The delegitimization of union activity through pro-worker rhetoric: An analysis of strike coverage in the U.S. from 2007-2023
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In recent years, there has been an upsurge in strike activity, and with it, a wealth of media artifacts related to these strikes.This study seeks to update understandings of strike coverage through a comparative lens using four cases: the 2007 and 2023 United Auto Workers (UAW) strikes, and the 2007-2008 and 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strikes.By critically examining the coverage of these strikes, I aim to demystify the particular and concrete ways these strikes are constructed for the public imagination.I focus my analysis on four key frames: 1) "Other Workers as Victim," 2) "Benefiting the enemy," 3) "Losses are Wins and Wins are Losses," and 4) "Strikes as Blue-Collar Activity."Together, these frames work to construct a discourse that delegitimizes strike activity through an ostensibly pro-worker lens.By emphasizing how strikes harm union members and other workers, as well as how they benefit nonunion competitors, a cohesive narrative is formed that strikes act against the interests of the working class at large, which is utilized to put pressure on unions to make concessions and to undermine gains won through striking.Résumé : Ces dernières années, nous avons assisté à une recrudescence des grèves et, par conséquent, à une profusion d'artefacts médiatiques liés à ces grèves.Cette étude vise à mettre à jour les connaissances sur la couverture des grèves à travers une perspective comparative en utilisant quatre cas : les grèves de 2007 et 2023 des United Auto Workers (UAW), et les grèves de 2007-2008 et 2023 de la Writers Guild of America (WGA).En examinant de manière critique la couverture de ces grèves, je cherche à démystifier les façons particulières et concrètes dont ces grèves sont construites pour l'imagination du public.Je concentre mon analyse sur quatre cadres clés : 1) « Les autres travailleurs en tant que victimes », 2) « Au profit de l'ennemi », 3) « Les pertes sont des victoires et les victoires sont des pertes » et 4) « Les grèves en tant qu'activité de cols bleus ».Ensemble, ces cadres contribuent à construire un discours qui délégitime l'activité de grève à travers une perspective ostensiblement pro-ouvrière.En mettant l'accent sur la manière dont les grèves nuisent aux membres des syndicats et aux autres travailleurs, ainsi que sur la manière dont elles profitent aux concurrents non syndiqués, on crée un récit cohérent selon lequel les grèves vont à l'encontre des intérêts de la classe ouvrière dans son ensemble, ce qui est utilisé pour faire pression sur les syndicats afin qu'ils fassent des concessions et pour saper les gains obtenus grâce à la grève.Table of Contents Introduction.......
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".