Why Has Strike Activity Increased Recently Compared With The Past Essay

Why Has Strike Activity Increased Recently Compared With The Past - Essay Example As Cohn (1993, p. 8)states, ‘employers usually raise wages as a result of economic pressure’. Such power of strike comes from its paralysing effect, which is detrimental to the interest of capital and to the economy, because lost hours means lost profits and lost profits could mean lost revenue to the government. Aside from its adverse economic effect is its adverse political effect, which cannot be ignored, because of its possible ripple effect [loss of confidence of foreign investment]. Thus unsurprisingly, employers and governments had vehemently refused to recognise strike as workers’ legal course of action in airing their demands/grievances. And even when strike was finally recognised as among the right of workers, it was loaded with requirements. For example, for a strike to be protected [legal] the workers’ issue must be strikable and the strike conducted should follow the prescribed procedures (Jordan et al. 2009, p. 72). Contrary to employersâ€⠄¢ desire, this has further strengthened the labour movement. As defined, ‘strike is an organized collective work stoppage undertaken by employees to pressure their employer or employers into meeting their demands’ (Dictionary of American History 2003, par. 1). ... For example, student strikes, which are generally characterised by the refusal of organised students to attend their classes, have left their indelible marks in history –Among the most notable are the student strike of 1970, which had successfully mobilised universities against US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia and had also successfully transformed the institutional structure of the academy (Katsiaficas 1987, p. 127); the Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 which led to the successful downfall of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 (Panourgia 1995, p. 32); the 2005 Quebec student strike, which opposed the Charest government’s policies of tuition fee deregulation and reduction in student grant funding (Lawrence 2006, p. 10). In the past, especially during the industrial revolution when workers were much needed and much exploited en mass, strikes had been the best found weapon of workers to fighting for their rights to be recognised, such as the right to be unionise d, the right for humane working conditions, the right for decent wage, and more. Thus incidences of strike activity were unsurprisingly high. To bring their employers to the negotiating table, workers have to be unionised; to be recognised as union, workers have to hold a strike; for their strike to be successful, workers union has to be strong. As such, the improved conditions of labour have been largely attributed to the rising power of organised labour, Cornwall (1994, p. 31) says. Following the historical evolution of the labour movement and the recognition of its right to strike with its corresponding improved labour condition, two assumptions can be reached: first, that strike activity is more likely to increase when the economy is in downturn and that strike activity is less

Structural Equation Modelling and Logistic regression Assignment

Structural Equation Modelling and Logistic regression - Assignment Example While card payments were the main cashless mode of payment up to the beginning of the last decade, mobile money payments have also emerged as a likeable payment method, mainly in fairly underdeveloped regions (Dahlberg, Mallat & Oorni, 2008). Other non-card payment methods include virtual money carriers, including Google Wallet, Skrill, and PayPal (Ayodele, Ayo & Adeyibi, 2013). Among the factors that appear pertinent towards adoption of any of these payment methods are ease of use, importance/ usefulness, risk/ security levels, and accessibility (Ayodele, Ayo & Adeyibi, 2013; Abubakar & Ahmad, 2013). According to Abubakar and Ahmad (2013), higher levels of awareness towards cashless payments correspond to higher uptake levels. Ease of use is an important factor for adoption of cashless payments. Users (and potential users) with better knowledge of the cashless payment modes available in a particular region catalyse uptake levels. To them, usage of the methods is relatively easy (Ayodele, Ayo & Adeyibi, 2013). Similarly, knowledge of usefulness/ importance of such payment modes underscores their higher acceptability among persons with such knowledge (Ayodele, Ayo & Adeyibi, 2013). The sample comprised 320 respondents who were served with questionnaires to indicate their level of agreement with assertions made regarding ease of use of cashless payments system, trust in the cashless payments system, and usefulness of the same. The three variables used several questions for each, which were then aggregated to find each individual’s average rating of each variable. That is, the variable usefulness was obtained by averaging the ratings given per individual across the four questions underlying the variable; the four responses denoting ease of use were averaged to obtain the variable; and the ratings to the five questions underlying