Building Power From the Bottom‐Up: How Union Leaders Navigate Power Relations Under Algorithmic Management

An increasing body of research shows that climate change takes expression in local processes such as increased climatic variability; climatic risk is managed in relation to other risks in agricultural households; and adaptation is an everyday social process as much as a question of new crop varieties. Understanding how farming households experience the interactions of climatic variability, multifaceted risk, adaptation, and everyday social processes is crucial to informed policy development. A study of New South Wales wheat farming households during the failed harvest seasons of 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 provided a unique opportunity to examine how they approached unprecedented drought in relation to both past and future changes. We analyzed their experience of the hybrid assemblage comprising risk, climate change, and a deregulated policy environment in their everyday lives and individual bodies. These farmers are not adapting to future conditions but are in continuous interplay among multiple temporalities, including memories of the past. They see themselves as adapting in situ rather than relocating northwards with predicted rainfall movements. Capacities to deal with risk and uncertainty vary with a range of social and locational factors, tending to coalesce into patterns of vulnerability and resilience that offer strong predictors as to which households are most likely to be sustainable in the longer term.

Anthracite Labor Wars: Tenancy, Italians, and Organized Crime in the Northern Coalfield of Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1897–1959

The color red has been implicated in a variety of social processes, including those involving mating. While previous research suggests that women sometimes wear red strategically to increase their attractiveness, the replicability of this literature has been questioned. The current research is a reasonably powered conceptual replication designed to strengthen this literature by testing whether women are more inclined to display the color red 1) during fertile (as compared with less fertile) days of the menstrual cycle, and 2) when expecting to interact with an attractive man (as compared with a less attractive man and with a control condition). Analyses controlled for a number of theoretically relevant covariates (relationship status, age, the current weather). Only the latter hypothesis received mixed support (mainly among women on hormonal birth control), whereas results concerning the former hypothesis did not reach significance. Women (N = 281) displayed more red when expecting to interact with an attractive man; findings did not support the prediction that women would increase their display of red on fertile days of the cycle. Findings thus suggested only mixed replicability for the link between the color red and psychological processes involving romantic attraction. They also illustrate the importance of further investigating the boundary conditions of color effects on everyday social processes.

The Wellington Hotel and Hospital Workers’ Union successfully increased its membership participation and membership solidarity during the 1980s. It did this by implementing a union newspaper, delegate structure, delegate education, stopwork meetings and standing committees for women, Maori and Pacific Island members. We know that women’s structures increased female participation and leadership in trade unions, bringing about a partial ‘gender revolution’ by the end of the twentieth century. Drawing on a framework of union power resources, this article shows that despite some initial resistance implementing separate structures for Maori and Pacific Island members, as well as women, further increased Maori, Pasifika and women’s participation and leadership in the union, and led to increased union activism on social issues.

Introduction Peter Piot (Executive Director of UNAIDS) challenged Bangkok International AIDS Conference attendees to think ahead 10 years or more so we will be prepared to meet the challenges that will face us [1]. Over this next decade, many formidable challenges are likely to stem from the interactions of social, ecological, political, and economic change; existing social structures; the changing HIV epidemic, and changes produced by emerging biomedicine and viral evolution. Although some challenges will be unpredictable, we should plan ahead for those we are able to anticipate. This paper identifies important social research issues regarding the changing global epidemic so funding agencies, journal editors, social science communities, individual researchers and students, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, and the general public can debate them and, hopefully, act on them. Social change is likely to create complex problems for our response to HIV. Weiss and McMichael [2] demonstrate the acceleration of socially-driven epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases in recent years. As Rischard has argued [3,4], there is a high probability of massive political, ecological and social changes over the next few years. These threaten large-scale disruption of existing social and risk networks, sexual (and injection) mixing patterns, and sexual and injection behaviors that can impede or facilitate HIV transmission – and thus might generate HIV outbreaks parallel to those that followed the disruption of the USSR or that seem to be resulting from the increasing 'globalization' of India and China [5]. Global warming could produce large-scale population movements with similar results. Our reflections here on social change and other possible transformations have not produced a comprehensive or complete list of social research priorities. We have emphasized 'macro' and middle-level processes focusing on social, economic, political and cultural factors that affect HIV spread and/or that influence responses to the threat of HIV (rather than on small group or individual level processes that focus on the psychological and