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Strike Action

Strike action

Strike action (or simply a strike) is the mass refusal by employees to perform work. If an agreement could not be reached, workers could strike, or refuse to work until certain demands were met. Strikes first became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became important in factories and mines. In most countries they were quickly made illegal as factory owners had far more political power than the workers. Most western countries legalized striking partially in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Strikes have also been used to force governments to change policies or even to bring down a government. A notable example is the Gdańsk shipyard strike led by Lech Wałęsa. This strike was significant in the struggle for political change in Poland, and was an important milestone along the way to the fall of Communist Party rule in Eastern Europe. The strike tactic has a very long history. Towards the end of the 20th dynasty, under Pharaoh Ramses III in Egypt, i.e. about 3,500 years ago, the workers of the royal necropolis organized the first known strike or workers' uprising in history. The event was reported in detail on a papyrus at the time, which has been preserved, and is currently located in Turin (source: François Daumas, Ägyptische Kultur im Zeitalter der Pharaonen. Munich: Knaur Verlag, 1969, p. 309).

Categories of strikes

Most strikes involve actions by labor unions during collective bargaining with an employer. Generally, such actions are rare: 98% of union contracts are settled without a strike. Occasionally, workers decide to strike without the sanction of a labor union, either because the union refuses to endorse such a tactic, or because the workers concerned are not unionized. Such strikes are often described as unofficial. Strikes without formal union authorization are also known as wildcat strikes. In many countries, wildcat strikes do not enjoy the same legal protections as standard union strikes, and may result in penalties for the union members who participate or their union. The same often applies in the case of strikes conducted without an official ballot of the union membership, as is required in some countries, such as the United Kingdom. A strike may consist of workers refusing to attend work or picketing outside the workplace so as to prevent or dissuade other people from working in their place or conducting business with their employer. Less frequently workers may occupy the workplace, but refuse either to do their jobs or to leave. This is known as a sit-down strike. Another unconventional tactic is work-to-rule, in which workers perform their tasks exactly as they are required to but no better. For example, workers might follow all safety regulations in such a way that it impedes their productivity or they might refuse to work any overtime. Such strikes may in some cases be a form of "partial strike" or "slowdown", which is "unprotected" in some circumstances under United States labor law, meaning that while the tactic itself is not unlawful, the employer may fire the employees who engage in it. During the development boom of the 1970s in Australia the Green ban was developed by certain socially more conscious unions. This is a form of strike action taken by a trade union or other organised labour group for environmentalist or conservationist purposes. This developed from the black ban, strike action taken against a particular job or employer in order to protect the economic interests of the strikers. United States labor law also draws a distinction, in the case of private sector employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act, between "economic" and "unfair labor practice" strikes. An employer may not fire, but may permanently replace, workers who engage in a strike over economic issues. On the other hand, employers charged with committing unfair labor practices (ULPs) may not replace employees who strike over ULPs, and must fire any strikebreakers they have hired as replacements in order to reinstate the striking workers. Strikes may be specific to a particular workplace, employer, or unit within a workplace, or they may encompass an entire industry, or every worker within a city or country. Strikes that involve all workers, or a number of large and important groups of workers, in a particular community or region are known as general strikes. Under some circumstances, strikes may take place in order to put pressure on the State or other authorities or may be a response to unsafe conditions in the workplace. A sympathy strike is, in a way, a small scale version of a general strike in which one group of workers refuses to cross a picket line established by another as a means of supporting the striking workers. Sympathy strikes, once the norm in the construction industry in the United States, have been made much more difficult to conduct due to decisions of the National Labor Relations Board permitting employers to establish separate or "reserved" gates for particular trades, making it an unlawful secondary boycott for a union to establish a picket line at any gate other than the one reserved for the employer it is picketing. Sympathy strikes may be undertaken by a union as an organization or by individual union members choosing not to cross a picketline. A jurisdictional strike in United States labor law refers to a concerted refusal to work undertaken by a union to assert its members’ right to particular job assignments and to protest the assignment of disputed work to members of another union or to unorganized workers. Employers of labor can also go on strike; either through a lock-out of workers (blocking workers from working normally, resulting in loss of wages) or through an investment strike (refusing to commit funds to maintaining or expanding production).

Legal prohibitions on strikes

The Railway Labor Act bars strikes by United States airline and railroad employees except in narrowly defined circumstances. The National Labor Relations Act generally permits strikes, but provides for a mechanism to enjoin strikes in industries in which a strike would create a national emergency. The federal government most recently invoked these statutory provisions to obtain an injunction against a slowdown by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 2002. Some jurisdictions prohibit all strikes by public employees. Other jurisdictions limit strikes only by certain categories of workers, particularly those regarded as critical to society: police, firefighters, and air traffic controllers are among the groups commonly barred from striking in these jurisdictions. Workers have sometimes circumvented these restrictions by falsely claiming inability to work due to illness — this is sometimes called a "sickout" or "blue flu". The term "red flu" has sometimes been used to describe this action when undertaken by firefighters. In Communist regimes such as the former USSR or the People's Republic of China, striking is illegal and viewed as counter-revolutionary. Since the government in such systems claims to represent the working class it has been argued that unions and strikes were not necessary. Most other totalitarian systems of the left and right also ban strikes. In some democratic countries, such as Mexico, strikes are legal but subject to close regulation by the state.

Scabs

People hired to replace striking workers are usually known as scabs. The terms strike-breaker, blackleg, and scab labor are also used. Trade unionists also use the epithet "scab" to refer to workers who are willing to accept terms that union workers have rejected and damage the efficacy of the strike action. The word comes from the idea that the "scabs" are covering a wound. During Economic Strikes, scabs may be hired as permanent replacements and are normally regarded as obscenely cruel and short-sightedly selfish. Jack London characterized scabs thus: :"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which to make a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water logged brain and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, the scab carries a tumor of rotten principles...There is nothing lower than a scab." A scab "movement" of sorts has developed in the profession of nursing, claiming an interest in the rights and care of patients during hospital strikes and opposing what they term the selfishness of striking healthcare professionals. Union nurses point to extraordinarily high salaries taken by strikebreaking nurses and accuse them of being "ambulance chasers" that undermine the potential for improved living standards and better staffed and equipped medical facilities for all in the long run. nurses

Strikes versus lockouts

The counterpart to a strike is a lockout, in which an employer refuses to allow employees to work. Two of the three employers involved in the Caravan park grocery workers strike of 2003-2004 locked out their employees in response to a strike against the third member of the employer bargaining group. Lockouts are, with certain exceptions, lawful under United States labor law.

