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This article discusses the management of distal radial fractures (DRF) and the unanswered questions surrounding their treatment. It highlights the increasing use of anterior locking plating (ALP) for DRFs and emphasizes the importance of understanding fracture anatomy and the limitations of ALP. The article also explores the use of ALP in corrective osteotomies without bone graft and the need for further research in this area. Additionally, it examines the advantages and nuances of operative versus non-operative treatment for DRFs, including the duration of sick leave and long-term outcomes. The study concludes that while short-term outcomes may be improved with ALP, the number of sick days was higher in the operatively treated group. Furthermore, long-term outcomes for DRFs were generally good, regardless of radiological outcomes, but the likelihood of a malunion becoming symptomatic remains unclear. The article suggests that future studies should consider the overall alignment of the wrist to determine the relationship between alignment and outcome in all populations. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Coal miners have been reported to have higher rates of risky/harmful alcohol misuse; however, it is not known if metalliferous mining employees whose working conditions differ in workplace practices, also have increased rates of risky/harmful alcohol misuse. This study aimed to examine alcohol consumption in a sample of Australian metalliferous mining workers and to examine the demographic and workplace factors associated with risky/harmful alcohol use. Methods: All employees from a convenience sample of four Australian mine sites were invited to complete a paper-based cross-sectional survey between June 2015 and May 2017. The survey contained questions relating to social networks, health behaviors, psychological distress, demographic characteristics, and risky/harmful drinking. Current alcohol use was measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), a validated measure of risky and/or harmful drinking. Factors associated with risky/harmful drinking were investigated using univariate and multivariable logistic regression. Findings: A total of 1,799 participants completed the survey (average site response rate 95%). Overall, 94.8% of males and 92.1% of females reported using alcohol in the preceding 12 months. The odds of risky/harmful alcohol use were significantly higher in those who were male, younger, and reported higher psychological distress. Conclusions/Application to Practice: This study identified that metalliferous mining employees engage in at-risk levels of alcohol consumption significantly higher than the national average despite workplace policies and practices that restrict alcohol use. Personal and workplace risk factors that may help target specific employee groups and inform the development of tailored, integrated multicomponent intervention strategies for the industry were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funeral workers (FWs) work within increasingly medicalized and commodified death-management systems. This study explored Worker Health and Safety (WHS) impacts in contemporary death management on Australian and Irish FWs. Mixed methods combined a survey and interviews. Survey data were descriptively summarized, interviews thematically analyzed, and a schematic systems model developed of the combined results. Survey participants (n = 45) reported psychosocial hazards from work pressures, competition, and fatigue. Psychosocial hazards were more frequently reported than physical hazards by Australian FWs. Physical hazards were of greater concern to Irish FWs. Themes from 11 interviews were: Personal Attributes, Work Demands, and Socio-Cultural Context. All FWs reported conflicts between individual capacities, work demands, and resources, resulting in hazardous personal states including difficulty sleeping and stress. Respectfully manually handling human remains and "event management" demands for increasingly elaborate funerals created negative WHS impacts. This research informs risk management for FWs and other workers in the increasingly complex death-care industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how livelihood security is co-produced through multiple strategies in Southeast Asia's agrarian transformation, by considering the case of Cambodian migrant workers, who cobble together their livelihood through a combination of land, labour and debt. These workers leverage small landholdings as collateral to take on debts to finance migration to Thailand, where low wages and insecure employment inhibit their ability to repay such debts. The traditional social welfare role of land as a safety net is superseded by the use of land as collateral to access microfinance loans, which are also commonly used to respond to livelihood shocks. In this financialised context, social protection schemes insufficiently address the combined livelihood risks that are assumed by workers and do not provide meaningful protection to workers. Drawing on field interviews, we argue that these various supposed sources of livelihood security rather act to increase precarity for workers, by exacerbating labour discipline and dependence on employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how advance notice of layoff affects the incidence and duration of unemployment following displacement. The authors use the Displaced Worker Survey for 1988, which, unlike earlier surveys in the series, contains information on written notice. The results are mixed. Longer written notice may more than double the proportion of white-collar workers who move directly to new employment. But written notice has no such positive effects for blue-collar workers, regardless of its length. Informal (unwritten) notice benefits male workers, either by improving their chances of avoiding unemployment (white-collar men) or by reducing the average spell of unemployment (blue-collar men). