The Global Expansion of Precarious Employment, Work Disorganization, and Consequences for Occupational Health: Placing the Debate in a Comparative Historical Context

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Quinlan ◽  
Claire Mayhew ◽  
Philip Bohle
Keyword(s):  
Research Evidence ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Contingent Work ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Two Phases

Mounting research evidence suggests that the shift to contingent work arrangements in industrialized countries is having serious adverse effects on the health of workers, both directly and indirectly (by undermining regulatory and other protections). The authors place this research, and the issues surrounding it, in a comparative historical context. Extensive use of precarious employment is not essentially new. It was a characteristic feature of most if not all industrialized societies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Though the two phases are not identical, historical comparisons are instructive for understanding recent experiences and ways of addressing them. The authors also make comparisons with the developing world, where the informal sector typically accounts for over half the workforce. Such comparisons are instructive in indicating the consequences of a shift to more precarious patterns of employment and disorganized work settings. There is also good evidence that precarious employment is expanding in the developing world. The growing precarious employment in both industrialized and developing countries is interconnected, and the authors identify a number of the mechanisms affecting workers' health.

Transport and Energy Demand in the Developing World: The Urgent Alternatives

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 825-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Bauer ◽  
Elizabeth Mar
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Internal Combustion Engines ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Internal Combustion ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Economies In Transition ◽  
Light Trucks ◽  
Fuel Substitution ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Business As Usual

The appeal of individual mobility provided today by automobiles and light trucks with internal combustion engines, makes transportation the sector most resilient to a fuel substitution away from its dependence on oil. While the number of vehicles per capita and the distance traveled per vehicle are approaching saturation levels in the industrialized countries (IEA 2002), increases in population and income per capita, economic reforms and industry globalization can result in an off-trend accelerated growth of vehicles in the economies in transition (FSU and EE) and in the developing world (China, India and Latin America, mainly). The corresponding world road use energy consumption could reach a 200 percent increase from present levels by the year 2020, instead of an already worrisome “business as usual” projection of 75 percent (BAUER 2003, 2004). This paper analyses the mitigation effect on world oil demand and on its environmental impact that a policy of leapfrogging towards energy efficient internal combustion technologies and/or alternative vehicles – hybrid or fully electric – could have.

“Good” Evidence: A Critical Lens on Representations of Development and the Developing World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Jean Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Developing World ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Alternative Representation ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
Charity Fundraising ◽  
Visual Racism

The ethics of conventional representations of the developing world in charity fundraising and photojournalism have been increasingly questioned. Van Leeuwen‘s (2000) social semiotic model of analysis of visual racism, applied to a famine image, reveals strategies for symbolically representing otherness that perpetuate a naturalized "Western rescuer/developing world victim" narrative. Respondent interviews demonstrate that such "poverty porn" produces viewer apathy, while an alternative representation depicting self-determination evokes a charitable response. Elliott‘s (2003) ethical framework is used to judge the harm of conventional representations. The results, while tentative, suggest worth in expanding the study in light of implications for represented persons, the viewer, and Canadian society. In the meantime, image producers and distributors must become visually literate to avoid using harmful images.

Meditation in Prison

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Auty
Keyword(s):  
Substance Misuse ◽  
Research Evidence ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Wellbeing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Vipassana Meditation ◽  
Prison Studies

In recent years interest in the use of meditation programs in prison has grown considerably, yet empirical research evidence for their effectiveness has been slower to accumulate. This chapter explores the application of meditation programs that take place within prison walls and evaluates their effectiveness in three key areas: (i) mental health and psychological wellbeing; (ii) substance misuse; (iii) and reoffending behavior. Evidence from prison studies, most of them conducted in the USA, is reviewed with a focus on their effectiveness. The philosophical and historical context of meditation is taken into account, and key concepts and definitions are critiqued. The chapter explores the meditation practices that are most often found in prison, such as Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness, and Vipassana meditation. It examines meditation’s role as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of substance misuse disorders and more general applications that aim to enhance well-being. The limitations of current studies together with directions for future research are also discussed.