Films


- Statschka [Strike], Director: Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union 1924
- Brüder [brothers], Director: Werner Hochbaum, Germany 1929 – On the general strike in the port of Hamburg, Germany in 1896/97
- Salt of the Earth, Director: Herbert J. Biberman, USA 1953 – Fictionalized account of an actual zinc-miners' strike in Silver City, New Mexico, in which women took over the picket line to circumvent an injunction barring "striking miners" from company property
- La Reprise du travail aux usines Wonder, Director: Jacques Willemont France 1968 – A short film on the resumption of work after Mai 68
- Harlan County, U.S.A., Director: Barbara Kopple, USA 1976 – A film about a very long and bitter strike of coal miners in Kentucky
- Matewan, Director: John Sayles, USA 1987 – A fictionalized history of one episode in the labour wars between West Virginia coal miners and mineowners during the 1920s
- American Dream, U.S.A., Director: Barbara Kopple, USA 1991 – A film about the strike at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota
- Bread and Roses, Director: Ken Loach(UK), USA 2000 – A film about janitors fighting for the right to unionize in contemporary Los Angeles
- Newsies, Director: Kenny Ortega, USA 1992 – A musical loosely based on the 1899 strike by the New York newsboys.

See also


- Labor law
- General Strike
- List of strikes

External links


- [http://libcom.org/history/strikes.php Strike histories from around the world] Category:Labor disputes ja:ストライキ



Factory

A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is a large industrial building where workers manufacture goods or products. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production. Archetypally, factories gather and concentrate resources -- workers, capital and plant.

Word usage

Before becoming associated with large-scale manufacturing, the term factory might refer to:
- a foreign-based trading station. Proto-colonies in West Africa and India often featured such factories.
- China also had factories, or warehouses, run by factors. These were restricted to a special area in Canton from 1760 until 1842 under the Canton System.
- the activity of factors (mercantile agents). The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of factory as a manufacturing site, plant or works back as far as 1618.

History of the factory

The Venice Arsenal provides the first example of a factory in the modern sense of the word. Founded in 1104 in Venice, Italy, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, it mass-produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts. The Venice Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people. Apart from that, many historians regard Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory (established in 1761 in Birmingham) as the first modern factory. British colonies in the late 18th century built factories simply as buildings where a large number of workers gathered to perform hand labor, usually in textile production. This proved more efficient – for administration and for the distribution of raw materials to individual workers – than earlier methods of manufacturing such as cottage industries or the putting-out system. Cotton mills utilised inventions such as the steam engine and the power loom to pioneer the industrial factory of the 19th century, where precision machine tools and replaceable parts allowed greater efficiency and less waste. Henry Ford further revolutionized the factory concept in the early 20th century, with the innovation of mass production. Highly specialized workers situated alongside a series of rolling ramps would build up a product such as (in Ford's case) an automobile. This concept dramatically decreased production costs for virtually all manufactured goods and brought about the age of consumerism. In the mid- to late 20th century, industrialized countries introduced next-generation factories with two improvements: # Advanced statistical methods of quality control, pioneered by the American mathematician William Edwards Deming, whom his home country initially ignored. Quality control turned Japanese factories into world leaders in cost-effectiveness and production quality. # Industrial robots on the factory floor, introduced in the late 1970s. These computer-controlled welding arms and grippers could perform simple tasks such as attaching a car door quickly and flawlessly 24 hours a day. This too cut costs and improved speed. Some speculation as to the future of the factory includes scenarios with rapid prototyping, nanotechnology, and orbital zero-gravity facilities.

Siting the factory

Before the advent of mass transportation, factories' needs for ever-greater concentrations of workers meant that they typically grew up in an urban setting or fostered their own urbanisation. Industrial slums developed, and re-enforced their own development through the interactions between factories, as when one factory's output or waste-product became the raw materials of another factory (preferably nearby). Canals and railways grew as factories spread, each clustering around sources of cheap energy, available materials and/or mass markets. The exception proved the rule: even greenfields factory sites such as Bournville, founded in a rural setting, developed its own housing and profitted from convenient communications networks. Regulation curbed some of the worst excesses of industrialisation's factory-based society, a series of Factory Acts leading the way in Britain. Trams, automobiles and town planning encouraged the separate development ('apartheid') of industrial suburbs and residential suburbs, with workers commuting between them. Though factories dominated the Industrial Era, the growth in the service sector eventually began to dethrone them: the locus of work in general shifted to central-city office towers or to semi-rural campus-style establishments, and many factories stood deserted in local rust belts. The next blow to the traditional factories came from globalisation. Manufacturing processes (or their logical successors, assembly plants) in the late 20th century re-focussed in many instances on Special Economic Zones in developing countries or on maquiladoras just across the national boundaries of industrialised states. Further re-location to the least industrialised nations appears possible as the benefits of out-sourcing and the lessons of flexible location apply in the future.

Governing the factory

Much of management theory developed in response to the need to control factory processes. Assumption of the hierarchies of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers and their supervisors and managers linger on.

See also


- List of production topics
- Manufacturing
- Factory object
- Recovered factory
- Industrial railway
- Software factory

References

Category:Industrial Revolution Category:Manufacturing Category:Production and manufacturing ja:工場

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein, or (coal) seam. Materials recovered by mining include bauxite, coal, diamonds, iron, precious metals, lead, limestone, nickel, phosphate, rock salt, tin, and uranium. Any material that cannot be grown from agricultural processes must be mined. Mining in a wider sense can also include extraction of petroleum, natural gas, and even water.

History

water]] The oldest known mine in the archaeological record is the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland. At this site, which has a radiocarbon age of 43,000 years, paleolithic humans mined for the iron-containing mineral hematite, which they ground to produce the red pigment ochre. Sites of a similar age where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools have been found in Hungary. Another early mining operation was the turquoise mine operated by the ancient Egyptians at Wady Maghareh on the Sinai Peninsula. Turquoise was also mined in pre-Columbian America in the Cerillos Mining District in New Mexico, where a mass of rock 200 feet (60 m) in depth and 300 feet (90 m) in width was removed with stone tools; the mine dump covers 20 acres (81,000 m²). Black gun powder in mining was first time used in a mineshaft under Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia in 1627.