interpersonal) because we think these have received relatively less attention than is needed. We recognize that other researchers might produce different lists. We also recognize that it is important to foreground the probability that socio-epidemiologic contexts are likely to continue to have great cross-national variation and that 'big events' such as wars and transitions, perhaps in interaction with religious revival movements, can rapidly move countries into crisis conditions that pose the threat of explosive HIV outbreaks. Such changes can occur in countries that currently appear politically and economically stable. (It is useful to remember that few analysts in the early 1980s foresaw either the fall of the USSR or the collapse of apartheid in South Africa). The HIV/AIDS epidemic is itself a 'big event' in localities with high prevalence. While acknowledging the above, we propose six major emerging social research issues or themes. These themes, organized in terms of selected social and epidemiologic processes and situations (although noting that research on each of these topics will have at least some relevance everywhere), concern the following items. Wars, transitions, ecological or economic disruptions. Large-scale HIV epidemics, their related illness and death, and their attendant social instability and social disruption. Government policies that ignore or defy available evidence. Stable societies without generalized epidemics, which face distinctive challenges. Emerging biomedicine and its attendant opportunities and (perhaps unintended) social consequences. Possible failure of previously effective therapies due to viral evolution or disruptions in patterns of social organization. Each of these six themes provokes a number of research questions. To answer these questions, the full armamentarium of social science and social epidemiologic research methods will be needed, including theory development; hypothesis-testing and exploratory studies; ethnographic, quantitative, historical, and comparative designs; and intervention trials. In all of these approaches, involving relevant community members, decision-makers, and other actors as full collaborators or as sources of guidance, inspiration or critique, can be invaluable, including those based on participatory action research and on collaborative systematization of experiences [6–8]. Research has documented the effectiveness of community responses to HIV – often in advance of public health interventions [9]. Working with communities means that interventions are informed by community members and are thus more likely to be perceived as appropriate and taken up. However, throughout the epidemic, there has been a relative lack both of researchers interested in topics like those in these six themes and of funding to conduct such research. We close with thoughts about how to address these problems. Social processes and HIV/AIDS Why should social factors affect HIV/AIDS epidemics? The first reason is that HIV is transmitted through sexual and drug-injection networks, which are fundamentally social phenomena. Social norms about appropriate choice, numbers and timing of partners, and about behaviors with those partners, shape crucial network variables such as concurrent sexual and injection partnerships; partner turnover rates; mixing patterns; the size, centrality and microstructures of community network components; and the extent of quasi-anonymous risk nodes such as group sex parties, bath-houses, and shooting galleries [5,10–16]. Social norms, regulations, educational systems and law enforcement processes affect sexual and drug-taking behaviors [17,18]. Social networks, norms and social support shape how people access, interpret and use HIV-prevention information and education, the extent to which people make use of sexually transmitted disease treatments and HIV therapies, HIV counseling and testing, and affect adherence to therapies [19–21]. Economic and political conditions and dynamics affect what services are available and how inconvenient, costly, or stigmatizing it is to use them [22–31]. Finally, events, including large-scale epidemics themselves, that disrupt local or national social networks, communities, services, or social norms, lead to large-scale migration, or initiate large-scale mixing across new sexual or injecting networks, create the potential for risk behaviors or adherence failures that would have previously been prevented – and these, in turn, might lead to epidemic outbreaks [e.g., 32]. Emerging research issues for different processes and situations (A) Wars, transitions, ecological or economic disruptions Aral [5], Hankins et al. [33], and Friedman and Reid [34] have argued that transitions – like those in the former Soviet Union circa 1990, South Africa in the early 1990s, and Indonesia in the late 1990s – and wars can disrupt risk networks and protective social norms and thus lead to HIV outbreaks. However, such outbreaks are not inevitable. Gisselquist [35] and Spiegel [36] show that many African wars have not increased HIV transmission, and the case of the Philippines shows that transitions need not lead to outbreaks either. Furthermore, United States involvement in wars since the early 1990s seems not yet to have accelerated HIV transmission there. Although further research on whether wars or transitions are statistical risk factors for increases may be useful, we suggest that the historical record is strong enough to conclude that both wars and transitions can, on occasion, lead to epidemic outbreaks of HIV – that is, under some conditions, they increase social vulnerability to HIV [37–39]. On the other hand, under other conditions, outbreaks do not occur. This suggests that the following research questions should receive high priority. To identify which pre-existing conditions (including but not limited to gender relationships, sexual culture, and patterns of psychoactive drug use) and social processes can lead to increased HIV vulnerability as a consequence of war, transitions, or, perhaps, of economic breakdown or of ecological change such as global warming [40]. Such research