‘I Find it Daunting . . . That I’m Gonna Have to Deal with This until 60’: Extended Working Lives and the Sustainable Employability of Operational Firefighters

While operational firefighters in the UK fire and rescue service traditionally retired in their 50s, their working lives are now extending. However, external pressures and the emotional and physical demands of firefighting work, lead to questions about whether operational firefighters will be able to extend their working lives. In this article, we engage with Van der Klink et al.’s sustainable employability model, which focuses on situations that allow individuals to make valuable contributions through their work and reveal how working lives can be extended. We consider implications of the characteristics of operational firefighting work, individual circumstances and contextual factors for the extension of working lives. Drawing on interviews conducted with firefighters, crew managers and watch managers working in a UK fire and rescue service, we highlight the unsustainability of many future working lives because of wellbeing and organisational pressures.

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EXPRESS: Unlearning and Consent in the UK Fire and Rescue Service

Human Relations ◽

10.1177/00187267211031179 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 001872672110311

Author(s):

James Brooks ◽

Irena Grugulis ◽

Hugh Cook

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Social Aspects ◽

Successful Implementation ◽

Human System ◽

Rescue Service ◽

Rescue Services ◽

The People ◽

The Social ◽

New Knowledge ◽

The Uk

Why does so much literature on unlearning ignore the people who do the unlearning? What would we understand differently if we focused on those people? Much of the existing literature argues that unlearning can only be achieved, and new knowledge acquired, if old knowledge is discarded: the clean slate approach. This might be a reasonable way of organising stock in a warehouse, where room needs to be created for new deliveries, but it is not an accurate description of a human system. This article draws on a detailed qualitative study of learning in the UK Fire and Rescue Services to challenge the clean slate approach and demonstrate that, not only did firefighters retain their old knowledge, they used it as a benchmark to assess new routines and practices. This meant that firefighters’ trust in, and consent to, innovation was key to successful implementation. In order to understand the social aspects of unlearning, this research focuses on the people involved as active agents, rather than passive recipients or discarders of knowledge.

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Injury incidence and locomotor behaviours in polocrosse ponies

Comparative Exercise Physiology ◽

10.3920/cep190021 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 29-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

K. Yarnell ◽

G. Starbuck ◽

A. Riley ◽

A. Woodhead

Keyword(s):

Injury Risk ◽

Gps Data ◽

Injury Incidence ◽

Limited Information ◽

Physical Demands ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Injury Risk Factors ◽

Training Programmes ◽

The Uk ◽

Type Of Injury

There is currently limited information available regarding the physical demands of polocrosse and no information on the specific veterinary problems faced by polocrosse ponies in the United Kingdom. Polocrosse requires the ponies that compete to perform rapid acceleration, sharp turns and sudden halts. The study aim was to explore the injury incidence and type of injury, between the three positions played by polocrosse ponies. Injuries that resulted in withdrawal of a pony during outdoor tournaments in the UK over the 2015 and 2016 seasons were recorded. In addition, GPS data and locomotor behaviours were recorded during winter league tournaments in 2017 and compared between the different position ponies. Ponies that played in the defence position were significantly more likely to become injured (P<0.001) with lameness being the most common cause for withdrawal (P<0.001). Ponies playing in the attack position achieved the fastest speeds and covered the furthest distance. Defence ponies performed significantly more abrupt halts (P=0.007), walk to gallop transitions (P=0.017) and sudden changes in direction (P=0.01) than midfield ponies and more of each manoeuvre than attack ponies, although this was not significant. It is important that the physical demands placed upon polocrosse ponies are investigated further; this will allow identification of injury risk factors, inform training programmes and improve the performance and welfare of the horses involved.

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Anthropology, Class and the ‘Big Heads’: An Ethnography of Distinctions between ‘Rough’ and ‘Posh’ amongst Women Workers in the UK Pottery Industry

The Sociological Review ◽

10.1111/j.1467-954x.2005.00592.x ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 53 (4) ◽

pp. 710-728 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Elizabeth Hart

Keyword(s):

Women Workers ◽

Working Class ◽

Pottery Industry ◽

Working Lives ◽

Global Corporation ◽

Ethnographic Data ◽

Working Class Women ◽

The Uk ◽

Sociological Studies ◽

The Way

In the context of the take-over by a global corporation (Royal Doulton) of a family-owned and run pottery factory in Longton Stoke-on-Trent, known as ‘Beswick’, and the subsequent re-structuring of production, this paper explores the way in which women pottery workers make social distinctions between the ‘rough’ and ‘posh’, ‘proper paintresses’ and ‘big heads’ which cut into and across abstract sociological notions of class. Drawing on ethnographic data I show that for these working class women, class as lived is inherently ambiguous and contradictory and reveal the ways in which class is gendered. I build on historical and sociological studies of the pottery industry, and anthropological and related debates on class, as well as Frankenberg's study of a Welsh village, to develop my argument and draw analogies between factory and village at a number of levels. My findings support the view that class is best understood not as an abstract generalising category, but in the local and specific contexts of women's working lives. I was the first one in our family to go in decorating end and they thought I was a bit stuck-up. My sister was in clay end as a cup-handler and I had used to walk off factory without her, or wait for her to leave before I left, though she said, ‘If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have anything to paint!’ They were much freer in the clay end – had more to do with men – we thought we were one up. 1