Mining techniques

Mining techniques can be divided into two basic excavation types: :1. Surface mining ::
- Open-pit mining ::
- Quarrying ::
- Strip mining ::
- Placer mining ::
- Mountaintop removal :2. Sub-surface mining ::
- Drift mining ::
- Slope mining ::
- Shaft mining ::
- Hard rock mining ::
- Borehole mining

Extractive metallurgy

The science of extractive metallurgy is the study of extraction of valuable metals and minerals from their ores. Although extractive metallurgy is all-encompassing, mineral processing (or mineral dressing) is often the term used for the study of processing coal, industrial minerals and precious stones, as these are not metals.

Environmental effects

mineral processing mineral processing, even though the molybdenum mine has been closed for decades.]] Modern mining companies in many countries are required to follow strict environmental and reclamation codes, ensuring the area mined is returned to its original state, or an even better environmental state than before mining took place. Past mining methods have had, and methods used in countries with lax environmental regulations continue to have, devastating environmental and public health effects. The result can be unnaturally high concentrations of some chemical elements over a significantly wider area of surface. Combined with the effects of water and the new 'channels' created for water to travel through, collect in, and contact with these chemicals, a situation is created where mass-scale contamination can occur. Some examples of environmental problems associated with mining operations are: :Tar Creek, an abandoned mining area in Picher, Oklahoma that is now an Environmental Protection Agency superfund site. Water in the mine has leaked through into local groundwater, contaminating it with metals such as lead and cadmium. [http://www.health.state.ok.us/PROGRAM/envhlth/sites/ottawa.html] :Scouriotissa, a copper mine in Cyprus that has been abandoned. Contaminated dust blows off this site. :Berkeley Lake, an abandoned pit mine in Butte, Montana that has filled with water which is now acidic and poisonous. Although such issues have been associated with some mining operations in the past, modern mining practices have improved significantly and are subject to close environmental scrutiny. Problems remain especially in countries with lax environmental regulations or enforcement.

Mining industry

While exploration and mining can sometimes be conducted by individual entrepreneurs or small business, most modern-day mines are large enterprises requiring large amounts of capital to establish. Consequently, the industry is dominated by large, often multinational, mostly publicly-listed companies. See :Category:Mining companies for a list.

Mine Planning Software

One of the most dramatic changes in the mining industry has been the role that sophisticated three dimensional 3-D mine planning software packages have had. Initially relatively simple tasks - like rendering graphic images of drill holes - meant that it became easier for surveyors, geologists, mine planners, mining engineers and other technical staff to manipulate and visualize data. However, in recent years the range of integrated mine planning tools have meant that massively complex models can be built to optimize the extraction and processing of mineral resources.

See also


- Acid mine drainage
- Coal mining
- Remediation
- Ore grade

References


- Tom Morrison. 1992. Hardrock Gold: A Miner's Tale (ISBN 0806124423)
- Geobacter Project: [http://www.geobacter.org/press/2001-07-21-economist.pdf Gold mines may owe their origins to bacteria] (in PDF format) Category:Mining ja:鉱業 th:การทำเหมืองแร่

Lech Wałęsa

Lech Wałęsa (or Lech Walesa, pronounced Image:Ltspkr.png , born September 29 1943, Popowo, Poland) is a Polish politician, a former trade union and human rights activist, and also a former electrician. He co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995 (succeeded by Aleksander Kwaśniewski).

Biography

Lech Wałęsa was born on September 29, 1943 in Popowo, Poland, to a carpenter and his wife. He attended primary and vocational school, before entering Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk (Stocznia Gdańska im. Lenina, now Stocznia Gdańska) as an electrical technician in 1967. In 1969 he married Danuta Gołoś, and the couple now have eight children. He was a member of the illegal strike committee in Gdańsk Shipyard in 1970. After the bloody end of the strike, resulting in over 80 workers killed by the riot police, Wałęsa was arrested and convicted of "anti-social behaviour", spending one year in prison. In 1976 Wałęsa lost his job in Gdańsk Shipyard for collecting signatures for a petition to build a memorial for the killed workers. Due to his being on an informal blacklist, he couldn't find another job and lived at the time thanks to his friends' personal help. In 1978, together with Andrzej Gwiazda and Aleksander Hall, he organized the illegal underground Free Trade Union of Pomerania (Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża). He was arrested several times in 1979 for organizing an "anti-state" organization, but not found guilty in court and released at the beginning of 1980, after which he re-entered the Gdańsk shipyard. 1980 In August 14, 1980, after the beginning of an occupational strike in the Gdańsk Shipyard, Wałęsa illegally scaled the wall of the Shipyard and became the leader of this strike. The strike was spontaneously followed by similar strikes across Poland. Several days later he stopped workers who wanted to leave Gdańsk Shipyard, and persuaded them to organize the Strike Coordination Committee (Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy) to lead and support the naturally occurred general strike in Poland. In September of that year, the Communist government signed an agreement with the Strike Coordination Committee to allow legal organization, but not actual free trade unions. The Strike Coordination Committee legalized itself into National Coordination Committee of Solidarność Free Trade Union, and Wałęsa was chosen as a chairman of this Committee. Wałęsa kept this position until December 1981, when Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial law. He was interned for 11 months in south-eastern Poland near the Soviet border until November 14, 1982. In 1983 he applied to come back to Gdańsk Shipyard to his former position as a simple electrician. While formally treated as a "simple worker", he was practically under house arrest until 1987. 1983 also saw Wałęsa being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to receive the prize himself, fearing that the government would not let him back in, so his wife Danuta Wałęsowa received the prize in his place. Wałęsa donated the prize money to the Solidarity movement's temporary headquarters in exile (in Brussels). From 1987 to 1990 Wałęsa organized and led the "half-illegal" Temporary Executive Committee of Solidarity Trade Union. 1990 In 1988 Wałęsa organized an occupational strike in Gdańsk Shipyard, demanding only the re-legalisation of the Solidarity Trade Union. After eighty days the government agreed to enter into round-table talks in September. Wałęsa was an informal leader of the "non-governmental" side during the talks. During the talks the government signed an agreement to re-establish the Solidarity Trade Union and to organize "half-free" elections to Polish parliament. In 1989 Wałęsa organized and led the Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union. Formally it was just an advisory body, but practically it was a kind of a political party, which won parliament elections in 1989 (Opposition took 48% of seats in the Sejm out of 49% that were subject of free elections and all but one seats in the newly re-established senate; the remaining 51% of seats were given automatically to Communist Party according to the Round Table agreements). senate, 1982.]] While technically just a Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union at the time Wałęsa played a key role in Polish politics. At the end of 1989 he persuaded leaders from formally communist ally parties to form a non-communist coalition government, which was the first non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc. After that agreement, to the big surprise of the Communist Party, the parliament chose Tadeusz Mazowiecki for prime minister of Poland. Poland, while still a communist country in theory, started to change its economy to the free market system. In 1990, during a rally, Wałęsa declared himself "clean", referring to himself as a pure Pole with no Jewish blood. He has since repeatedly apologized for the remark, specifically during his 1991 trip to Israel. On December 9, 1990 Wałęsa won the presidential election to become president of Poland for the next five years. During his presidency he started so called "war at the top" which practically meant changing the government annually. His style of presidency was however strongly criticized by most of the political parties, and he lost most of the initial public support by the end of 1995. However, during his presidency Poland was completely changed, from an oppressive communist country under strict Soviet control and with a weak economy to an independent and democratic country with a fast growing free-market economy. Wałęsa lost the 1995 presidential election. After that he claimed to go to "political retirement", but he was still active, trying to establish his own political party. In 1997 Wałęsa supported and helped to organize a new party called "Solidarity Electoral Action" (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność) which won the parliamentary elections. However, his support was of minor significance and Wałęsa held a very low position in this party. The real leader of the party and its main organizer was a new Solidarity Trade Union leader, Marian Krzaklewski. Wałęsa again stood for the presidential election in 2000, but he received less than 1% of votes. After that Wałęsa again claimed his political retirement. From that time on he has been lecturing on the history and politics of Central Europe at various foreign universities. Central Europe Central Europe; Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the background]] In May 10, 2004, the Gdańsk international airport has been officially renamed to Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport to commemorate the famous Gdańsk citizen. His signature has been incorporated into the airport's logo. There was some controversy as to whether the name should be spelled Lech Walesa (without diacritics, but better recognizable in the world) or Lech Wałęsa (with Polish letters, but difficult to write and pronounce for foreigners). A month later, Wałęsa went to the U.S., representing Poland at the state funeral of Ronald Reagan. Apart from his Nobel Prize, Wałęsa received several other international prizes. He has been awarded honorary degrees from several United States and European Universities.

