The Sephardic Labor Organization and the Status of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Yishuv

The article discusses the Sephardic Labor Organization in Palestine which was active from 1940 through 1946 as the roof organization of the Sephardic Labor Organization in Tel Aviv and the Organization of Sephardi and Oriental Workers in Jerusalem. The aim of the Sephardic Labor Organization in Palestine as a whole and in particular, of the Sephardic Labor Organization in Tel Aviv was to improve the economic conditions of Sephardi and Mizrahi workers and to enhance their social and political status in the Yishuv. These activities reflect the status of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews as a hybrid group on the socioeconomic border between the Jews and Arabs of Mandatory Palestine. The article explores the processes which led to the establishment of Sephardi labor organizations, and which manifest the connection between patterns of employment and standard of living, and between ethnic identity and social status.

The American Labor Movement and the Establishment of Israel

A remarkably large number of nonstate actors played important and often unheralded roles in the creation of the state of Israel. The American labor movement was one such actor, assisting the Jewish community in Palestine to develop a political and social infrastructure in the “Yishuv” years before statehood, and then continuing to do so afterward. This movement, consisting of various labor federations, unions, and fraternal orders, aided the Zionist cause through a unique combination of financial and political resources. American labor organizations, especially those in the Jewish labor movement, helped lay the groundwork for the formation of a Jewish state by nurturing a labor movement in Palestine and influencing the US policymaking apparatus. They aided this process through land purchases for Jewish worker cooperatives in Palestine, the construction of trade schools and cultural centers there, and massive economic aid to the Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine. American labor organizations also lobbied congressional allies, the White House, and local officials to generate policies assisting the Yishuv. They even pressured the British government during its mandate over Palestine and lobbied United Nations (UN) member states to vote for the partition of Palestine in 1947 and Israel’s recognition in 1948. Jewish labor leadership within the American garment industry played the key role in mobilizing the larger labor movement to support a Jewish state. Initially, however, most Jewish labor leaders did not support this effort because many descended from the “Bund” or General Jewish Workers’ Union of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, a Jewish socialist party founded in 1897. Like any other nationalist movement, Bundists viewed Zionism as a diversion of the labor movement’s fight against capitalism. Instead, Bundists emphasized Jewish culture as a vehicle to spread socialism to the Jewish masses. Yet, in time, two practical concerns developed that would move Bundists to embrace assistance to the Yishuv and, ultimately, to the state of Israel. First, finding Jewish refugees a haven from persecution and, second, a commitment to assisting a burgeoning trade union movement in Palestine.

Movement-oriented labor organizations in an authoritarian regime: The case of China

How do labor organizations with a movement orientation arise in an authoritarian regime? How do they organize workers collectively in a repressive society? What movement roles do they play? What challenges do they face? To answer these questions, I use synthesized social movement theories to examine movement-oriented labor non-governmental organizations in China. Based on qualitative data collected through triangulated sources, I find that movement-oriented labor non-governmental organizations use political opportunities to promote one type of modular collective labor action, which consists of three tactics, namely the election of worker representatives, collective negotiation, and protest. They guide workers to build mobilizing and connective structures, formulate collective action frames, and amass movement resources. However, the movement roles of this type of labor non-governmental organization have weakened, owing to diminishing political opportunities caused by changes in government administration. This research contributes to our understanding of social movement theories, labor organizations in China, labor non-governmental organizations and worker centers generally, and state–society relations in non-democracies.

ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SCIENTIFIC AND DIGITAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS

The article presents the results of research on such problems of Economics and Management as scientific and digital labor organizations. The paper describes the need to create artificial intelligence, the stages of the scientific component of labor organization, and the features of the joint use of natural and artificial intelligence in the work and management of human resources, both at the level of public administration and in organizations. The authors pay special attention to the issue of human capital development, as one of the three strategically important areas implemented by the Government of the Russian Federation within the framework of national projects, as well as give a comparative analysis of the indicators of the human capital development index in various countries of the world.

