The nature of public space in contemporary society is changing. This paper uses the turmoil over People's Park in Berkeley, California, as a means for exploring changing ideas about and practices in public space. I argue that as public space is increasingly privatized or otherwise brought under greater control, possibilities for democratic action are minimized. To make this claim, I provide a brief outline of the roots of the August 1991 riots at People's Park. I then examine the role that public space plays in modern democracies, and how ideas about public space have developed dialectically with definitions of who counts as “the public.” In American democracy, “the public” is constituted by private individuals. In this paper, I suggest that the presence of homeless people in public spaces raises important contradictions at the heart of this definition of “the public.” Many commentators suggest that these contradictions have led to “the end of public space” in contemporary cities, or at the very ...

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The End of Public Space?People's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy

This research analyzes the disbanding rates of the full population of American national labor unions for the period 1836-1985. It tests the hypothesis, drawn from population-ecology theory, that di...

The Ecology of Organizational Mortality: American Labor Unions, 1836-1985

Sexual harassment has been a fixture of the workplace since women first began to work outside the home. Although true epidemiological studies do not exist, large-scale surveys of working women suggest that approximately 1 of every 2 women will be harassed at some point during their academic or working lives. The data indicate that harassment is degrading, frightening, and sometimes physically violent; frequently extends over a considerable period of time; and can result in profound job-related, psychological; and health-related consequences. This article provides a brief review of the prevalence and consequences of sexual harassment and outlines social policy implications for research, legislation, and primary prevention.

Sexual harassment: Violence against women in the workplace.

Did strikes effect the extent of ethnic and racial conflicts in late 19th-and early 20th-century America? If so, How? Data on the occurrence of conflicts and of violence against various ethnic or racial groups in the 81 largest cities, 1880-1914, show that the growth of the union movement and the rising supply of low-wage labor increased levels of ethnic competition in urban labor markets, thus raising rates of ethnic comflict. The findings support the argument that ethnic conflict and labor unrest are parallel forms of collective action and that each depends on the number and foundings of national labor unions. The effect of labor union organization is strongest for all attacks on blacks. In addition, sharp increases in immigration, a downturn in economic fortunes, and contagion processes all raise rates of ethnic conflict.

Labor Unrest, Immigration, and Ethnic Conflict in Urban America, 1880-1914

From the late 1930s through the mid-1950s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) brought together America's working men and women under a united class banner. Of the 38 CIO unions, 18 were 'left-wing' or 'Communist-dominated'. Yet the political struggle between the CIO's 'Communist dominated' and right-leaning unions was immensely divisive and self-destructive. How did the Communists win, hold, and wield power in the CIO unions? Did they subordinate the needs of workers to those of the Soviet regime? The authors of this book, first published in 2002, provide testable answers to these questions with historically specific quantitative analyses of data on the CIO's origins, internal struggles, and political relations. They find that among the CIO unions, the Communists were more egalitarian, the most progressive on class, race, and gender issues, and leading fighters in struggles to enlarge the freedom and enhance the human dignity of America's workers.

Jack Barbash

Papers

History of the Labor Movement in the United States

The practice of unionism

American Labor from Defense to Reconversion.

Labor unions in action

Collective bargaining, contemporary American experience