See also:


- Solidarity
- History of Poland
- Gdańsk
- Bezpartyjny Blok Wspierania Reform (BBWR)

External links


- [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/walesa/ CNN Cold War—Profile of Lech Walesa]
- [http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/629_24.html BRITANNICA Guide to the Nobel Prizes]
- [http://mywebpage.netscape.com/walesa43/lech1.html Lech Walesa Biography info]
- [http://www.ilw.org.pl/ Lech Walesa Institute]
- [http://www.airport.gdansk.pl/ Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport]
- [http://polskaludowa.com/dzwiek/nagrania/Walesa_Gdansk80_1.mp3 Wałęsa speech]
- [http://www.geocities.com/peace_888grom/walesa-lecture.html Lech Walesa – Nobel Lecture]
- [http://polskaludowa.com/dzwiek/nagrania/Walesa_Gdansk80_2.mp3 Wałęsa speech] (after signing the agreement with the Strike Coordination Committee to allow legal organization on August 1980)
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4194204.stm BBC interview with Lech Walesa] on the 20th anniversary of the founding of Solidarity Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech Walesa, Lech ja:レフ・ヴァウェンサ

Twentieth dynasty of Egypt

Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Twentieth Dynasty. The Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom. The Twentieth Dynasty was founded by Setnakhte, but its only important member was Ramesses III, who modelled his career after Ramesses II the Great.
Twentieth Dynasty
Name Dates
Setnakhte 1186 BC – 1183 BC
Ramesses III 1183 BC – 1152 BC
Ramesses IV 1152 BC – 1146 BC
Ramesses V 1146 BC – 1142 BC
Ramesses VI 1142 BC – 1134 BC
Ramesses VII 1134 BC – 1126 BC
Ramesses VIII 1129 BC – 1125 BC
Ramesses IX 1125 BC – 1107 BC
Ramesses X 1107 BC – 1103 BC
Ramesses XI 1103 BC – 1072/1069 BC
This dynasty is notable for the beginning of the systematic robbing of the Royal Tombs. Many surviving documents from this period are records of investigations and punishment for these crimes, especially in the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI. Like the Nineteenth Dynasty, this dynasty struggled under the effects of the bickering between the heirs of Ramesses III, whom Diodorus Siculus described as "confirmed sluggards devoted only to indulgence and luxury," without "any deed worthy of historical note." However, at this time Egypt was increasingly beset by a series of droughts, below-normal flooding levels of the Nile, famine, civil unrest and official corruption -- all of which would limit the abilities of any king. The power of the last king, Ramesses XI, grew so weak that in the south the High Priests of Amun became the effective rulers of Upper Egypt, while Smendes I gained power over Lower Egypt and founded the Twenty-first dynasty at Tanis. This dynasty is considered the last one of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and is followed by the Third Intermediate Period.