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of National Labor Relations Board certification election outcomes in individual election units between 1972 and 1980. Particular emphasis is given to the role of national union characteristics in determining union success or failure. The authors find that union success in organizing both blue- and white-collar workers is influenced positively by union size and internal democracy and negatively by strike activity and the centralization of its decision making. Benefits provided directly to members by unions significantly increase, and higher dues significantly reduce, white-collar organizing success, whereas the same factors have no significant effect on blue-collar organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printers have long been considered the epitome of the skilled blue-collar craftsmen. The complexity and variety of the work process, the state of technology in the industry, and the role of strong unions in maintaining shop floor autonomy have been important factors in preserving high levels of skill, and thus power, among printers. Recently, however, all this has been changing. The steady decline of industrial profit margins after World War II has led many large printing establishments to introduce more sophisticated printing technologies, particularly computerized typesetting processes, which have routinized work tasks and led to a decline of skill among printing craftsmen. In this paper, we provide substantive and empirical evidence for these processes with a time-series analysis of data from the printing industry for the years 1931-1978. We find support for our theory of industrial transformation. Specifically, our data suggest that skill levels in the industry have indeed declined and, moreover, that these declines are largely due to the shift to more capital-intensive printing techniques. Our arguments also support the view that social relations of production between employers and employees influence the nature of technology utilized in an industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal employment has been identified as an important social determinant of health. This article addresses the processes through which informal employment affects workers' health in Chile. The study's methodological approach was based on qualitative interviews with 34 formal and informal workers. The findings show how workers perceive informal employment as negatively affecting their mental and physical health through different dimensions of their living and working conditions. Incorporating a gender perspective proves to be integral to the analysis of these processes. The article concludes by discussing how neoliberalism underlies such vulnerability processes and negatively impacts on the population's health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between intelligence and occupation and, secondly, relates occupation to various aspects of migration. The relationship between occupation and test intelligence has been the subject of considerable investigation. There tends to be a hierarchy of occupational structure which is closely related to test intelligence, whether the classification is based on the subject's parental occupation or on his own occupation. The material for the investigation consists of the Ohio State University Intelligence Test scores for about 5,000 boys and girls who were high school seniors in 116 Missouri communities in 1939-41. There seems to be a distinct tendency for the brighter boys and girls in rural areas and small towns of Missouri, to find their occupational levels in the higher prestige occupations, especially the professional groups, while those who perform more poorly on tests are more likely to become manual worker and farmers with somewhat lower rankings on the prestige scale.

Aim: Chronic low back pain can reduce engagement and participation in all areas of daily life. Previous research has focused on employment and vocational rehabilitation initiatives, with less attention paid to its impact on leisure. This paper examines the difficulties men with chronic low back pain experienced in the maintenance of their leisure activities. It explores the connection between leisure and social networks and the potential barriers to resuming leisure occupations due to chronic low back pain. Method: This ethnographic study examined the experiences of 11 men involved in a vocational rehabilitation programme in New South Wales, Australia. Data were gathered using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Findings: Chronic low back pain has a critical impact on leisure occupations. It creates two barriers to a client's engagement in former leisure occupations: physical restrictions and financial barriers. Conclusion: The findings build on knowledge of how leisure impacts on social dimensions of health and wellbeing. Occupational therapists can play an important role in enabling people with chronic low back pain to re-engage in leisure. These interventions may reduce the social isolation experienced by individuals due to the loss of leisure activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of blue-collar unions on the wages and fringe benefits of white-collar workers employed in the same establishment. The author uses establishment data on employee compensation in 1974, the last year such data were collected, to estimate these wage and fringe spillovers in the two-digit industries in the manufacturing sector. Wage spillovers appear in only three of 16 industries, with the effect ranging from 10 to 19 percent. For fringes, however, significant spillovers are evident in 12 industries, with effects ranging from 15 to 52 percent. Although the models estimated also allow for the influence of white-collar unions on white-collar wages and fringes, no such effects were observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the marginal productivity theory is central to much of neoclassical labor economics, it has received little empirical support from previous studies, perhaps because of the difficulty of disaggregating the labor variable. This paper estimates the marginal productivity of eight different occupations by estimating production models with cross-section data and comparing the estimated marginal products with factor payments. Two levels of conclusions are reached. First, one can conclude with confidence that this study does not yield evidence supportive of the marginal productivity theory. A second, more tentative, conclusion is that there is a systematic difference between factor payments and productivities: blue-collar occupations are paid less than they produce while capital and white-collar occupations are paid more