Recent publications by faculty, students, and alumni.
Lynn S. Chancer published a book chapter titled “Elite Ethnography: Studying Up Or Down in US or French Sociology” in Beyond the Case: The Logics and Practices of Comparative Ethnography, Corey M. Abramson and Neil Gong, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Joseph Van Der Naald published an article with William Herbert
Herbert William A. and Joseph Van Der Naald. 2020. “A Different Set of Rules? NLRB Proposed Rule Making and Student Worker Unionization Rights.” Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy. 11 (1).
This article presents data, precedent, and empirical evidence relevant to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposal to issue a new rule to exclude graduate assistants and other student employees from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The analysis in three parts. First, the authors show through an analysis of information from other federal agencies that the adoption of the proposed NLRB rule would exclude over 81,000 graduate assistants on private campuses from the right to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Second, the article presents a legal history from the past half-century about unionization of student employees at private and public sector institutions of higher education, including the NLRB’s oscillation on the question of whether student employees are protected under the NLRA. The inconsistencies of the NLRB is in stark contrast to state and Canadian provincial precedent during the same period.. Lastly, the authors analyze the terms of 42 current collective bargaining agreements covering student workers, including 10 at the private sector institutions. The empirical evidence from five decades of relevant collective bargaining history, precedent, and contracts demonstrates consistent economic relationships between student employees and their institutions.
Cody R. Melcher published an article titled “ The Political Economy of ‘White Identity Politics: Economic Self-Interest and Perceptions of Immigration” in Ethnic and Racial Studies (February 25, 2020)
This article challenges the prevailing contention that economic self-interest does not affect public attitudes toward immigration. Through an in-depth re-analysis of the data and findings of Ashley Jardina’s White Identity Politics (2019), it is argued, first, that a number of variables that are characterized as status-based or sociotropic can plausibly be interpreted as measuring economic self-interest. Second, and more importantly, it is argued that the variables that are often used to measure economic self-interest do not follow from the theoretical claims that are meant to inform their interpretation. Third, it is shown that limiting one’s analysis to white respondents – a trend which has become typical, especially since the 2016 US presidential election – severely limits one’s capacity to make convincing explanatory claims. I conclude by arguing that a more appropriate measure of economic self-interest is a measure of perceived job (in)security and a more nuanced measure of employment status.
Cody also published
Melcher, Cody R. 2019. “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: WEB Du Bois, Left-Wing Radicalism, and the Problem of Interracial Unionism.” Critical Sociology
Melcher, Cody R. & Michael Goldfield. 2019. “The Failure of Labor Unionism in the US South.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History
Melcher, Cody R. & Michael Goldfield. 2019. “The Myth of Section 7(a): Worker Militancy, Progressive Labor Legislation, and the Coal Miners.” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 14.4: 49-66.
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