Penn State Anthropologist Takes Lead on Policy Brief
University Park, Pa. -- Paul Durrenberger, professor of anthropology at Penn State, was a primary contributor to the first American Anthropological Association Policy Brief on the right of employees to organize unions.
Durrenberger, a cultural anthropologist who has lived and worked in communities from Thailand to Iceland, has focused his recent work on the United States and the role of unions in the American workforce. The AAA Policy Brief focuses on the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to sign a card to indicate their support for a union to represent them instead of vote in a secret ballot election, a system that is rife with employer coercion. The brief is the first of a series of informational resources intended for the public policy community that will approach problems from an anthropological perspective and bring contemporary ethnographic research to policy discussions. Ethnography is the up-close study of how people live, work and make decisions in everyday life. The briefs are a product of the AAA Committee on Public Policy.
The brief lists key research findings on the problems of unionization, including management's efforts to sway supervisors and coach them in persuading workers to oppose unions and anti-union publications and misrepresent unions' goals and aims. The anthropological research that supports the brief finds that these practices hurt minorities, women and immigrants disproportionately.
The research shows that "such tactics ... aim to isolate people who favor the union, sow ethnic conflict, target pro-union employees ... and harass and humiliate workers in front of others." This ethnographic research also showed that there are often unexpected and unreported extreme and coercive behaviors by consultants for management.
These tactics leave workers unable to express a desire for unionization; managerial lawbreaking continues because penalties are insufficient to prevent them.
The full brief is available at http://www.aaanet.org/gvt/whtsnew.htm online.
This press release courtesy of Penn State's Department of Public Information
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