The Missouri Legislature on Thursday sent a "right-to-work" proposal to Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican who campaigned on a promise to sign it. Professor Jake Rosenfeld comments that right to work doesn’t seem to have much of an impact one way or another, both in improving the state’s business climate or in terms of devastating the health of organized labor.
Professor Jake Rosenfeld argues that unions at their prime helped create a “moral economy” in which wages rose both in firms with unions and those without them, and in which the average worker had a notable voice—however compromised back then by nativism and other exclusionary tendencies—lobbying on their behalf in Washington
In 2013, Germany declared that every child over the age of 1 has the legal right to a space in a public daycare facility. This past fall, while America’s election unfolded, Germany’s highest court took this mandate one step further: It ruled that parents may sue for lost wages if they can’t find a place for their child in a public daycare center.
Although U.S. employers cannot legally prohibit employees from discussing their pay, many employers implement a formal or informal policy against employees discussing their salaries. Such policies help employers maintain complete control over wages, thus preventing employee demands for higher pay and wage equality, according to a 2015 study by Jake Rosenfeld and Patrick Denice, two of the few sociologists to study pay secrecy.
In the past few weeks, black-owned banks have gotten a huge boost from a movement called #bankblack, with thousands of new accounts opened and assets that have grown by as much as $6 million. Professor John Robinson says that the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act had a major impact on black-owned banks, funneling much of their previous business toward larger, whiter banks.
Greater stress and anxiety resulting from economic insecurity may be at least partly to blame for the U.S. death rate that the government announced Dec. 8 has increased for the first time in a decade, says an expert on poverty and inequality at Washington University in St. Louis.
Missouri will become a right-to-work state. The chief question is how soon the General Assembly will put a version of the anti-union measure on the desk of soon-to-be Gov. Eric Greitens. Professor Jake Rosenfeld who has studied the effect of right-to-work laws for more than a decade said that its restrictions don’t have to be devastating for unions, if they adapt.
In new research, which surveyed more than 1,350 native-born, non-Hispanic White Americans, Ariela Schachter finds that compared to US-born and naturalized citizens, and legal immigrants, Americans are far less likely to wish to have undocumented immigrants as neighbors.
Professor David Cunningham says that when you have economic decline alongside a broad and dynamic civil rights movement, it becomes very easy for people to think their economic disenfranchisement comes at the hands of minorities. As the KKK has been marginalized and other extremist groups have co-opted its original rhetoric, it has turned into something of a relic.
Professor Adia Harvey Wingfield distinguishes between the awareness that the world may be a more dangerous place and a simple emotional response to a surprise result. The uptick in hate crimes and threats against ethnic and religious minorities, as well as immigrant and LGBT communities following Trump’s victory, suggest that there is an increased risk for these individuals today
The election of Donald Trump has shocked many. But for Adia Harvey Wingfield, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences, the candidate’s rhetoric was all too familiar and revealed the stubborn persistence of ugly racial and gender stereotypes.
Professor Steven Fazzari's Trump economic analyze: get symptoms right, but diagnosis wrong: Donald Trump’s economics gets a couple of things right ... and that’s why you should vote for Hillary Clinton.