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temporary worker

(Encyclopedia)temporary worker, an employee, hired through a specialized employment agency, who generally works less than a year on one assignment, regardless of the number of hours worked per week. Temporary worke...

Trumka, Richard Louis

(Encyclopedia)Trumka, Richard Louis, 1949–, U.S. labor leader, b. Nemacolin, Pa., grad. Pennsylvania State Univ. (B.S., 1971), Villanova Univ. (J.D., 1974). A third-generation miner, he worked as a United Mine Wo...

Saunders, Dame Cicely

(Encyclopedia)Saunders, Dame Cicely (Cicely Mary Strode Saunders), 1918–2005, British physician, a pioneer in the modern hospice movement. She left Oxford during World War II to become a nurse (1944) and, after w...

sweating system

(Encyclopedia)sweating system, method of exploiting labor by supplying materials to workers and paying by the piece (see piecework) for work done on those materials in the workers' homes or in small workshops (swea...

Leopold II, king of the Belgians

(Encyclopedia)Leopold II, 1835–1909, king of the Belgians (1865–1909), son and successor of Leopold I. His reign saw great industrial and colonial expansion. In 1876 he organized, with the help of H. M. Stanley...

Mitchell, John

(Encyclopedia)Mitchell, John, 1870–1919, American labor leader, b. Braidwood, Ill. He became a miner at the age of 12 and in 1885 joined the Knights of Labor. When the United Mine Workers of America was formed (1...

Fisher, Sir Ronald Aylmer

(Encyclopedia)Fisher, Sir Ronald Aylmer, 1890–1962, English statistician and geneticist, b. East Finchley, Middlesex, England; educated at Cambridge (1909–1915; Sc.D., 1926). From 1919 to 1933 he worked at the ...

Amman

(Encyclopedia)Amman ämänˈ [key], city (1997 est. pop. 1,415,000), capital of Jordan, N central Jordan, on the Jabbok (Wadi Zerka) River. Jordan's largest city and industrial and commercial heart, it is also a tr...

Riga

(Encyclopedia)Riga rēˈgə [key], city (2011 provisional pop. 657,424), capital of Latvia, on the Daugava (Western Dvina) River near its entry into the Gulf of Riga. A major Baltic port, it is also a rail junction...

Chávez, César Estrada

(Encyclopedia)Chávez, César Estrada sāˈsär āsträˈᵺä shäˈvĕz [key], 1927–93, American agrarian labor leader, b. near Yuma, Ariz. A migrant worker, he became involved (1952) in the self-help Community...