should study how these events: (a) shape norms, behaviors, practices, and sexual, injection and care networks; and (b) affect gender and racial/ethnic power relationships, religious belief systems, poverty, and other middle-level socio-cultural and political economic relationships that influence HIV transmission and the capacity for prevention and care. To consider how affected populations or outsiders might intervene to avert or reduce epidemic outbreaks due to wars, transitions, or other events; and how such responses are shaped by pre-existing social identities, community resilience, patterns of social and political co-operation, and indigenous leadership [41–43]. In terms of research designs, much might be learned from qualitative and quantitative studies that compare countries that did and did not have outbreaks subsequent to such events; that study localities that did not have outbreaks within countries that did; and perhaps by rapid-response research teams that work with local participants and researchers to study emerging prevention efforts, network patterns, behaviors, pockets of emerging high-risk practices, and medical services, together with HIV and sexually transmitted infection rates, during and after wars and transitions. (B) Large-scale HIV epidemics, their related illness and death, and their attendant social instability and social disruption Just as wars, transitions and other processes can disrupt social norms and social, sexual and drug-use networks and communities, HIV/AIDS epidemics large enough to constitute socially-disruptive 'big events' can have similar effects. The research questions that are raised under (A) are also important in these circumstances. The exact definition of 'large enough' probably depends on the rate of spread of HIV over time and also on its socio-economic distribution – and research on how much disruption results from different prevalences and distributions of the virus might be useful. Research is also needed on how to minimize the destruction and maximize the constructive outcomes of social crises that the epidemic produces. Given the extent of HIV in many African countries, and its potential spread in Asia, the emerging social research issues for this context are clearly important [see, for example, 44–51]. These may include the following items. To identify and describe mid-level social forces (such as gender or racial/ethnic power relationships, religious conditions and beliefs, community resilience, and poverty) that create, sustain or reduce high-risk sexual or injection network patterns or behaviors that contribute to high HIV transmission rates – and, most important, to determine how to intervene in these. To describe possible impacts of the epidemic in terms of changes in social, sexual and drug-use networks, norms, culture, gender relationships, community resilience, etc. – and to determine what actions by local and outside agencies and by affected populations can mitigate further infections and social distress. To consider how affected populations and agencies might intervene or organize against individual, community and institutional stigma [52,53]. To determine how populations can be mobilized for risk reduction before mass illness or dying begin. To establish how health systems can be organized for disease control and care in poor countries or under conditions of disruptively high mortality. How can affected and unaffected populations assist in this? How can these efforts be sustained in contexts of socially-disruptive high morbidity and mortality? To determine how to navigate the AIDS crisis so that negative social consequences are minimized and positive social gains initiated or maintained. This question – monumental in scope – has been raised by Mary Crewe and her colleagues [54], and requires both scholarly input and popular action to resolve. (C) Government policies that ignore or defy available evidence Governments' responses to HIV and other health-related issues, and how they are shaped by social structures, competing priorities, and resource availability, are important to study. We emphasize here one aspect of this issue that has been important in the HIV/AIDS epidemic – government policies that ignore or defy available evidence. Since HIV is transmitted by culturally and religiously-sensitive and often, legally prohibited, behaviors, and since government health and policing policies on sex, reproduction, and illicit drug use may themselves contribute to HIV spread and/or to the failure to treat HIV, it is unsurprising that governments sometimes do not implement programs that research has determined to be effective. United States policies on syringe exchange, sex education in schools, programs for sex workers, and intellectual property rights are examples of this [18,55–57], as are the failure of many governments to introduce large-scale methadone programs for opiate users [27] and South Africa's failure for many years to accept that HIV was the proximate cause of the epidemic [58]. Despite this widespread pattern, there has been too little research on the following issues. Why governments ignore and/or flout scientific findings. Effective ways in which internal and external forces can act to change these policies. These are likely to vary depending on the reasons why each government acts this way and on economic, political and other contexts that affect governmental decision-making, including how mass media shape public agendas around HIV/AIDS [59]. (D) Stable societies without generalized epidemics A number of research issues exist for these societies [60,61]. Importantly, although countries such as the Netherlands, Brazil or Saudi Arabia can currently be classified as stable and without generalized HIV epidemics, HIV could spread rapidly under social crises such as those Rischard [3,4] identified, or, indeed, under conditions such as those discussed in the previous section. Furthermore, countries with a stable and comparatively small HIV prevalence may believe that the HIV 'problem' has been solved. Thus, to better manage current issues and to avert possible future disasters, research