See also


- Twentieth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree

Ramesses III

Ramesses III was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

Background

He is considered the last native Egyptian pharaoh to wield any real authority, and reigned in the Twentieth Dynasty from 1183 to 1152 BC (alternate dates are 1187/1186 to 1156/1155 BC). His name is sometimes rendered as Ramses or Rameses; the Ancient Greeks knew him as Rhampsinitus. During his long tenure, Egypt was beset by foreign invaders (including the so-called Sea Peoples and the Libyans)and experienced the beginnings of increasing economic difficulties and internal strife which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Twentieth Dynasty. In Year 8 of his reign, the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt by land and sea. Although Ramesses III defeated them in 2 great land and sea battles, he was unable to stop the creation of several new states by these people especially Philistia. The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypt's treasury and contributed to the gradual decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. The severity of these difficulties is witnessed by the fact that the first labor strike in recorded history occurred during the 29th year of Ramesses' reign, when the food rations upon which the favoured royal tomb-builders in the village of Set Maat her imenty Waset (now known as Deir el Medina) depended for their survival, could not be provisioned. The reason for the lack of food was due to Ramesses storing food for a great feast to celebrate his great reign! These realities are completely ignored by the images of continuity and stability presented in Ramesses' official monuments – most of which seek to emulate his more famous predecessor, Ramesses II. He built important additions to the temples at Luxor and Karnak, and his funerary temple and administrative complex at Medinet-Habu is amongst the largest and best preserved in Egypt – however the uncertainty of Ramesses' times is apparent from the massive fortifications which were built to enclose the latter. No Egyptian temple in the heart of Egypt prior to Ramesses' reign had ever needed to be protected in such a manner. Ramesses' two main names, shown left, transliterate as wsr-m3‘t-r‘–mry-ỉmn r‘-ms-s–ḥḳ3-ỉwnw. They are normally realised as Wesermaatre-meryamun Ramesse-hekaiunu, meaning "Powerful one of Maàt and Ra, Beloved of Amun, Ra bore him, Ruler of Heliopolis". Thanks to the recent discovery of papyrus trial transcripts (dated to Rameses III), it is now known that there was a plot against his life as a result of a harem conspiracy during the celebration of Medinet Habu. The conspiracy was instigated by Te one of his two principal wives (Isis and Te) over whos son would inherit the thone. Isis's son Ramesses IV was the eldest and the chosen by Ramesses III rather than Te's son Pentaworet. It is not known if the plot succeeded because the body of Ramesses III shows no obvious wounds and Ramesses III may have initiated the trials himself to capture the perpretators of the conspiracy late in his life. The mummy includes a protective amulet to protect Ramasess III in the afterlife from poison. The servant in charge of his food and drink was among the listed conspirators. The documents also talk about the wide scale covering up of the conspiracy. All conspirators were sentenced to death, many were given the option of committing suicide by poison as an easy way out. In the case of Te and her son Pentaworet their royal tombs were robbed and their names erased to prevent them from reaching the afterlife. The Egyptians did such a good job of this the only references to them are these ancient documents and what's left of their tombs. The Great Harris Papyrus or Papyrus Harris I, which was created by his son and chosen successor Ramesses IV, chronicles this king's massive donations of land, gold statues and monumental construction to Egypt's many temples and the dispatch of an expedition to the Land of Punt in his reign. Ramesses III died after a reign of 31 Years, 1 Month and 17 days. The mummy of Ramesses III was discovered by antiquarians in 1886. His tomb (KV11) is one of the largest in the Valley of the Kings. Category:1183 BC deaths Category:1152 BC deaths Category:Pharaohs of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt Category:Mummies Category:Assassinated monarchs

Labor union

A union (labor union in American English; trade union in Commonwealth English) is an organisation formed by workers. Most typically, a single union will represent workers in a particular industry (industrial unionism) or craft (craft unionism), within all or part of a country, and will be organised to improve and defend wages, benefits, and working conditions. Unions are often divided into "locals" and united in national federations. Such examples could, depending on the country, be all the assembly workers for one employer, all the teachers in a local school district, or all the workers in a particular industry. In many countries, a union may acquire the status of a legal entity (called a "collective bargaining agent" in the USA) with a mandate to negotiate with employers to maintain and improve wages and working conditions for the workers it represents. In such cases, unions have certain legal rights, most importantly the right to negotiate collectively with an employer (or employers) over wages, working hours and other terms and conditions of employment — meaning that such things are not set unilaterally by management, but must be agreed upon by both parties. In many circumstances, unions do not have such rights and workers may typically threaten strikes or other collective action to pressure employers to negotiate. Unions may also engage in broader political or social struggle; unions in some countries are closely aligned with political parties. Unions often use their organizational strength to advocate for social policies and legislation favorable to their members or to workers in general. Although their political structure and autonomy of varies widely from country to country, union leaderships are usually formed through elections.

History

The concept of trade unions began early in the Industrial Revolution. More and more people left farming as an occupation and began to work for employers, often in appalling conditions and for very low wages. The labour movement arose as an outgrowth of the disparity between the power of employers and the powerlessness of individual employees. The 18th century capitalist economist Adam Smith noted the imbalance in the rights of workers in regards to owners (or "masters") in The Wealth of Nations. In chapter 8, Smith wrote: :We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate… :[When workers combine,] masters… never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. As indicated in the preceding quotation, unions were illegal for many years in most countries. There were severe penalties for attempting to organize unions, up to and including execution. Despite this, unions were formed and began to acquire political power, eventually resulting in a body of labour law which not only legalized organizing efforts, but codified the relationship between employers and those employees organized into unions. Even after the legitimisation of trade unions there was opposition, as the case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs shows. Many consider it an issue of fairness that workers be allowed to pool their resources in a special legal entity in a similar way to the pooling of capital resources in the form of corporations. The right to join a trade union is mentioned in article 23, subsection 4 of the UDHR, which also states in article 20, subsection 2. that "No one may be compelled to belong to an association". Prohibiting a person from joining or forming a union, as well as forcing a person to do the same (e.g. "closed shops" or "union shops", see below), whether by a government or by a business, is generally considered a human rights abuse. Similar allegations can be levelled if an employer discriminates based on trade union membership.

Origin of unions

Unions are sometimes thought to be successors to medieval guilds, though this is still being debated by historians. Medieval guilds existed to protect and enhance their members' livelihoods through controlling the instructional capital of artisanship and the progression of members from apprentice to craftsman, journeyman, and eventually to master and grandmaster of their craft. Guilds exhibited some aspects of the modern trade union, but also some aspects of professional associations and modern corporations, so the comparison between medieval guilds and modern organised trade unions, while somewhat helpful, must be seen in widely different social contexts. Additionally, guilds, like some craft unions today, were highly restrictive in their membership and only included artisans who practiced a specific trade. Many modern labour unions tend to be expansionistic, and frequently seek to incorporate widely disparate kinds of workers to increase the leverage of the union as a whole. A labour union in 2005 might include workers from only one trade or craft, or might combine several or all the workers in one company or industry. Since the publication of the History of Trade Unionism (1894) by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, the predominant historical view is that a trade union "...is a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment" (Webb). A modern definition by the Australian Bureau of Statistics states that a trade union is "...an organisation consisting predominantly of employees, the principal activities of which include the negotiation of rates of pay and conditions of employment for its members". Yet historian R.A. Leeson, in United we Stand (1971), said: "Two conflicting views of the trade-union movement strove for ascendancy in the nineteenth century: one the defensive-restrictive gild-craft tradition passed down through journeymen's clubs and friendly societies,...the other the aggressive-expansionist drive to unite all 'labouring men and women' for a 'different order of things'..." Recent historical research by Dr Bob James in Craft, Trade or Mystery (2001), puts forward that trade unions are part of a broader movement of benefit societies, which includes medieval guilds, Freemasons, Oddfellows, friendly societies and other Fraternal organizations.