Roman Catholic Tradition and Ritual and Business Ethics

2001 ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Barbara Hilkert Andolsen
Keyword(s):  
Work Force ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Contingent Work ◽  
Clerical Workers ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Catholic Social Teachings ◽  
Table Fellowship ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
Social Teachings

Clerical workers are an important segment of the work force. Catholic social teachings and eucharistic practice shed useful moral light on the increase in contingent work arrangements among clerical workers. The venerable concept of "the universal destination of the goods of creation" and a newer understanding of technology as "a shared workbench" illuminate the importance of good jobs for clerical workers. However, in order to apply Catholic social teachings to issues concerning clerical work as women's work, sexist elements in traditional Catholic social teachings must be critically assessed. Participation in the Eucharist helps shape a moral stance of inclusivity and sensitivity to forms of social marginalization. While actual practice fails fully to embody gender or racial inclusivity, participation in the inclusive table fellowship of the Eucharist should make business leaders question treating contingent workers as a peripheral work force.

scholarly journals Regulating Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management

2003 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Øystein Saksvik ◽  
Michael Quinlan
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Crucial Element ◽  
Regulatory Strategy

Summary The promotion of systematic occupational health and safety management (SOHSM) represents a comparatively recent but significant realignment of regulatory strategy that has been embraced by many, if not most, industrialized countries. As yet there has been little critical evaluation of the origins and implications of this shift, and to what extent the experience of these measures differs between countries. This article seeks to start the process of answering these questions by comparing SOHSM in Norway and Australia. We identified a number of common challenges (problems of “paper” compliance, limited union input and the growth of precarious employment). In particular, the article highlights the interdependence of OHS and industrial relations regulatory regimes and argues the move away from inclusive collectivist regimes places significant constraints on independent vetting of SOHSM—a crucial element in their effectiveness.

Prophets of international technocracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-60
Author(s):  
Jens Steffek
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Public Unions ◽  
American Political Scientist ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Administrative Tasks

This chapter is focused on the emergence of technocratic internationalism. The first section shows how praise for rational public administration developed in philosophy. It discusses Henri de Saint-Simon’s ideas about the virtues of expert government; the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill; and how German philosopher Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel idealized Prussia’s efficient bureaucracy. From these philosophical foundations, the chapter proceeds to the professionalization of public administration that in the 19th century took place in all industrialized countries and some of their colonies. The trend spilled over to the international level in the form of the ‘international public unions’, expert bodies with administrative tasks which ignited the imagination of technocratically inclined visionaries. Having sketched the historical context, the second part of the chapter presents the first programmatic proposals for bureaucratic international governance. They were tabled in the 1880s, when international lawyers moved from an analysis of these public unions to a programmatic vision of international relations managed by these bodies. The discussion zooms in on the Russian law scholar Pierre Kazansky and the American political scientist Paul S. Reinsch, whose respective works offer clear examples of how colonialism influenced early thinking about international organizations.

Biosocial advantages of an adequate birth interval

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (S4) ◽  
pp. 69-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Morley
Keyword(s):  
Health Worker ◽  
Birth Interval ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Considerable Effect ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Part Time ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Health Programmes

SummaryThe process of urbanization in the Third World has vastly outstripped the equivalent change in industrialized countries, and also far exceeds the population growth. This urbanization has been associated with the spread of artificial feeding and associated short birth intervals. Although relatively few studies have been undertaken on the effect of length of birth interval, we have good evidence that it is associated with poorer growth, a less satisfactory intellectual development, and a higher mortality. Child health programmes have, up to the present, been only marginally involved in the question of birth interval, although as mentioned this has a considerable effect on the health of the child. In overcoming malnutrition, simple weight charts are now widely accepted as a useful tool by which the adequate growth of the child can be monitored, and in this way malnutrition prevented. These same weight charts can be a useful means of identifying in any community the month in which a woman has a 5% chance of conceiving again. The charts can also be used as a means of recording the dialogue between the health worker and the parents on the most appropriate time interval to separate their children. However, to achieve this the developing countries will need a vast increase in the health personnel they have available. Experience now in a number of countries suggests that the part-time health worker may be particularly appropriate for providing such services.

The Effect of Perceived CSR on Behavioral Outcomes in Contingent Work Arrangements

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (1) ◽  
pp. 14881
Author(s):  
HeungJun Jeong ◽  
Yoon-Ho Kim ◽  
Saehee Kang ◽  
Eugene Son
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Contingent Work ◽  
Work Arrangements

Labor Unions in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Kurzman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Corporate America ◽  
Contingent Work ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Landscape

Labor unions are major participants in the world of work in the United States and abroad. Although union membership in the United States has steadily declined since the 1950s, unions continue to provide a critical countervailing force to the largely unchecked power of employers, whose strength has increased. Hence, to be successful in meeting their goals, unions must learn to deal creatively with the realities of automation, globalization, privatization, de-unionization, and the trend toward contingent work arrangements. Nonetheless, despite the disadvantages and struggles they face, labor unions in 2020 represented almost 16 million wage and salary workers, who have families who vote; therefore, they remain a core constituency for political and corporate America and a significant part of the economic landscape in this country and abroad. Unions remain a core constituency and continue to be a significant part of the economic landscape in this country and beyond.

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