than they produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Americans face numerous obstacles in achieving their fullest developmental and career potentials in the current political, social, and economic environment. These barriers have produced, for the most part, workers who have been wage earners as opposed to being self-employed, and blue-collar workers rather than managers or proprietors (Daniel, 2001). This paper proposes solutions that would ensure that African American students who exhibit exceptional talent receive the kind of education to which they are entitled, in preparation for the careers of their choice. In addition to exploring the conditions that led to this underrepresentation, methods to desegregate gifted education programs and redress educational inequalities are analyzed. Specifically, the implications for counselors and teachers, those best situated to bring about positive change, will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although white-collar work is of vast importance to the economy, the operations management (OM) literature has focused largely on traditional blue-collar work. In an effort to stimulate more OM research into the design, control, and management of white-collar work systems, this paper provides a systematic review of disparate streams of research relevant to understanding white-collar work from an operations perspective. Our review classifies research according to its relevance to white-collar work at individual, team, and organizational levels. By examining the literature in the context of this framework, we identify gaps in our understanding of white-collar work that suggest promising research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latino day laborers (LDLs) are at a high risk for injury and accidents at work and have limited socioeconomic resources to deal with their consequences. While little is known about LDLs' perceptions of their own vulnerability at the workplace, less is known about the strategies they adopt to confront these risks. The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess LDLs' perceptions of their workplace dangers and to document the strategies they adopt and endorse to confront them. Guided by a participatory research approach, four focus groups stratified by age were conducted with 34 LDLs in Houston, Texas. Main focus group themes were identified using a combination of qualitative analysis methods involving a thematic analysis conducted by the interview team, LDL advisors, and bilingual Latino researchers. All participants were Latino males (mean age = 40), the majority reported having completed sixth grade or less (64.2%) and having lived in the United States for an average of 12.7 years. We described three categories of strategies to reduce risk for workplace injury generated by local LDLs (practical knowledge and job experience, interpersonal, and personal). These strategies should be explored and encouraged to assist in planning risk-reduction programs, presented in the voice and language of Latino "inside experts" with firsthand experience. The findings of the focus group suggest that LDLs already possess a broad repertoire of strategies to cope with risks at work that can be incorporated in safety programs for LDLs and other immigrant Latino workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of redundancy has in the past mainly concentrated on the way in which redundants have fared in the labour market after they have been dismissed.[1] There has also been an overemphasis on male manual workers. Consequently, there is a tendency to abstract individual redundancy from other means of coping with job redundancy, such as natural wastage and early retirements;[5] to stress large-scale redundancies and closures;[6] to neglect the process and management of redundancy; to ignore the repercussions of redundancies within the enterprises making them, and in certain cases, to treat redundancy as inevitable, albeit as a response to crisis situations.
The bulk of this paper reports a case study which is especially interesting in the light of these past failings. It concerns a division of a large multi-national company in which managerial job redundancies were handled largely through an early retirement scheme, and concentrates largely on the reactions of personnel who had not at the time of the research been asked to leave the firm. Prior to presenting this research I shall briefly discuss some of the literature specifically concerned with managerial staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the financial impact of the shutdown of a major truck manufacturing plant on a population of 3,596 blue- and white-collar employees. Telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of 555 production, clerical/technical, and managerial employees. Variables examined include subsequent employment experience, income loss, and asset loss. Significant differences were found among the samples, with the predominantly female clerical/technical employees generally suffering the greatest job and income losses, and males in all categories suffering the greatest asset loss. Total asset loss for the population as a whole is in excess of $17 million. Variables associated with income and asset loss are examined, and policy implications and organizing agendas are, explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of programmable machines into blue-collar machining occupations affords an opportunity to study the conditions under which occupational skill upgrading occurs with technological change. How do workplaces that permit blue-collar occupations to take on programming responsibilities differ from those that do not? This paper presents a contingency model explaining how this choice of job design is mediated by four types of factors: techno-economic forces, internal labor market structures, institutional mechanisms for governing the labor-management relationship, and the organizational context. The data are from a 1986-87 national survey of production managers in a size-stratified random sample of manufacturing establishments in 21 industries. A multivariate logistic regression analysis reveals that the technology and product market alone do not determine job design. The least complex organizations (small plant, small firm) tend to offer the greatest opportunities for skill upgrading, independent