Covid-19 and social care: Union strategies to reshape a dysfunctional sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
Kevan Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Multidimensional Approach ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Competing Ideas ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Care System

In volume 120 of Theory and Struggle (pp. 124-33), I described Unison North West’s Care Workers for Change campaign and how our multidimensional approach to organising in the care sector was informed by the work of John Kelly (Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves, 1998) and Jane McAlevey (No Short Cuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, 2016). The Covid-19 pandemic has subsequently brought unprecedented catastrophe and human suffering to vulnerable people and workers in our dysfunctional social care system. This contribution first describes the impact of Covid-19 on social care and union responses to it. The focus then turns to competing ideas about how the social care system might be reshaped and the role of unions in pursuing meaningful structural and institutional change that could win lasting improvements for care workers.

Support workers in social care: Between social work professionals and service users

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-142
Author(s):  
Andreas Liljegren ◽  
Anna Dunér ◽  
Elisabeth Olin
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
The One

In this chapter the authors adopt a neo-Weberian approach in exploring the current debate about the role of support workers in social care, specifically whether it should be a service run by staff or by the users. The aim of the chapter is to describe and analyse the role of support workers for disabled people in two settings, support workers in residential social care and personal assistants in domiciliary care, both operating within Swedish social work. These two settings have chosen radically different ways to organise the social care in terms of power relations. On the one hand, residential care workers chose a traditional path with staff claiming to be experts in helping and thereby subordinating service users. On the other, the personal assistants took a more unorthodox direction by being themselves subordinated by the service users. Both of these groups might be seen as a new precariat in social care because of their working conditions. As in other societies, this raises the question of how this situation may be addressed at the national political level.

Research on the Effects of Over-the-Counter Drug Advertising

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald L. Kanter
Keyword(s):  
Drug Misuse ◽  
Pharmaceutical Advertising ◽  
Drug Usage ◽  
Over The Counter ◽  
Drug Advertising ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Commercial Advertising ◽  
The Impact

Dr. Kanter presents a summary of his research assessing the role of OTC advertising in Influencing drug usage. His work represents the only systematic study of the impact of commercial advertising on drug usage. He stresses that advertising in itself does not directly lead to drug misuse but should be considered as part of a host of factors in the social environment and in the media environment that have significant influence in determining people's behavior. He also urged that the existing pharmaceutical advertising codes, which are often violated, be reviewed and strengthened.

scholarly journals Exploring the effectiveness of a COVID-19 contact tracing app using an agent-based model

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonatan Almagor ◽  
Stefano Picascia
Keyword(s):  
High Rate ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavioural Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
User Rate

AbstractA contact-tracing strategy has been deemed necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19 following the relaxation of lockdown measures. Using an agent-based model, we explore one of the technology-based strategies proposed, a contact-tracing smartphone app. The model simulates the spread of COVID-19 in a population of agents on an urban scale. Agents are heterogeneous in their characteristics and are linked in a multi-layered network representing the social structure—including households, friendships, employment and schools. We explore the interplay of various adoption rates of the contact-tracing app, different levels of testing capacity, and behavioural factors to assess the impact on the epidemic. Results suggest that a contact tracing app can contribute substantially to reducing infection rates in the population when accompanied by a sufficient testing capacity or when the testing policy prioritises symptomatic cases. As user rate increases, prevalence of infection decreases. With that, when symptomatic cases are not prioritised for testing, a high rate of app users can generate an extensive increase in the demand for testing, which, if not met with adequate supply, may render the app counterproductive. This points to the crucial role of an efficient testing policy and the necessity to upscale testing capacity.

Practitioner Review: Continuity and Change: The Fair Work Act in Aviation

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Bussell ◽  
John Farrow
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
National Debate ◽  
New Development ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

This article begins by discussing the specific industrial relations challenges of the highly competitive aviation industry. It then reflects on the outcome of the recent intense national debate over industrial relations, exploring the consequences of that debate for practice and policy, and discusses some key issues that remain in play. Although the Fair Work Act 2009 may have come about as a reaction to what many perceive as the ‘excesses’ of Work Choices, the new Act does not so much ‘wind back the clock’ as represent a significant new development in Australia’s long and unique industrial relations history. This article will discuss the impact of the changes, to date, made by the Fair Work Act on one organization, including the expansion of the ‘safety net’, and how the new compromise between the role of the ‘collective’ and the role of the ‘individual’ struck by the Act has the potential to fundamentally change the nature and structure of bargaining. We offer these comments as practitioners who have worked under successive industrial relations regimes since the early 1980s.

scholarly journals The value of psychiatrists in leadership and management

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Perry ◽  
Fiona L. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Management Styles ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Medical Leadership ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Organisational Level

SummaryThe health and social care landscape in the UK is changing, and there is now, more than ever, a real need for doctors to embrace leadership and management. Evidence shows that medical leadership is associated with better outcomes for patients. Psychiatrists are particularly well suited to such roles, given the interpersonal skills and self-awareness that they develop in their training. In this article, we examine the role of the psychiatrist in leading at a patient, team and organisational level and the impact this has. We also discuss different leadership and management styles.

scholarly journals Migration infrastructures and the production of migrants’ irregularity in Japan and the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nando Sigona ◽  
Jotaro Kato ◽  
Irina Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe article examines the migration infrastructures and pathways through which migrants move into, through and out of irregular status in Japan and the UK and how these infrastructures uniquely shape their migrant experiences of irregularity at key stages of their migration projects.Our analysis brings together two bodies of migration scholarship, namely critical work on the social and legal production of illegality and the impact of legal violence on the lives of immigrants with precarious legal status, and on the role of migration infrastructures in shaping mobility pathways.Drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular and precarious migrants in Japan and the UK collected over a ten-year period, this article develops a three-pronged analysis of the infrastructures of irregularity, focusing on infrastructures of entry, settlement and exit, casting a comparative light on the mechanisms that produce precarious and expendable migrant lives in relation to access to labour and labour conditions, access and quality of housing and law enforcement, and how migrants adapt, cope, resist or eventually are overpowered by them.

Party-Political and Socio-Economic Сonsequences of Elections to the German Bundestag

2021 ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
V.B. Belov
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
The Face ◽  
German Bundestag ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Further Development

The article examines the results of the last Bundestag elections. They marked the end of the Angela Merkel era and reflected the continuation of difficult party-political and socio-economic processes in the informal leader of the European Union. The main attention of the research focuses on the peculiarities of the election campaign of the leading parties and of the search for ways of further development of Germany in the face of urgent economic and political challenges. These challenges include the impact of the coronavirus crisis, the impact of the energy and digital transition to a climate-neutral economy, and the complex international situation. Based on original sources, the author analyzes the causes of the SPD victory and the CDU/CSU bloc defeat, the results of the negotiations of the Social Democrats with the Greens and Liberals, the content of the coalition agreement from the point of view of the prospects for the development of domestic and foreign policy and the economy of Russia's main partner in the west of the Eurasian continent. The conclusion is made about the absence of breakthrough ideas, the consistent continuation of the course started by the previous government for a carbon-free economy and the strengthening of the role of Germany in Europe and the world. For this course, conflicts and problems in achieving the set goals will be immanent due to the compromising nature of the coalition agreements.

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