Shop types

Companies that employ workers with a union generally operate on one of several models:
- A closed shop (US) employs only people who are already union members. The compulsory hiring hall is the most extreme example of a closed shop—in this case the employer must recruit directly from the union.
- A union shop (US) or a closed shop (UK) employs non-union workers as well, but sets a time limit within which new employees must join a union.
- An agency shop requires non-union workers to pay a fee to the union for its services in negotiating their contract. This is sometimes called the Rand formula. In certain situations involving U.S. state government employees, for example California, fair share laws make it easy to require these sorts of payments.
- An open shop does not discriminate based on union membership in employing or keeping workers. In the UK a series of laws were introduced during the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher's government to restrict closed and union shops. All agreements requiring a worker to join a union are now illegal (except for the case of British Actors' Equity Association which still operates a closed shop for actors). The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop in the United States in 1947, but permits the union shop in most states.

Criticism

Trade unions are often accused of benefiting the insider workers, those having a secure job and high productivity, at the cost of the outsider workers, consumers of the goods or services produced, and the shareholders of the unionized business. The ones that are likely to lose the most from a trade union are those who are unemployed or at the risk of unemployment or who are not able to get the job that they want in a particular field. The so-called insider-outsider theory analyses this problem. Usually, the marginal benefit of an additional worker decreases as the number of workers increase. This implies that the lower the minimum wage, the more workers a company can profitably employ. Thus, while an increase in the minimum wage benefits the insiders, as a result fewer new workers are recruited and fewer retiring workers replaced. This effect is more pronounced in a work-intensive service company. The economic analysis of a cartel applies completely to most unions, to those that try to fix the (minimum) price of work, to limit supply (e.g., by some criteria on membership or education) or to limit competition. On the other hand, unions often have also other functions than those of a cartel: they may advise the workers, warn about disadvantageous contracts or terms of employment etc. These latter functions are usually considered as beneficial for both the workers and for the society as a whole (though not necessarily for corporations or shareholders), whereas the opposite applies to cartel-type minimum terms. Often the union of a particular industry puts pressure on politicians to subsidize the industry concerned. This benefits both the workers, companies, shareholders and consumers of the product of that industry at a cost to other people. Thus, it depends on the question whether the interests of a trade union are for or against the interests of the companies, workers, unemployed, tax-payers or the society as a whole.

The problem of international comparison

As labour law is very diverse in different countries, so is the function of unions. For instance in Germany, only open shops are legal, that is, all discrimination based on union membership is forbidden. This affects the function and services of the union. On the other hand, German unions have played a greater role in management decisions through participation in corporate boards and co-determination than have unions in the United States. In addition, unions' relations with political parties vary. In many countries unions are tightly bonded, or even share leadership, with a political party intended to represent the interests of working people. Typically this is a left-wing or socialist party, but many exceptions exist. In the United States, by contrast, although it is historically aligned with the Democratic Party, the labour movement is by no means monolithic on that point; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has supported Republican Party candidates on a number of occasions and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 (the following year, Reagan effectively destroyed PATCO, breaking a strike by bringing in permanent replacement workers). The AFL-CIO has been against liberalising abortion, consistent with a Republican position, so as not to alienate its large Catholic constituency. In the United Kingdom the labour movement's relationship with the Labour Party is fraying as party leadership embarks on privatization plans at odds with what some perceive as workers' interests. In Western Europe, professional associations often carry out the functions of a trade union. Notable cases of these are the German Verein deutscher Ingenieure. In these cases, they may be negotiaing for white collar workers, such as physicians, engineers or teachers. Typically such trade unions refrain from politics or pursue markedly more right-wing politics than their blue-collar counterparts. Finally, the structure of employment laws affects unions' roles and how they carry out their business. In many western European countries wages and benefits are largely set by governmental action. The United States takes a more laissez-faire approach, setting some minimum standards but leaving most workers' wages and benefits to collective bargaining and market forces. Historically, the Republic of Korea has regulated collective bargaining by requiring employers to participate but collective bargaining has been legal only if held in sessions before the lunar new year. In totalitarian regimes such as Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union, unions have typically been de facto government agencies devoted to smooth and efficient operation of enterprises.

Trade unions in the United Kingdom

Labor unions in the United States

Unions in other countries

lunar new year]Some countries such as Sweden, Finland, and the other Nordic countries have strong, centralized unions, where every type of work has a specific union, which are then gathered in large national union confederations. Usually there are at least two national union confederations, one for academically educated and one for branches with lower education level. The largest Swedish union confederation is Landsorganisationen, or LO. LO has almost two million members, which is more than a fifth of Sweden's population. Finland's equivalent is SAK, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, with about one million members out of the country's 5.2 million inhabitants. In addition, there are two other Finnish union confederations for more educated workers with combined membership of circa one million. In comparison, France is thought to have one of the lowest union densities in Europe, with only about 10% of the workers inside unions. Union membership, however, tends to be concentrated in some specific areas, especially the public sector. Unions in some sectors, such as public transportation (SNCF and RATP...) are likely to enter well-publicized strikes. The Australian labour movement has a long history of craft, trade and industrial unionism. While unions have sometimes been very strong, as of 2005 they are relatively weak and in decline, due in part to the actions of Prime Minister John Howard and his Liberal government.

International cooperation

The largest organization of trade union members in the world is the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which today has 231 affiliated organisations in 150 countries and territories, with a combined membership of 158 million. Other global trade union organizations are the World Confederation of Labour and the World Federation of Trade Unions. National and regional trade unions organising in specific industry sectors or occupational groups also form global union federations, such as Union Network International and the International Federation of Journalists.

News

There are several sources of current news about the trade union movement in the world. These include LabourStart and the official website of the international trade union movement [http://www.global-unions.org Global Unions].