of techno-economic conditions -- a finding at variance with current labor market segmentation theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a sample of 1491 Canadian manual workers from three different industries-printing, automobile, and oil. These industries were selected to represent three basic types of sociotechnical systems that have been identified in recent literature-craft, mass and continuous process production systems. The main hypothesis is that worker integration in the organization differs by type of socio--technical system-being highest is the continuous process system, represented by the oil industry and lowest in the mass production system, represented by the automobile industry. Integration is investigated in five areas: (1) relationship with fellow workers, (2) relationship with first line supervisors, (3) labor-management relations, (4) status structure of the organization, and (5) evaluation of the company. The outstanding finding is that the oil worker is much more integrated regarding the above five areas of the organizational system than are auto workers. Printers fall in between, being closer to oil workers than to auto workers. The implications of worker integration in the organization for receptivity toward industrial change and alienation from the job are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of a slaughterhouse worker (SHW) involves the authorized killing of living beings, yet there is limited understanding of the consequences this behavior has on their well-being. The purpose of this systematic review is to collate and evaluate the current literature on the psychological impact of slaughterhouse employment. Fourteen studies met the specific a priori inclusion criteria. The findings from this review were demarcated by the focus of studies: (1) the prevalence of mental health disorders, (2) the types of coping mechanisms used, and (3) the link between slaughterhouse employment and crime perpetration. It was found that SHWs have a higher prevalence rate of mental health issues, in particular depression and anxiety, in addition to violence-supportive attitudes. Furthermore, the workers employ a variety of both adaptive and maladaptive strategies to cope with the workplace environment and associated stressors. Finally, there is some evidence that slaughterhouse work is associated with increased crime levels. The research reviewed has shown a link between slaughterhouse work and antisocial behavior generally and sexual offending specifically. There was no support for such an association with violent crimes, however. Based on existing research, we suggest future directions for research (i.e., applying more methodological rigor) but highlight key findings for practitioners and policymakers that warrant attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on various studies conducted by Purdue University's Industrial Relations Committee. Roy R. Nasstrom of the Department of Education conducted a study of teacher associations and unions. Researcher John F. Baum of the Krannert Graduate School of Industrial Administration conducted a study on absenteeism among blue-collar workers in the automobile industry. Researcher James R. Chelius of the Krannert Graduate School of Industrial Administration studied the impact of occupational safety risks on the structure of wages. Researcher L.F. Dunn of the Krannert Graduate School of Industrial Administration investigated manpower problems in the rural southern U.S.

Retirement anxiety represents a major challenge for older workers who hold negative expectations and concerns regarding the consequences of their future retirement. Although prior studies suggest that retirement is an age-related transition that may serve as a reminder that life is nearing its end, little is known about how subjective nearness-to-death is related to retirement anxiety, and the role of work group identification as a boundary condition. The current study draws on terror management and social identity theories to hypothesize and investigate these relationships. A three-way interaction model was tested on a sample of 327 Israeli older workers. We found a positive association between subjective nearness-to-death and retirement anxiety. Further, we demonstrated that the positive relationship between subjective nearness-to-death and retirement anxiety was more prominent for older workers whose work group self-definition and self-investment were both high or were both low. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior research has indicated that posttraumatic growth (PTG) often co-occurs with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, it is yet unclear what longitudinal patterns of posttraumatic symptom levels may predict the development of PTG. Methods: World Trade Center (WTC) rescue and recovery workers (2038 police and 2103 non-traditional responders) were assessed an average of 3, 6, 8, and 12 years post-9/11/2001. Responders' WTC-related PTSD symptoms were characterized by No/Low Symptom, Worsening/Subtly Worsening, Steeply Worsening (only for non-traditional responders), Improving, and Chronic trajectories. PTSD symptom trajectories were examined as predictors of PTG, which was assessed using total scores on the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form. Results: Across both occupational groups, being female, older, Hispanic, and experiencing more post-9/11 traumatic events were independently associated with self-reported PTG. Among police responders, a greater number of WTC exposures and supportive family members while working at the WTC site were linked to higher PTG. Among non-traditional responders, Black race/ethnicity, less education, fewer pre-9/11 traumatic events, and the presence of support while working at the WTC site were additionally linked to higher PTG. Only the moderate PTSD symptom trajectories (ie, worsening and improving) for police responders and all symptomatic trajectories for non-traditional responders were associated with higher levels of PTG. Conclusions: Symptomatic 12-year trajectories of PTSD symptoms and certain sociodemographic characteristics, stressor exposures, and supportive resources were associated with PTG in traditional and non-traditional WTC responders. Results provide insight into subgroups of WTC responders who may benefit from PTG-promoting interventions, as