The Anatomy of Impatience: Exploring Factors behind 2020 Labor Unrest in Belarus

The wave of labor unrest that accompanied Belarusian post-election protests had no precedents in the country's independent history or recent post-Soviet political protest mobilizations. These protests challenge the prevalent trend in the current literature on the post-Soviet working class to stress its weakness in terms of organization, as well as structural and material resources. This article relies on a database of workplace-related protest events (August 10–September 30) and a selection of statements, interviews, and social media discussions among participants of the protests, in order to explain this unexpected activation of the seemingly passive Belarusian working class. The author hypothesizes that it was the vagueness of the Belarusian opposition's ideology and workers’ participation in the broader protest movement that helped them overcome the challenges of suppressed voice, bureaucratic despotism, and atomization. These mobilizing factors, however, limit the further development of autonomous labor organizations and their democratizing impact.

Adjustment Policies, Union Structures, and Strategies of Mobilization: Teacher Politics in Mexico and Argentina

This article analyzes the evolving mobilizational strategies of robust unions in contemporary Latin America. The origins of these strategies are rooted in the neoliberal adjustment policies in the early 1990s that compensated and reshaped power relations in labor organizations. With union compensation, a dominant faction concentrated power and embraced instrumentalism; the union exchanged electoral support with various parties for particularistic benefits. When adjustment policies were adopted without compensation, power was dispersed in an archipelago of activists. Unions then relied on movementism, which centered on contentious demand making and resistance to partisan alliances. Comparing teachers in Mexico and Argentina, this article contributes to broader debates about the effects of democracy on contentious politics and the changing partisan identities of workers.

Working-Class Women, Gender, and Union Politics in Turkey, 1965–1980

This paper focuses on the ideology and discourses of Tekstil İṣçileri Sendikası (the Textile Workers’ Union, Tekstil) in Turkey to highlight some of the specific visions of the organized labor for an emancipatory gender politics during the 1970s. This history of intersection between gender and working-class organizing has been overlooked by the Left scholarship on the one hand and liberal feminist scholarship on the other. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by highlighting gender and class concurrently throughout the history of the transformation of gender politics in labor organizations. The history of the simultaneous development of gender-related policies in Tekstil/DİSK and TEKSİF/Türk-İṣ reveals an unexplored aspect of the contentious dynamic between rival labor organizations. Between 1975–1980, the politics of gender became another pillar in trade union competition. Following the transnational influences in this transformation, this paper highlights a forgotten period of labor organizing and locates it within the history of labor and women's movements at the national and global scale.

A termination of employment by being dismissed by an employer

A termination of employment by being dismissed by an employer is the most delicate form of an employment termination. As such, in the modern Labor Law, is mostly regulated by a state regulation. The legislator is in obligation, during regulating of this institute, to adjust regulations related to termination of employment with the ratified international contracts, and certain directives during making the law are present in acts that do not fall under the process of ratification. Thus, in the paper, the review of the most important acts in the international and regional level is presented, and they regulate termination of employment by an employer's initiative, starting from the acts of the international labor organizations to the acts of the Council of Europe and Communitarian Law. In Positive Law of Serbia, the analyze of justified dismissal reasons in a contract by an employer has been made.

Undermined

This chapter looks at the capitalist endeavors rural workers and farmers pursued in the Gilded Age. Although they condemned their employers for cutting costs to increase their profit, rural workers often pursued capitalist gain in ways similar to their bosses. Farmer and laborers' decisions to work extra jobs, purchase stock shares, or jointly own small companies often caused rural workers to see themselves as businessmen or capitalists. As with corporations, profit motive quickly undermined collective agendas, sometimes even with cooperatives run by labor organizations. Workers took shortcuts, accepted less pay, undercut their coworkers, and broke neighbors’ strikes all because these actions increased their personal incomes. Ultimately, this need to earn greater profit shaped worker relationships with labor unions. In some cases, workers worked lower than union wages. In other instances, union leaders, concerned about the sustainability of their organizations, ordered workers to accept wage reductions rather than strike. This stance frequently angered laborers who cared more about securing their immediate incomes than reaching their union’s long-term goals.