References


- Clarke, T. and Clements, L. (1978) "Trade Unions under Capitalism", Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, ISBN 0391007289

See also


- AFL-CIO
- Craft union
- Directly Affiliated Local Union (DALU)
- Eight hour day
- General union
- Industrial union
- Industrial Workers of the World
- International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
- Labor aristocracy
- History of the labor movement
- Landrum-Griffin Act
- List of labor unions
- Salting
- Strike
- Trades council
- Trades Hall
- Union federation

External links


- [http://www.unionmillwright.com/history.html Millwright History]
- [http://unionmillwright.com Union Millwrights]
- [http://www.taterenner.com/weingarten.htm Weingarten Rights]
- [http://www.workplacefairness.org/index.php?page=retaliationunion NLRA rights]
- [http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2004/03/update/tn0403105u.html Trade union membership 1993-2003] - European Industrial Relations Observatory report on membership trends in 26 European countries
- [http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=143 Breaking Away from True Unionism]
- [http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/mutual-aid-through-collective-bargaining.htm Mutual Aid Through Collective Bargaining]
- [http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/examples-labor-festivities.htm Public Activities and Festivities of Organized Labor in Marin County, California]
- [http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/unions.html New analysis of economic data shows that unionization could maximize productivity]
- [http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/unions2.html American Labor Unions Under Stress] Category:Labour relations Category:Organizational studies and human resource management ko:노동조합 ja:労働組合

Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and employers (represented by management) in respect of the terms and conditions of employment of employees, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions and grievance procedures, and about the rights and responsibilities of trade unions. The result of the negotiation is often referred to as a collective bargaining agreement. The term is reputed to have been coined by the British academic Beatrice Webb in the late 19th century to describe a process alternative to that of individual bargaining between an employer and its individual employees. Other writers have emphasised the conflict resolution aspects of collective bargaining, but in Britain the most important refinement was that made by Allan Flanders, who defined it as a process of rule-making, leading to joint regulation in industry. The term is usually seen as necessarily containing an element of negotiation and hence as distinct from processes of consultation, from which negotiation is absent, and where outcomes are determined unilaterally by the employer. In Britain collective bargaining has been, and has been endorsed as, the dominant and most appropriate means of regulating workers' terms and conditions of employment, in line with ILO Convention No. 84 for many years. However, the importance of collective bargaining in Britain and elsewhere in the industrialized world has been declining considerably since the early 1980s. Despite its significance, in the UK there remains no statutory basis for collective bargaining around learning and training, a situation that has attracted the attention of both the Trades Union Congress and members of the Royal College of Nursing. There is an active coalition that has already been established which seeks to remedy this situation by expanding the scope of collective bargaining to encompass learning and training.

See also


- Mutual gains bargaining
- National Labor Relations Act
- National Labor Relations Board
- Right of recall

References


- Buidens, Wayne, and others. "Collective Gaining: A Bargaining Alternative." PHI DELTA KAPPAN 63 (1981): 244-245.
- DeGennaro, William, and Kay Michelfeld. "Joint Committees Take the Rancor out of Bargaining with Our Teachers." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 173 (1986): 38-39.
- Herman, Jerry J. "With Collaborative Bargaining, You Work WITH the Union--Not Against It." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 172 (1985): 41-42, 47.
- Huber, Joe; and Jay Hennies. "Fix on These Five Guiding Lights, and Emerge from the Bargaining Fog." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 174 (1987): 31.
- Liontos, Demetri. COLLABORATIVE BARGAINING: CASE STUDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Eugene: Oregon School Study Council, University of Oregon, September 1987. OSSC Bulletin Series. 27 pages. ED number not yet assigned.
- McMahon, Dennis O. "GETTING TO YES." Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association of School Administrators, New Orleans, LA, February 20-23, 1987. ED 280 188.
- Namit, Chuck; and Larry Swift. "Prescription for Labor Pains: Combine Bargaining with Problem Solving." THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 174 (1987): 24.
- Nyland, Larry. "Win/Win Bargaining Takes Perseverance." THE EXECUTIVE EDUCATOR 9 (1987): 24.
- Smith, Patricia; and Russell Baker. "An Alternative Form of Collective Bargaining." PHI DELTA KAPPAN 67 (1986): 605-607.

External links


- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/education.htm Collaborative Bargaining in Education]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/graduate.htm Graduate Student Unionization in Higher Education]
- [http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law school] Category: Labor Category: Labour relations Category: Organizational studies and human resource management

Employer

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages. Employment also exists in the public, nonprofit and household sectors. In the United States, the "standard" employment contract is considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists. Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents of capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate share of the profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist movements were among the few groups to actually oppose work, and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of May 1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were covered with anti-work graffiti. Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having a job". This conceptual metaphor of a "job" as a possession has led to its use in slogans such as "money for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are that of "land" as a possession (real estate) or intellectual rights as a possession (intellectual property).

Employer

An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers. Employers offer wages to the workers in exchange for the worker's labor-power. Employers include everything from individuals hiring a babysitter to governments and businesses which hired many thousands of employees. In most western societies governments are the largest single employers, but most of the work force is employed in small and medium businesses in the private sector. Note that although employees may contribute to the evolution of an enterprise, the employer maintains autonomous control over the productive base of land and capital, and is the entity named in contracts. The employer typically also maintains ownership of intellectual property created by an employee within the scope of employment and as a function thereof. These are known as "works for hire". Within large organizations the management of employees is often handled by Human Resources departments.

Employee

An employee is any person hired by an employer – typically, a worker hired to do a specific "job". Typical examples include accountants, solicitors, lawyers, photographers, among many other worker categorizations. There are differing classes of employee. Some are permanent and receive a guaranteed salary, while others are hired on short term contracts or as consultants. In this respect, it is important to distinguish independent contractors who are treated differently both in law and in most taxation systems. The employee contributes labour and expertise to an endeavour. Employees perform the discrete activity of economic production. Of the three factors of production, employees usually provide the labor. Some companies feel that a happier work force is a better one and thus offer extra benefits to improve team spirit and performance. However, other employers try to increase profits by giving low wages and few benefits. To resist this, employees can organize into labor unions (American English), or trade unions (British English), who represent most of the available work force and must therefore be listened to by the management. This is the source of considerable bad feeling between the two sides, and sometimes even violence.

Alternatives

An individual who entirely owns the business for which he labours is known as self-employed, although if a self-employed individual has only one client for whom he performs work, he may be considered an employee of that client for tax purposes. Self-employment often leads to incorporation. Incorporation offers certain protections of one's personal assets. Laws of incorporation vary from state to state with California having the most incorporated businesses of any state in the U.S. Workers who are not paid wages, such as volunteers, are generally not considered as being employed. Someone who works under obligation for the purpose of fulfilling a debt without pay is known as a slave and slaveowners are also not considered employers. Some historians suggest that slavery is older than employment, but both arrangements have existed for all recorded history.