is needed on the following topics. How to sustain and strengthen cultures that support and care for the sick and that reduce risk behavior and stigmatization over long periods of time; and how to maintain socio-behavioral conditions that limit HIV spread and the rate at which viral mutation reduces the therapeutic efficacy of medications [9,62]. How to develop cultures of risk-reduction and care in countries or localities where stigma is widespread against marginalized groups and/or people infected with HIV [63]. How to mobilize at-risk populations that have not yet created effective cultures of risk reduction and caring. Potential sources of local or national HIV epidemic outbreaks. We suggest that the following questions should be prioritized since they have received less attention than increases in risk behavior: what social and economic processes shape sexual and injection networks in a locality? As economic development projects can disperse and diffuse networks and communities with high HIV prevalence into localities with low infection rates, and since the normative impacts of such relocations can lead to high-risk behaviors, practices, and networks [11,14], what prevention approaches can either prevent these dislocations or mitigate their effects? (E) Emerging biomedicine Medical advances can generate urgent needs for social research. Such needs can include finding ways to implement new medical possibilities but also ways to cope with any (often unintended) negative social consequences of new discoveries; for example, the impact of antiretroviral therapy on risk-reduction among gay men in some countries [64]. Although it is impossible to forecast biomedical progress, the following issues should become foci of increased research effort. To investigate impacts of introduction of new treatments and concomitant increases in HIV-testing on stigma and discrimination [65]. To determine how medical technologies such as vaccines, microbicides or pre-exposure prophylaxis affect behavioral prevention measures and political and economic support for prevention programs. This is especially important for middle to low efficacy prevention technologies [66–68]. To consider social and cultural impacts of anti-HIV circumcision programs [69–74]. Although recent findings indicate that circumcision lowers the likelihood of HIV infection [69], there is concern that circumcised men who view themselves as 'protected' might engage in more unsafe sex. Adult circumcision might also carry risks, especially if performed by inadequately trained medical personnel or traditional healers. Furthermore, since circumcision is deeply rooted in religious systems and in some countries, such as India, is a mark of racial/ethnic difference, circumcision programs potentially could discredit or weaken HIV prevention and care efforts. To identify socio-cultural, organizational, and political economic barriers which impede vaccination among 'general' and/or oppressed or marginalized populations [75–77]. (F) Possible future widespread failure of previously-effective therapies due to viral evolution or social disorganization Although none of us like to think about it, the race between our ability to devise new medications and the evolutionary mutability of HIV could quite possibly be lost. This could happen because of possible limits to the menu of therapies, the loss of economic or other capacity to develop new therapies (perhaps due to ecologically-generated socio-economic dislocations or a worldwide depression), or socio-cultural disruption due to wars or widespread assumption of power by religious fundamentalisms [78,79]. These circumstances could result in considerable increases in morbidity and mortality in regions of the world where therapy has been accessible to the infected, and could also arouse blaming and stigmatization of the sick. Social research might find solutions to these potential problems before they arise. We suggest that the following issues should be addressed. How to minimize traumatic despair (under different conditions of community resilience and leadership) if therapeutic failure leads to resumed mass morbidity and mortality among the infected. How to maintain or regenerate risk reduction under these conditions. How to prevent political blaming and restriction of medications under these conditions. Obstacles to conducting such research Throughout the epidemic, research funding has been scarce, as have researchers to conduct such research, and high-status journals willing to publish it. In part, this results from long-standing differences between scientific disciplines [80]. Few laboratory scientists have training in social scientific theory or methodologies or in social or behavioral epidemiology. Epidemiologists are more likely to be familiar with social-psychologically oriented behavioral theories, and to have been trained in epidemiologic approaches that treat the individual as the unit of analysis and theorization. However, such training provides little basis for understanding or evaluating social research at higher levels of analysis or using theoretical frameworks that incorporate central concepts such as history, power, and culture. Furthermore, such research can appear to the untrained to have controversial political implications and thus to be 'unscientific' regardless of whether it is based on scientifically valid methods. Questions of what counts as 'appropriate' methods profoundly shape what we know, which affects what social researchers can do and publish in public health [81]. Sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and economists often lack training in natural sciences. In many countries, these disciplines emphasize research that develops the social sciences in their own terms – and thus social scientists risk rejection (and reduced career opportunities) if they engage in applied research rather than research on higher-status questions [82]. What do these disjunctures of expertise and interest lead to? Biomedical research funding for HIV, whether provided by governments or pharmaceutical companies, has overwhelmingly concentrated on