Joint Labor and Environmental Networks’ Chemical Disaster Prevention Recommendations to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board

More than 180 preventable incidents at hazardous chemicals facilities occur each year, resulting in deaths, injuries, evacuations, shelter in place orders, environmental contamination, and facility shutdowns with permanent job loss. As of June 17, 2021, the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) had nineteen open site investigations of incidents that in total killed thirty-two people, injured at least eighty-seven people, led to thousands of residents sheltering in place or evacuating, and resulted in many millions of dollars in property damage. This document outlines twenty-one practical and measurable actions that the CSB can take to rebuild its investigative and recommendations capacity; set clear priorities for agency action; reform its governance policies; and increase public transparency and engagement. The proposed actions address incident investigations, safety studies, safety recommendations, agency governance, and public transparency and engagement.

Nearly Extinct in the Wild: The Vulnerable Transparency of the Endangered Species List

This article reconstructs the Endangered Species Act as a government information statute. That Act makes use of an official list of vulnerable creatures that is used for agency action to save them from extinction. This article argues that the official list of species is not sufficiently accurate or transparent to citizens, so the compilation of that list does not satisfy the public interest goals of American environmental law or government transparency policy.

Interventions to Reduce the Impact of Client Death on Home Care Aides: Employers’ Perspectives

For home care agencies and aides, the death of clients has important, yet often unrecognized, workforce implications. While research demonstrates that client death can cause grief and job insecurity for aides, we currently lack home care agencies’ perspectives on this issue and approaches to addressing it. This study uses key informant interviews with leaders from a diverse sample of eight New York City home care agencies to explore facilitators and barriers to agency action. We found that agencies engaged primarily in a range of informal, reactive practices related to client death, and relatively few targeted and proactive efforts to support aides around client death. While leaders generally acknowledged a need for greater aide support, they pointed to a lack of sustainable home care financing and policy resources to fund this. We recommend increased funding to support wages, paid time off, and supportive services, and discuss implications for future research.

Korean and Romanian women: victims of foreign and native violence

"War and political rebellions turn people into beasts, and while men bring about most of these dreadful events, it is women and children who have to suffer their consequences. The aim of my paper is to bring to light the common fate of women in two spatially distant and culturally different societies (Korean and Romanian), showing that in the past century they were victims of both foreign and native violence. During WWII, Japanese soldiers have sexually exploited Korean women, whereas their Romanian sisters fell prey to the Russian soldiers withdrawing from war. Later on, during the communist regime in Romania and in the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising in Korea in 1980, the Romanian and Korean women became the victims of their own compatriots. To illustrate this sad fate, I have employed fragments excerpted from various Romanian and Korean novels, as well as secondary data. The framework I made use of is the social theory according to which “agency /action and social structure are recognized as major dimensions of social reality” (Sibeon 2004, 117) and are in strong connection with power and interests. This theory claims that it is humans in the world that do things, but very often these things are performed by individual actors that have power or are empowered by institutions. Irrespective of whether the men who were the agents/actors of women’s abuse had physical or political power over their victims, what happened to the Romanian and"

Larangan Ultra Vires (Exces De Pouvoir) dalam Tindakan Pemerintahan (Studi Komparasi Konsep antara Sistem Hukum Anglo Saxon dan Sistem Hukum Kontinental)

This research aims to determine the use of authority by government agencies is legality. Specifically, to find out more about the prohibition of Ultra Vires (Exces De Pouvoir) in Government Actions (Comparative Study of Concepts between the Anglo Saxon Law System and the Continental Legal System). The results of the study indicate that First, the form of government agency action prohibition in the form of excès de pouvoir (ultra vires), both in the Anglo Saxon legal system (Britain, USA, Australia, etc.) and Continental especially France includes also the prohibition of abuse of authority (abuse of power, detournement de pouvoir). Second, the Prohibition of abuse of authority (detournement de pouvoir) in France has been developed into 3 (three) variants, namely the Administrative Agency has the purpose / aims to achieve goals that are entirely other than the public interest, and as a personal goal. Keywords: Prohibition of Ultra Vires, Government Actions, Legal System. Abstrak Penelitian inimbertujuan untuk mengetahui Larangan Ultra Vires (Exces De Pouvoir) dalam Tindakan Pemerintahan (Studi Komparasi Konsep Antara Sistem Hukum Anglo Saxon Dan Sistem Hukum Kontinental). Hasil penelitian menjukan bahwa Pertama, Bentuk larangan tindakan badan pemerintah yang berupa excès de pouvoir (ultra vires), baik dalam sistem hukum Anglo Saxon (Inggris, USA, Australia, dll) maupun Kontinental khususnya Prancis meliputi juga larangan penyalahgunaan wewenang (abuse of power, detournement de pouvoir). Kedua, Larangan penyalahgunaan wewenang (detournement de pouvoir) di Prancis telah dikembangkan ke dalam 3 (tiga) varian, yaitu Badan Administrasi memiliki tujuan/bertujuan untuk mencapai tujuan yang sepenuhnya selain bagi kepentingan umum, dan sebagai tujuan pribadi. Kata Kunci: Larangan Ultra Vires, Tindakan Pemerintahan, Sistem Hukum.

Making the urban environment around schools healthier, developing an initial programme theory: an early realist process evaluation of the London superzones pilot

ABSTRACTBACKGROUNDMore than four out of five people in England live in an urban area so the urban environment is an important determinant of health and an important contributor to health inequalities. This is especially true for children, for whom the impacts of their local environment may have lifelong effects. To improve the health effects of the urban environment the London Devolution Partnership piloted multi-agency partnerships focusing on 400m ‘superzones’ around schools in deprived communities. The intention is for local partners to work together to make the environment within the superzone healthier.METHODSA realist process evaluation of 13 pilot sites. We used data from programme documents, a rapid literature search, and interviews with lead officers for the 13 local authorities that took part in the programme. Qualitative analysis was used to identify combinations of context, mechanisms, and outcomes (CMOs) that affected the creation of a local partnership and plan.RESULTSAll but one of the 13 pilot sites established a superzone and multi-agency action plan. We identified 12 CMOs that affect the process of creating a school superzone. We present a logic model that describes how these CMOs combine to make up an initial programme theory of superzones. Key aspects of this programme theory include the importance of local partners’ priorities, leadership and support from across the local authority, and the flexibility of the model itself.CONCLUSIONThe superzones model is an emerging framework for local place-based partnership working to improve the urban environment. However, the success of the model is likely to depend on local context. The evidence presented here could guide the further roll out of the model, and support those local authorities that want to create superzones.