well as potentially modifiable targets to help foster PTG in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the linkages between gentrification and the displacement of small-scale manufacturing and blue-collar work in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Although the link between global economic change and gentrification has been made for the upper classes who are the consumers of the gentrified landscape, very little work has been done on the bluecollar work and workers that remain in the central city despite the assumption by policymakers that deindustrialization is complete. I argue that manufacturing is still a viable sector of the urban economy that is increasingly at risk of displacement because of the conversion of industrial space to residential use and speculative real-estate pressure. In this way, gentrification is encouraging industrial displacement, which in turn is leading to the degradation of the blue-collar work that remains and to the increasing informalization of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article lays the workplace under the microscope to examine how scuffs on floors and battered corners on desks – things we define as 'scarred objects' – become material autobiographical archives and are made into memory anchors by workers. We explore how these scarred objects, construed as insignificant by some, become integral to workers' sense of memory and continuity. These scarred objects become time marks (Walsh, 1992) which provide a sense of embeddedness in an otherwise flexible, transient working world. We draw on material culture and sociological literatures, and the work of Burnett and Holmes (2001), to make sense of scarred objects in terms of their significance to workers as well as their construal of work and relationship to organisation mediated through memory. This article is based on empirical, visual data gathered from a 9-month study involving 43 hairdressers working in hair salons. We offer three contributions: first, we develop a new area of material studies, at a micro-level, that extends our understanding of objects in the workplace; second, we demonstrate how scarred objects anchor workers' sense of memory; and third, we show the importance of scarred objects in the context of greater flexibility and liquidity in contemporary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an upsurge of interest regarding how actors engage with art within organizational processes. However, scholars have tended not to study the role of art within contemporary collective labour organizing. This article focuses on how participatory art may support flat, participative labour organizing, particularly among marginalized, relatively powerless workers. We present an ethnographic account of how art practices are deeply embedded within the flat organizing processes of Justice for Domestic Workers, a self-organizing group of migrant domestic workers in London. We reflect on this case to theorize the art of flat organizing, an ideal type of a set of participatory art practices that are compatible with and supportive of flat labour organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses data on marital endogamy by means of log-linear modelling in an attempt to specify changes in the British class structure between the mid-nineteenth and mid- twentieth centuries. The evidence on intermarriage was collected in Rochdale and involves five decennial periods over the hundred year span. A seven class model was used to categorize the data and a succession of log-linear models fitted. The hypotheses examined were taken from the sociological literature. Almost all postulated certain forms of structural transformation in class structures like Britain during this hundred year period. However, the model fitted did not require the inclusion of a term which. incorporated changes in class structuration over time and these hypotheses were rejected. Nevertheless, the fitted model did indicate the persistence of a class structure over the period. Examination of the odds ratios and scaled residuals associated with the model fitting suggested that the main lines of class cleavage occurred between the bourgeoisie and the unskilled manual working class and the remainder of the class categories. Conventional dichotomies associated with notions of a middle class/working class axis of class cleavage or a nonmanual/manual axis were not relevant to an explanation of the data presented and this was presented as a problem requiring further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on a broader investigation into class imagery, examines the attitudes of white- and blue-collar workers to certain aspects of trade unionism. The authors conclude that there are bask similarities in the attitudes of both groups of workers and that the differences that do exist may have been exaggerated by previous writers. In particular, the authors question the validity of the distinction between white-collar individualistic and blue-collar collectivistic responses to work and unionism. They argue that their data suggest that both sets of workers may be instrumentally collective with respect to trade unionism in that they tend to regard it as an instrument for the achievement of individualistic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent controversy about embourgeoisement seems to have paid scant attention to the possibility that there are also influences within some occupations in the manual work sector liable to increase working class consciousness. To help in the study of such influences, the present article proposes the well-established concept of proletarianisation and applies it to the manual work occupation of cooking. For sociologist Karl Marx, the concept of proletarianisation expressed his that part at least of the "petit bourgeoisie" would sink into the working class. He was thinking particularly of groups on the fringe of the class of owners: tradespeople, small-holding peasants and the like. Proletarianisation was denoted both by structural influences and a growing realization of where class interest really lay, leading to the gradual emergence of working class consciousness. However, the present article wishes to use the concept to refer, not to any movement between the middle and the working class but rather to mark a trend within the working class stratum itself.