basic science, clinical research, and epidemiology using the individual as the unit of analysis, and prevention research focusing on behaviors of individuals [83]. Review committees for major funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health are almost always comprised of researchers in these specialties. The few social scientists on these committees have usually spent their careers conducting research on behavior change or HIV risk factors at the level of the individual, and thus have difficulty judging proposals on the topics discussed in this article. Editors and reviewers for the major journals in the field, including this one, have similar strengths and weaknesses. Social science funding agencies (which typically disburse much less money) tend to fund research on the 'core problems' of their disciplines (such as social stratification, cultural dynamics, family and interpersonal structures and dynamics, social cohesion, or deviance), rather than applied problems which may be of lower status within the discipline and, arguably, more appropriate for funding by (socially-educated) biomedical agencies. Even such sub-fields as medical sociology and medical anthropology focus on topics such as cultural definitions and beliefs about illness and health; differences in morbidity and mortality by stress level, socio-economic status, gender, or race/ethnicity; and the formal organization and financing of medical services – rather than on social epidemiology, urban health, or questions of prevention or care for infectious diseases. Thus, these issues receive little research funding; and social scientists who study them risk both failing to obtain funding and stigmatization within their professions [84,85]. We have no magic solution. What we do suggest is that the institutions of HIV research, including funders, journals, and academic institutions, acknowledge the seriousness of the problem. The mutual causal interactions between social, political and economic processes and the ever-changing HIV/AIDS epidemic that are discussed in this review are extremely important. They could determine the fates of millions of people and perhaps even the socio-cultural survival of some nations or ethnic groups. We propose that serious discussions be initiated among those funders, journal editors, and social researchers who have engaged with these issues to establish strategies for incorporating social researchers within the structures of the field, and to identify ways that relevant research results can influence by and community-based organizations, and affected A number of and mid-level social factors shape HIV transmission and care by risk networks, behaviors, and the and of sexually transmitted infections and HIV and care. Social processes such as wars and transitions, as as the interactions among emerging rates of disease viral and the social to these, need to be so we can and reduce the that AIDS The relative lack of this of research has the response – both individual and – to the the issues discussed in this paper do not include all of the important social research issues that need to be addressed. important research is at the and individual levels of important social research issues will that as yet be To the extent that and social research, and so social researchers to the field, we will be more likely to identify these issues and conduct the research in time to maximize and minimize The to acknowledge from and The would like to acknowledge support from a number of was by National on projects and to and among and its norms risk in social and for and HIV and by the of Health and was by the Research Social of HIV/AIDS and was by National on norms risk in social support was provided by International and Research HIV

This paper aims towards a critical re‐evaluation of Participatory Design processes based on a completed collaborative research (2015) in rural China. The study involved two complementary disciplines; the Applied Social Sciences and Design and their corresponding research methodologies; Action Research and Participatory Design aligning the social and the physical. The resulting design and implementation of a community kitchen in rural China enabled villagers to develop social enterprises and new types of collective organizations. With Action Research providing the necessary ‘software’ for social organization and engagement, facilitating the development of ‘hardware’ or design outcomes through participatory processes. Beyond design and social outcomes, the study raised questions concerning the critical, conceptual and praxis underpinnings of Participatory Design that impact its effectiveness as a tool. Participatory Design, sometimes panacea for an objectified and corporate driven field, often remains focused on design as outcome rather than on process or the development of outcomes embedded in a social context or based on non‐commercial values. Complex design processes involving multiple stakeholders in design development may also result in an oversimplified outcome or a lowest acceptable solution approach. Additionally Participatory Design understood as a purely consensual process often ignores the complex negotiations tensions and conflicts between different forms of knowledge; characterized as the ‘nightmare’ of Participatory Design processes (Miessen, 2010), whereas it may in fact be the tension in the process that leads to paradigm shifts and possible ‘real’ innovations. A viable starting point for re‐evaluation of Participatory Design methodologies therefore repositions it within complex social and materialization processes; in which design outcomes become the formation of socio‐material assemblies, constructed within processes that span both before and after the design stage. It is useful to contextualize this process in terms of emerging changes in social systems that are evolving the ways both the social and design processes are developing towards distributed forms of knowledge, collaborative processes and cross‐disciplinary practices (Sanders and Stappers 2008). These changes are impacting the ways we understand tangible and intangible culture