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Limits to Change

Nordicom Review ◽

10.1515/nor-2016-0011 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 99-113

Author(s):

Roel Puijk

Keyword(s):

Public Service ◽

Innovation Management ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Production Studies ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

External Pressures ◽

The Usa ◽

The Uk ◽

Main Programme ◽

New Situation

Abstract Production studies have become popular over the past decade. Recent studies have analysed, amongst other things, innovation, management strategies and the effects of convergence on editorial processes. There have only been a few studies that have analysed what happened inside media organisations in the earlier transformative stages (outside the UK and the USA). This paper analyses how the Norwegian public service broadcaster (NRK) adapted to the loss of its monopoly and the beginning of competition during the mid-1980s. It provides a window into how the flagship of public service, the Enlightenment Department, dealt with the new situation. If one follows the production process of the main programme of the department (with the revealing working title ‘Flagship’) from its conception to its realisation as a weekly programme broadcast in prime time, this reveals how innovation at the time was restricted by organisational arrangements, internal values and external pressures. The programme makers included many elements that are still today considered to be advantageous in factual programming (humour, dramatization, popularisation, serialization, recognition, and even interactivity). Along the way several of these were changed: what had started as a proposal for a documentary series turned into something that was predominantly a discussion programme.

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Workplace and Health: A Survey of Classical Orchestral Musicians in the United Kingdom and Germany

Medical Problems of Performing Artists ◽

10.21091/mppa.2002.2012 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 83-92

Author(s):

Beatrice S Harper

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Working Conditions ◽

Classical Music ◽

Health And Safety ◽

Work Related ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Working Lives ◽

The Status ◽

The Uk ◽

Orchestral Musicians

This article presents the results of a survey that was carried out among UK and German professional classical musicians between November 2000 and April 2001. The UK Musicians’ Union and the German musicians’ union, the Deutsche Orchester Vereinigung (DOV), assisted greatly with the duplication and distribution of the questionnaires. Selected results have been disseminated to the respondents via the UK Musicians’ Union journal, Musician. A full report will appear in Cultural Trends, to be published in 2002 by the Policy Studies Institute, London. The survey covered many aspects of musicians’ perceptions of occupational health and safety, the provision of appropriate information, their general working conditions, and their health. One of the main aims was to bring to the forefront a discussion of musicians’ working conditions and to raise awareness of the range of problems that exist. Key findings identify areas of concern to the respondents, in particular, regarding the environmental conditions of their workplaces. Additionally, findings indicate the use and effectiveness of the measures used by musicians to ameliorate a range of occupational hazards. This article also reports the respondents’ hearing problems, and which medical and alternative practitioners the sample consulted in cases of work-related ill health. The contrasting structure of the profession determined the choice of the United Kingdom and Germany for this study. The UK classical music workforce is predominantly freelance, whereas in Germany there are relatively few freelance musicians, and most orchestral musicians have the status of local government employees. One of the aims of the survey was to elicit information that might indicate whether such different conditions of employment affect the working lives of musicians. This article is organized in two parts. The first part places this survey in context and discusses the particular range of health problems highlighted by the respondents. The second part presents the survey and its findings.

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Introduction

Soldiers as Citizens ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781789620863.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Nick Mansfield

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Working Class ◽

British Empire ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

British Society ◽

Popular Politics ◽

Subsequent Growth ◽

Working Lives ◽

Primary Means ◽

The Uk

In common with its companion volume - Soldiers as Workers – Class, employment, conflict and the nineteenth century military (2016), this study argues that class is the primary means of understanding the topic. Focusing on rank and file soldiers it concludes that they were not a separate caste. Instead, soldiering was often just a phase in civilian working lives. The nineteenth century was overshadowed by the mass mobilisation required for the generation-long French Wars and concurrent Industrial Revolution, with emerging working-class popular politics. The chapter reviews developing working class literacy and subsequent growth of rank and file memoirs, which are an important source for this study. The chapter stresses the importance of the new barrack system in the UK and the growth of British Empire, both of which had profound consequences for British society.

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The UK Policy Agendas Project

Comparative Policy Agendas ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198835332.003.0020 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 176-183

Author(s):

Shaun Bevan ◽

Will Jennings

Keyword(s):

Front Page ◽

British Politics ◽

Policy Agenda ◽

The Public ◽

External Pressures ◽

Wide Range ◽

Policy Agendas ◽

The Times ◽

Rich Data ◽

The Uk

The UK Policy Agendas Project has collected a wide range of data on the policy agenda of major institutional venues in British politics and on the public and media agendas. This rich data source allows systematic and consistent analysis across institutions, and across countries, extending back over a century in the case of some agendas. The data provide measures of the policy agenda of the executive (the Speech from the Throne) and the legislature (Acts of UK Parliament), along with aggregate survey data about the public agenda (public opinion about the most important problem), media (front-page stories of The Times), Prime Minister’s Questions, and bills and hearings of the Scottish Parliament. Through its extensive collection of data, the project has enabled novel insights into the policy agenda of UK government, how it responds to shocks and external pressures, and how patterns of policy change and stability compare to other countries.

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