This paper presents the first findings of a survey carried out in Melbourne, Australia. It attempts to test hypotheses based on the embourgeoisement thesis, and its variations, in a social system with a strong equalitarian ideology and compulsory arbitration for all sections of the work force. It assesses the economic differences between white collar and blue collar workers and also the difference between these groups and a middle class group. It also compares the Australian situation with America and Britain. It finds a significant difference between blue collar and white collar income rates, total income medians and career income medians, as against the apparent near parity of the situation in Britain and America. These differences are not mitigated by wives' earnings or income from other sources. There is an almost complete dichotomy between these groups and the middle class group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors find that auditing by downstream firms has limited effects on Chinese firms' adherence to labor standards and other measures of blue-collar workers' well-being. Auditing does not affect the supplier's blue-collar employees' wages, probability of belonging to a union, or likelihood of working overtime. Audited firms, however, are more likely to provide rural migrant workers (who usually face discrimination) with government-sponsored medical insurance, business medical insurance, and unemployment insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the culture-centered approach, we examine the meanings of health and negotiations of health care structures among low socioeconomic status (SES) Bangladeshi male migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We engage in coconstructive problem definition and strategizing through 44 semistructured in-depth interviews/focus groups about health, migration, and well-being. Our analysis of the participants' narratives elucidates the intersectionality of health as a lived experience of migrant labor within neoliberal structures focused on labor extraction, highlighting health not as a static or purely epidemiological construct, but as a combination of the physical, mental, spiritual, and socioeconomic material realities within which they are located. These include a recognition of the importance of interconnectedness of physical and mental well-being, drawing upon one's cultural and familial roles and responsibilities, as well as locating health within structurally exploitative practices. Specifically, the participants articulate the absence of substantive health and labor protections that result in poor health outcomes for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration has become a global phenomenon bringing with it complex and interrelated issues related to the physical and mental well-being of the people involved. This study investigated the mental well-being and factors associated with mental health among Myanmar migrant workers (MMW) in Malaysia. The cross-sectional study was conducted in Penang, Malaysia by using the WHO-5 Well-Being Index Scale (WHO-5) and the Mental Health subscale of 36 items in the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Among 192 migrant workers who were understudied, 79.2% had poor mental well-being according to the WHO-5 scale. The duration of stay in Malaysia and without receiving financial aid from their employers despite having a physical illness were significantly associated with poor mental well-being. Mental health support groups should target migrant workers for mental health education and find ways to provide assistance for them. Furthermore, premigration training should be delivered at the country of origin that also provides information on the availability of mental health support in the host country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational health and safety is poorly served by United Nations agencies designated to protect workers: the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO). The neoliberal programs initially adopted by the United Nations supported institutions of social protection and regulation and expanded worker protections and union growth. Neoliberalism later became synonymous with globalism and shared in its international success. The fundamental change under neoliberalism was the exchange and accumulation of capital. The major beneficiaries of neoliberalism, at the expense of workers, were large transnational corporations and wealthy investors. During this period, WHO and ILO activities in support of workers declined. As neoliberalism ultimately became neoconservatism, occupational health and safety was purposely ignored, and labor was treated with hostility. Neoliberalism had evolved into a harsh economic system detrimental to labor and labor rights. The United Nations is now in decline, taking with it the trivial WHO and ILO programs. Replacements for the WHO and ILO programs must be developed. It is not enough to call for renewed funding, given the United Nations' failure to direct the global effort to protect workers. A new direction must be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In Ontario, when an occupational injury occurs in the mining industry, there is often a need to interact with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). During this process, miners experience economic, social, and mental health–related issues that can affect their overall well-being. This study aimed to determine the impact of a lower back injury and the WSIB claim process experience expressed by some male, underground miners in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study design that utilized in-depth, individual qualitative interviews was conducted. Twelve male participants (underground miners) were interviewed in Sudbury, Ontario. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed. Findings: The results emphasized the need for improved communication, the necessity for resources to be allocated to enhance public discussion about injury prevention, the social and economic burden that miners and their families face, and the power imbalances between injured miners and the companies that were meant to support them. Conclusion/Application to Practice: The findings indicate that several areas require improvement for an injured miner who submits a WSIB claim. Ideally, participants wanted an improved and streamlined process for reporting an injury and for WSIB claim management. These findings suggest that occupational health practices that foster a safe and healthy work environment in the mining industry must be promoted, which will help to guide future policies that enhance support for an injured worker and the WSIB claim process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to insurance coverage is challenging for middle-aged adults with higher perceived insurance needs (e.g., declining health status) and higher barriers to coverage (e.g., unstable employment and income status). Focusing on middle-aged adults, this study investigated the extent to which employment, financial, and health statuses are associated with changing patterns of insurance status following implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Seven waves (2002–2014) of the Health and Retirement Study, combined with the RAND Center for the Study of Aging data, were used. Four patterns of insurance status change emerged: constantly insured, constantly uninsured, insured after ACA, and uninsured after ACA. Compared to constantly insured, other subgroups were associated with unstable employment, unskilled labor, and part-time employment. The role of public insurance might be nearly negligible for those who were in unstable employment status and needed to shift to other forms of private coverage. More attention is needed to better understand how the insurance market functions and policy changes that could improve it. There were demographic patterns in those who remained chronically uninsured: constantly low income and poor health conditions. This suggests a much-needed practical underpinning for policymaking efforts regarding this high-risk group entering old age with catastrophic health care costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the aspects that determine job duration in Germany. Using information from a German labor survey entitled the “Linked Employer-Employee Data of the Institute of Employment Research,” (LIAB) the authors assessed how long German workers remained in specific employment positions. It was determined that firm characteristics such as the opportunity for continuing education and the existence of work councils strongly influenced the rate of turnover. However, these effects are limited to blue-collar jobs or jobs predicated upon vocation-educational skills.

The authors examine a model of employee grievance activity that encompasses both workplace and labor market determinants and attempts to reconcile inconsistent findings in the literature by taking into account the possible moderating effects of labor power. A multi-level analysis of data from 1996--97 on 1,383 blue-collar workers suggests that labor market factors influenced grievance activity much less directly than workplace characteristics did, and that the nature of these influences was more complex than has previously been hypothesized. Specifically, consistent with power-dependence theory, the authors find that the direct effects of at least one labor market factor, the wage premium, were likely to be contingent on labor power, and that the labor market itself may have moderated the effects of certain workplace factors on employee grievance filing in a manner consistent with efficiency wage theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earnings of truck drivers fell by 21% between 1973 and 1995. Using Current Population Survey data, the authors find that deregulation accounted for one-third of the decline in drivers' wages, with a larger negative effect for non-union workers. Economic forces that broadly affected the blue-collar economy, proxied by the manufacturing wage, accounted for more than two-thirds of the decline. Finally, using unique survey data, the authors explore the effects of factors frequently cited as sources of blue-collar wage decline. This analysis indicates that only one new technology, satellite communication systems, had meaningful effects on drivers' earnings, which rose as a consequence of superior efficiency and work intensification. Union membership remains an important determinant of wages, with members earning 18% to 21% more than their non-union counterparts. The authors conclude that the primary sources of wage decline and increased wage inequality have been deregulation, de-unionization, and a declining manufacturing wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing-world rural migrants provide crucial labor for global supply chains and economic growth in their native countries. Yet their high turnover engenders considerable organizational costs and disruptions threatening those contributions. Organizational scholars thus strive to understand why these workers quit, often applying turnover models and findings predominantly derived from the United States, Canada, England or Australia (UCEA). Predominant applications of dominant turnover theories however provide limited insight into why developing-world migrants quit given that they significantly differ from UCEA workforces in culture, precarious employment and rural-to-urban migration. Based on multi-phase, multi-source and multi-level survey data of 173 Chinese migrants working in a construction group, this study adopts an identity strain perspective to clarify why they quit. This investigation established that migrants retaining their rural identity experience more identity strain when working and living in distant urban centers. Moreover, identity strain prompts them to quit when their work groups lack supervisory supportive climates. Furthermore, migrants' adjustment to urban workplaces and communities mediates the interactive effect of identity strain and supervisory supportive climate on turnover. Overall, this study highlighted how identity strain arising from role transitions and urban adjustment can explain why rural migrants in developing societies quit jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing workers comprise 8.8% of the total U.S. workforce representing a sizable population for disease prevention and health promotion by occupational health nurses within worksite wellness programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived health status and objective health status including existing chronic disease among rural manufacturing workers. Rural