Labor Studies Works

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Women in trades: Barriers and challenges
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Walker, Marquita
This research addresses the implicit bias women seeking to enter and remain in the male-dominated building trades experience as a result of their gender. Implicit bias within masculine dominated workplaces has a deleterious effect on the hiring and retention of women in trades, so it is important for policy makers, employers, stockholders, and union officials to address these deficiencies through a strategy for decreasing masculine dominance in the workplace. As skill shortages and a weakened labor supply loom for the construction industry, it is important to seriously consider why women’s participation in the construction industry remains below legal and necessary limits. Hiring and retaining more women in the building trades would fill the predicted future construction vacancies. Situated in political economy theory, this study surveyed 29 women in union-sponsored apprenticeship programs. Analysis of data collected from survey instruments and personal interviews reveal gatekeeping barriers and covert discriminatory practices to women seeking to enter the building trades. Recommendations for addressing these barriers include enforcing government policies which mandate more women in the trades, changing the masculine culture of union/employer construction workplaces through the promotion of mentoring components in apprenticeship programs which provide to women one-on-one support, and making concerted efforts within the firm toward implementation of more gender neutral, family-friendly, and work-life balance policies.
E-learning is learning, too
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Walker, Marquita
Abstract: Grounded in constructivist/cognitive learning theory, this paper explores the assessment of student learning in one learning module in one Labor Studies class in one Midwestern university using alternative assessment which integrates teaching and learning activities with assessment through writing activities, the prominent means of communication in an online environment. The purpose of this study, grounded in the most positive and powerful aspects of cognitive learning theory, social learning theory, and adult learning theory, is to assess student learning at the higher order thinking of the cognitive domain based on a pedagogy of learning-teaching-assessment (Speck, 2002). The study’s population is 29 students in one online class L100, Survey of Unions and Collective Bargaining in one large Midwestern university and focuses on one learning module, Federal Labor Law and Agencies. Speck (2002) suggests alternative assessment, which measures student abilities to use higher level thinking skills such as synthesis, analysis, and evaluation and includes team activities, peer evaluation, self-evaluations, and portfolios, provides instructors a more accurate measure of student learning. By providing students with alternative learning activities based on different learning styles and relating to subject content, the student shifts from passive to active engagement with the content, shifts from focusing on information to communication, and shifts from being an individual learner to a learner in a socially situated learning environment (Conole, 2010). The findings from this study suggest that students prefer a written lecture format or some combination of written, video, and interactive lecture format over a video or interactive format. These findings may reflect that students’ time on task is shorter when engaging with the written format versus a video or interactive format.
Experiences of Dislocated Workers, Trade Adjustment Assistance, and Advanced Manufacturing
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Walker, Marquita
This paper explores the lived experiences of one group of dislocated workers in a hybrid advanced manufacturing training course in one large Midwestern city who became dislocated through the downsizing of a large manufacturing facility and who took advantage of Trade Adjustment Assistance. The research questions relate to these workers perceptions about the ease/difficulty of accessing the program, barriers to implementation of the program, and the effectiveness of the program in their own lives. Current adjustment policies for dislocated workers lend themselves to recreating and widening the wage inequality in the United States. By promoting policies that encourage rapid reintegration into the workforce and discouraging the education, training, and self-employment of dislocated workers, dislocated workers are forced into lower paying jobs in the service sector, which typically pay lower wages. Consequences of these policies are not only decreased standards of living for these workers, who are typically eligible for government transfer payments, but emotional, social, and mental and physical health problems as well. Serious consideration for policy changes should be deemed of utmost importance.
Latin American Workers and the Struggle for Social Justice
(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2011-04-08) Mello, William J.; Quiero -Tajalli, Irene
Working class movements for social justice, such as Argentina’s Piqueteiro movement and Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement (MST) have become permanent aspects of Latin American society. One of the most significant aspects of the struggle against neo-liberal globalization in Latin America was the upsurge of social movements, contesting market driven sociopolitical transformations imposed during the early 1990s. These movements joined labor, community and grassroots political organizations that were the mainstay behind the recent victories of progressive governments, popularly known as Latin Americas “pink revolution.” In this sense the process of political and social transformation has taken activists to adopt a model of contestation (mobilization) and political mediation (institutional negotiations) which moves unevenly through the structures of power and affects long term movement objectives. The constraints of market interests stand in permanent conflict with the movements long term sociopolitical objectives placing a new set of questions for anti-globalization social movements which will not easily be resolved and will shape their future objectives and strategies in years to come. The poster presentation, based on findings from quantitative research, will encapsulate the main socio-political factors leading to the gradual formation of these two movements, their struggles against the mechanisms of national and international oppression; organizing strategies, empowering projects of mutual support, and the role of the university. The presentation will incorporate researchers’ preliminary questions leading to their research projects, including ”Why do the oppressed have to resort to civil disobedience to get their rights?” the theoretical underpinnings of the projects, the research design, and findings. This presentation is timely given the current struggle of the working class in this country, particularly in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Hospitality in Jeopardy: Organizing Diverse Low-Wage Service Workers
(Sage, 2016) Walker, Marquita; Department of Labor Studies, School of Social Work
This article explores United Needle Trades and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE)’s strategic campaign to organize a diverse low-wage workforce of housekeepers in the hospitality industry in one Midwest city in Indiana. Organizers’ personal narratives provide examples of the challenges involved when creating relationships between low-wage workers from different racial and cultural backgrounds as part of a strategy to rebuff management’s continual efforts to exploit and undervalue its workforce, increase profits for the firm, and discredit the union as an effective intermediary for representation. The findings suggest UNITE-HERE’s organizing attempts realized gains for housekeepers in the form of wage and benefit increases and dismantled a covert blacklisting policy even though the hotel remains non-unionized.