Employment Research and Education

[http://www.ilr.cornell.edu Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations] [http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp Labor and Worklife Program] at Harvard Law School

Films

Death on the Job, Filmmakers: William Guttentag and Vince DiPersio,1991 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ Office Space], written and directed by Mike Judge.

See also


- Labour (economics)
- Occupation and employment's effect on identity
- Employment (album)
- Dangerous jobs
- Reserve army of labour
- Labour market
- Labour power

External links


- [http://www.asian-nation.org/employment.shtml Asian-Nation: Employment & Occupational Patterns of Asian Americans]
- [http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858790&topicId=1073858787&furlname=employment&furlparam=employment&domain=www.businesslink.gov.uk Comprehensive overview of employment law and best practice for the United Kingdom]
- [http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm United States Department of Labor report on the current employment situation]
- [http://www.ozfreeonline.com/jobs/ OzFreeOnline.com: Australian Job Search Listing]
-
- [http://www.GoYocal.com/ GoYocal.com: UK Job Listings]
-
- [http://london.GoYocal.com/ London.GoYocal.com: London Job Listings]
-
- [http://Birmingham.GoYocal.com/ Birmingham.GoYocal.com: Birmingham Job Listings]
- ja:雇用

United Kingdom

:For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe, surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of four constituent parts: three constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land border, although there is a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The UK has several overseas territories and the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands come under the UK's sovereignty. The UK also has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, as they all share the same head of state. The UK is also one of the largest member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN and NATO.

Terminology


- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The official name for the sovereign state
- United Kingdom: an abbreviation of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Britain: an informal term that sometimes means United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means Great Britain
- British: an informal term that sometimes means from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means from Great Britain
- Great Britain (as a geographical term): the largest island of the British Isles
- Great Britain (as a political term): England + Wales + Scotland
- British Isles (as a geographical term): Great Britain + Ireland + many smaller surrounding islands. This term is disputed, please see below.
- Ireland (as a geographical term): the second largest island of the British Isles
- Ireland (as a political term): an abbreviation of the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state on the island of Ireland
- Northern Ireland: a political region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Ulster (as a geographical term): Often used to refer to Northern Ireland. It is derived from the Irish Language term 'Ulad.' It was one of the ancient Irish provinces (the others were Connaught, Leinster and Munster.). Although it is normally used to refer to Northern Ireland, Ulster also (traditionally) includes Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which lie in the Republic of Ireland. The term Ulster is often favoured by the Protestant community.

History

Protestant Today's state is the latest of several unions formed over the last 1000 years. Scotland and England have existed as separate unified entities since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to a permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922, after bitter fighting which echoes down to the current political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom. As provided for in the treaty, Northern Ireland, which consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of the Free State and to remain in the UK. The nomenclature of the UK was changed in 1927 to recognise the departure of most of Ireland, with the current name being adopted. 1927 The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous nation. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards further integration is conservative, and there is significant Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the government's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions.

Government and politics

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments. The cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and other ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from and are responsible to Parliament, the legislative body, which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The UK is one of the few countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on customs and separate pieces of constitutional law. While the monarch is Head of State and holds all executive power, it is the Prime Minister who is the head of government. The government is answerable chiefly to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister is drawn from this chamber of Parliament by constitutional convention. The majority of cabinet members will be from the House of Commons, the rest from the House of Lords. Ministers do not, however, legally have to come from Parliament, though that is the modern day custom. The British system of government has been emulated around the world - a legacy of the United Kingdom's colonial past - most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms. The Prime Minister is chosen as the MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons - usually the leader of the largest party or, if there is no majority party, the largest coalition. The current Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. In the United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his or her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial. The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament") and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the Queen (being given Royal Assent), although no monarch has refused to assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested several times, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in spite of recent controversies. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the more powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons has 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has 724 members (though this number is not fixed): hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England. established church]] The two largest political parties are the Labour Party and Conservative Party. The UK has long had a two-party system, but in the last 20 years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third party. The electoral system used for general elections is first-past-the-post. The constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified and partially unwritten, which means that no single document regulates how the government works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. The constitution is based on the principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the country. There has long been a widespread sense of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout the late 19th century the UK debated giving Ireland home rule. The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) in 1925. Referenda for devolution succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the former having primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002.

Subdivisions

The United Kingdom is a country that is divided into four constituent parts:
- England
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Wales The constituent parts of the United Kingdom have administrative subdivisions as follows:
- The regions and administrative counties of England
- The council areas of Scotland
- The counties and county boroughs of Wales
- The districts of Northern Ireland The Laws in Wales Act 1535 incorporated Wales and England into England and Wales for legal purposes. Although all four have historically been divided into counties, England's population is an order of magnitude larger than the others so in recent years it has for some purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions. Each region is made up of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was intended that each or some of these regions would be given its own regional assembly, the plan's future is uncertain, as of 2004, after the North East region rejected its proposed assembly in a referendum. Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 26 Districts. Also sometimes associated with the United Kingdom, though not constitutionally part of the United Kingdom itself, are the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) as self-governing possessions of the Crown, and a number of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Military

The armed forces of the United Kingdom are known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations. The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in the World. Its global power projection capabilities are second only to those of the United States Armed Forces. The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while the Royal Marines provide infantry units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range, currently deployed in over 80 countries. The UK's special forces, principally the SAS, provides elite commandos trained for quick, mobile, military responses; often where secrecy or covert operations are required. The Royal Navy is the second largest navy in the World in terms of gross tonnage. Despite the United Kingdom's wide ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, in which military action was initiated by Argentina and the UK was fighting a defensive, rather than offensive, campaign. The British army has been actively involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. However, a programme of demilitarisation is being gradually implemented.

Geography

Troubles World Factbook Map of the United Kingdom]] Most of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from west by more mountainous terrain in the Northwest (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and north (the upland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. The lower limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. The main rivers and estuaries are the Thames, Severn and the Humber Estuary. The largest urban area is Greater London. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France. There is no peak in England that is 1000 metres (3,300 ft) or greater. Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon at 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. The largest and capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain at 1343 metres (4,406 ft). There are many long and deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The largest city is