economies, including state fiscal capacity, organizational capacity of labor, social wage policies, and state…

Health care workers in New York City hospitals shaped their workplace basic education program in a number of ways: the union helped design the program; participants served on advisory committees and as student delegates; they evaluated the program; and students developed individualized education plans that were used to set the learning agenda.…