Parallel narratives: resistance strategies of low-wage female hospitality workers and nineteenth-century black enslaved females
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Walker, Marquita; Department of Labor Studies, School of Social Work
This research explores control and gendered resistance strategies of female low-level hospitality workers and nineteenth-century black enslaved females by linking resistance patterns in historically documented slave narratives with oral narratives of current female hospitality workers. Emerging narratives document parallel stories of oppression, abuse, devaluation, and exploitation and focus awareness on the subordinate position of low-level workers in an oppressor/oppressed relationship. Functioning under two different economic systems, slavery and capitalism, these low-level workers’ narratives allow similar patterns of resistance to surface and help us expand our understanding of worker exploitation, female resistance, and narrative as possessing liberatory potential.
The Effects of Caregiving Resources on Perceived Health among Caregivers
(Oxford University Press, 2016-08) Hong, Michin; Harrington, Donna; Labor Studies, School of Social Work
This study examined how various types of resources influence perceived health of caregivers. Guided by the conservation of resources theory, a caregiver health model was built and tested using structural equation modeling. The caregiver health model consisted of caregiving situations (functional limitations and cognitive impairments of older adults and caregiving time), resources (financial resources, mastery, social support, family harmony, and service utilization), caregiver burden, and perceived health of caregivers. The sample included 1,837 unpaid informal caregivers drawn from the 2004 National Long-Term Caregiver Survey. The model fit indices indicated that the first structural model did not fit well; however, the revised model yielded an excellent model fit. More stressful caregiving situations were associated with fewer resources and higher burden, whereas greater resources were associated with lower burden and better perceived health of caregivers. The results suggest explicit implications for social work research and practice on how to protect the health of caregivers.
Workforce development through technologically enhanced-learning experiences (TELES)
(International Advances in Education: Global Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice., 2015) Walker, Marquita
Local and global economies face serious economic and social costs in lost productivity as a result of the mismatch between workers’ skills, employers’ needs, and cost effective training programs for workforce development. Direct investments in workforce development and training have declined while the need for skilled labor has increased (Holzer, 2008). The need for a skilled workforce requiring increased technical and people skills places groups of individuals disadvantaged because of ethnicity, race, gender, decreased education or poor basic skills at a double disadvantage because they now face the challenge of competing for jobs in a global labor market requiring some significant postsecondary education and training. This inability to function well in the labor market contributes to low employment and earnings thus placing these disadvantaged groups in distressed situations as family providers. Increased investments in workforce development and training will contribute to the reduction of unemployed workers. Technological Enhanced Learning Experiences (TELEs) provide a flexible learning solutions tool to address this disparity. TELEs are online training modules providing initial and long-term support for workers to upgrade their occupational and interpersonal skills to regain lost earnings, reintegrate into the workforce, and increase the supply of skilled workers employers need to remain competitive.
Training for my life: Lived experiences of dislocated workers in an advanced manufacturing training program
(Advances in Social Work Journal, 2013) Walker, Marquita
This qualitative paper explores the lived experiences of one group of workers dislocated because of globalized trade policies who completed a hybrid Advanced Manufacturing Training Program (AMTP) by taking advantage of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a federally-funded program for retraining workers dislocated because of trade policies. The research questions focus on how satisfied these workers are with the services and programs provided by TAA. Focus groups and survey instrument results indicate these workers found TAA services and processes cumbersome and time-consuming and actually had the effect of discouraging their education, training, and self-employment. The consequences of their dislocation as it relates to TAA experiences are increased frustration and dissatisfaction with the TAA program. Serious consideration for TAA policy changes should be deemed of utmost importance.
Evaluating the intervention of an ethic's class in students' ethical decision-making: A summative review.
(Canadian Center of Science and Education, 2013) Walker, Marquita
This summative evaluation is the result of two years’ of data reflecting the impact of an ethics class in terms of students’ ethical decision-making. The research compares aggregate responses from scenario-based pre- and post-survey open-ended survey questions designed to measure changes in ethical decision-making by comparing students’ cognitive and affective perceptions about ethical workplace behavior. Grounded in constructivist theory, which explains how individuals “know” and “come to know something (Reeves, 2003), this intervention of an ethics class encourages students to make better and more informed ethical decisions in the workplace based on their understanding of their value and belief system. The findings suggest the intervention of an ethics class informed students’ cognitive and affective perceptions based on individual value and belief systems, strengthened student’s ability to remain open-minded and reconsider previous beliefs and actions from a 360 degree perspective, and increased student’s ability to apply new information to ethical dilemmas in the workplace.

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