manufacturing workers (n = 114) completed a general health survey and consented to a retrospective chart review. All were participants in a direct incentive wellness program with biometric data available. The majority of participants were males between the ages of 46 and 60 years, and nearly half of the sample had a college degree. A statistically significant difference was observed between number of chronic diseases and lower perceived health status. These findings have implications for occupational health nurses and other health care providers to identify workers at risk for chronic illness through self-perceived health status assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of interplant sex segregation in the U.S. manufacturing industry improves on previous work by using more detailed information on the characteristics of both workers and firms and adopting an improved measure of segregation. The data source is the Worker-Establishment Characteristics Database (a U.S. Census Bureau database) for 1990. There are three main findings. First, interplant sex segregation in the U.S. manufacturing industry is substantial, particularly among blue-collar workers. Second, even in analyses that control for a variety of plant characteristics, the authors find that female managers tend to work in the same plants as female supervisees. Finally, they find that interplant sex segregation can account for a substantial fraction of the male/female wage gap in the manufacturing industry, particularly among blue-collar workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data for 1979-91, the authors analyze the effect of union representation on the likelihood that individuals eligible for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits actually received those benefits They find that unions had no statistically significant effect on the probability of benefit receipt among white-collar workers, but among eligible blue-collar workers, those who were laid off from union jobs were roughly 23% more likely than comparable nonunion workers to receive UI benefits Although the analysis does not identify the reasons for this difference, two factors it appears to rule out as determinants are union-negotiated supplemental unemployment benefit plans and differences between union and nonunion workers in expected unemployment duration [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the disenfranchisement of blacks in South Africa, the state's refusal to officially recognize black unions until 1980, and police repression of the union movement, this analysis of data for 1985 shows that black unions in South Africa had by that year made wage gains similar to those of unions in more developed countries. The union effect on wages for black blue-collar workers was 24%, which is in the range of effects found in studies of U.S. unions and above the range of effects found for European unions. Another finding is that black unions compressed wages across skill levels, an effect probably owing to black unions' primary emphasis on improving the lot of unskilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Displaced Workers Survey and the National Bureau of Economic Research Trade and Immigration Dataset, the author of this study finds that among manufacturing workers displaced in 1979-83, the average duration of joblessness varied directly with the rise in their industry's import share since 1972-74. This relationship appears to be due in large part to the fact that the work force in industries with rising import shares tends to have demographic characteristics associated with labor market adjustment difficulties, such as higher proportions of women and blue-collar workers than are found in other industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides evidence that wages in the public sector tend to be higher than in the private sector for most blue-collar jobs and lower level white-collar jobs, but salaries are generally lower in the public sector for managerial and professional occupations. The authors argue that these differentials, many of which are accentuated by differences in fringe benefits and job security, can be explained in large part by a combination of two factors: the discretion that public employers must exercise in implementing the prevailing wage rule adopted by most cities and larger government units, and the nature of the political forces that affect governmental wage decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explores the link between wages and internal and external modes of skill acquisition for blue-collar workers. The employer in this study was the Madison, Wisconsin plant of the Gisholt Machine Company, Incorporated. The main source of data used in the study was a questionnaire data supplied by the company's employees. The impact of pre-employment training and related experience on wages were estimated. The estimation results were compared with the wage effects of on-the-job training and internal mobility after employment. The internal labor market practices of job promotion and training in the firm made greater contributions to blue-collar earnings than skill or knowledge acquired by workers before joining the firm.

The article presents a study on permanent employment of Japanese blue-collar workers conducted in 1965-1966 in Japanese firms. The essence of a permanent employment system is present in any industrial society. All enterprises attempt to reduce employee turnover and its attendant costs, especially if investment in specific training of individuals is significant. Workers also have economic and psychological stakes in their employment. Labor market arrangements must guarantee some degree of employment tenure if they are successfully to motivate employees. The Japanese labor market can best be understood if its similarities to the labor markets of other industrialized nations are examined along with its distinctive characteristics. Few social practices in postwar Japan have so caught the attention of American social scientists, as has the practice of permanent employment. Permanent employment generally means that an employee enters a large firm after school graduation receives in-company training and remains an employee in the same company until the retirement age of fifty-five. It is a pattern limited primarily to male employees.