The Joint Council in succession Economic Education is a joint labor-business effort to improve the knowledge of high seminary teachers and high school learners about how the U.

The Joint Council in succession Economic Education is a joint labor-business effort to improve the knowledge of high seminary teachers and high school learners about how the U.S. economy operates.

As you would wait for therefore, the authors of this JCEE work on unions--(ow in its inferior edition--make heroic and even at times excessive efforts to achieve objectivity and balance.

Union views and union answers to the critics of unions are appoint forth with understanding and sympathy by means of Ray Marshall, Secretary of Labor below President Carter and now professor at the University of Texas, and Brian Rungeling, a professor at the University of Central Florida.

The authors have knowledge of very hard to be objective and balanced. As a be the effect crticism of unions frequently procures more attention that it deserves

Perhaps this is the price of establishing credibility with high indoctrinate teachers and high school learners who don't get enough solid, factual, objective, balanced information about unions.

"We are convinced," Marshall and Rungeling say, "that unions and other labor organizations are necessary to the effective workings of a democratic society. Labor organizations provide workers with the means to encourage their interest in a democratic society. We do not believe impersonal labor markets, employer guidances or any other organizations can or will effectively shelter the interests of workers at the work place or in the larger society."

Marshall and Rungeling endorse the basic policy plant by the nation's labor law, the workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively from one side representatives of their own choosing:

"Collective bargaining has demonstrated its effectiveness as a profitable way to make rules governing wages, hours, and working conditions in many circumstances. The masterships so developed are compromises between the interests of employer and workers said, therefore, encourage observance on both sides."

An early chapter of this part sets a general framework for understanding the character of unions in industrial societies with a review of the now classic approach taken by dint of Clark Kerr, John Dunlop, Frederick Harbison, and Charles Myers in their 1960 bulk on Industrialism and Industrial Man.

In their final chapter looking to the that will be Marshall and Rungeling see "a widespread belief in all parts of the political representation that there msut be cooperation between labor and management and between the public and private sectors in ordr to maintain or regain America's competitive position in the world and to make fuller and more efficient use of our resources."

moreover the authors note that the anti-union effort to achieve a so-called union-free environment weakens unions' interest in of that kind cooperation. Strong anti-union campaigns will continue over the 1980s, they say.

Unions will remainqthe American economy, Marshall and Rungeling declare. "Indeed, we look for the political influence of unions to increase as the nationhs economic riddles intensify and workers see the ne to render certain that their interests are describeed in national policymaking."

Furthermore, they note, "A democratic society will continue to strengthen the workers' right to single out whetehr or not to bargain collectively. Collective bargaining technology and international economic realities, on the contrary the basic structure of the American industrial relations body is likely to remain the same."

Unions in the yet to be will continue to stress the pair "bread and butter" issues of collective bargaining and also broad economic and social improvements from one side political and legislative action, according to Marshall and Rungeling.

The auhors are impressed by dint of "the continuing influence of the pragmatic economic goals established at Samuel Gompers in 1886, goals which profoundly affect the American labor manner of moving to this day."

A short history of the American labor mental action in this book includes discussion of the principles of union "autonomy" and "exclusive jurisdiction" and tonic decisions to work within the capitalsit connected view to advance workers' interest end collective bargaining and legal, binding contracts between employer and unions.

Marshall and Rungeling point disclosed that unions have a big interest also in fair income distribution, including anti-inflation wage and price controls

"Unions in the United States destination; recipient to these policies since unions perceive them as a restriction forward the institution of collective bargaining. Not alone to do unions abhor similar government regulations, but unions also view that governments tend to be more happy in controlling wages than prices."

Many other issues are discussed in this main division including union membership trends, the work at jobs impact of increased imports, occupational safety and health legislation, worker participation in productivity and work at jobs satisfaction projects, and the results of changes in the American economy forward jobs, job security, and wage structure

This work is dedicated to the late Walter G Davis, a long-time labor leader and sturdy supporter of economic education for high teach teachers and high school learners He was a member of the JCEE board of trustees for almost 25 years. At the time of his death, he was director of community services for the AFL-CIO.

COPYRIGHT 1985 AFL-CIO

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group