and the nature of artefact or object, inasmuch as design or artefact are increasingly reconfigured as a relational matrix intrinsically connected to social (and sometimes technical) contexts. In other words outcome should be considered as a design object together with its attributes and relations, or as a socio‐material assembly (Latour, 1999). This highlights the importance of knowledge (generation and transfer) as parts of the interconnection of the social and the design process on the one hand, and between the different heterogeneous fields of knowledge and the negotiations these entail. The paper therefore explores how understanding the role of complex knowledge generation in the design process can lead to a critical repositioning of Participatory Design. Drawing on work by Bjögvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren (2102) who posit Participatory Design should move from a conventional understanding of designing “things” (objects) towards designing “Things” (socio‐material assemblies). Their reconsideration of the etymological meaning of “Thing” as (public) assembly or as the gathering of properties or attributes is critical. In other words, “Thingness” is the socio‐material assembly that Latour (1999) characterizes as “a collective of humans and non‐humans,” both relational and complex. The paper will also reference the ‘design before design’ and the ‘design after design’ issues highlighted by Bjögvinsson et.al., as an intrinsic part of this process.Further, if the recombination of different knowledge fields generates new forms of knowledge that can – but do not always – contribute to an ecology of knowledge, Participatory Design can help structure and materialize this as outcome and process. Design in this case may be a useful tool to model or negotiate complexity as a “Thing,” functioning as a mediator between different domains of knowledge (for instance design, social sciences, tacit, local and external knowledge.) If mapped onto Snowden's sense making model Cynefin (Snowden 2007, 2010), one can see possible ways that Participatory Design processes could be repositioned; not as a formulaic design process but as a part of complex adaptive processes that may contain conflicts, indeterminacies and uncertainties. The potential relevance is in seeking Participatory Design approaches aimed towards rural community development. A critical issue in China's ongoing socio‐spatial transformation that sees increased rural‐urban migration; patchwork suburbanization of the rural; loss of agrarian lands (Guldin 1997); development of urban villages in urban contexts; increase in left behind children; (Xuefei 2013); hollowing out of rural communities and alteration of socio‐economic conditions; aging of rural populations; the rise of corporate farming, and; loss of rural sustainability (McGetrick & Jun 2009). It asks can the role of design as a social process ‐ through a reconfigured Participatory Design ‐ be an effective tool towards an increased sustainable development (Manzini 2011), generating an understanding of resources, capacities and capabilities as local knowledge ecologies for new sustainable development approaches; and further how might these be effective tools of social innovation?

This paper concerns itself with the general problem of achieving cooperation in human groups and higher levels of social systems. Several social situations are considered where cooperation is problematic because self-interest contradicts group or collective interest: the prisoners' dilemma game; the commons' problem (Hardin, 1972); the collective action problem, i.e., the failure of memberships of many large interest groups, e.g., consumers and the general public, to cooperate to achieve common goals (Olson, 1968); and the problem of competitive panics, e.g., a crowd in a burning theater. We introduce a structural framework and methodology, using social system level concepts, to characterize and analyze such problems. It is shown that the various cases have a common underlying structure. In the analysis, we focus on the social context of the problematic situations and, in particular, on social processes that structure human interaction and collective behavior. A basic idea guiding the analysis is that actors purposively structure and transform interaction situations or games into situations of greater or less cooperation or conflict, depending upon the social context. We examine specific social control processes that may be found operating in social systems to resolve problems of achieving cooperative action, that is, to deal with contradictions between individual interests and autonomy on the one hand and group interest and need for cooperative action on the other. In particular, we focus on the social structuring and restructuring in groups of perceptions and evaluations, action possibilities, and decision procedures and, therefore, likely interaction patterns of those involved.

Existing research has tended to overlook the diverse roles of union leadership in contributing to member attitudes. Drawing on the social information processing theory, this study examines how union leaders' (shop stewards) service-oriented leadership relates to member job satisfaction. To clarify the mechanism underlying this relationship, this study focuses on union instrumentality as a mediator. The research also examines managers' ethical leadership as a conditional factor in the relationship between union leaders' service-oriented leadership and member job satisfaction through union instrumentality. To test our hypothesis, this study analyzed the results of a survey of 603 respondents from two branches of the Korean Metal Workers' Union. The findings of this study indicate that union instrumentality is the link between service-oriented union leadership and member job satisfaction. Additionally, the strength of the mediated relationship between the aforementioned factors through union instrumentality is contingent on managerial ethical leadership. This study contributes to an integrated understanding of the way in which service-oriented union stewards and ethical managers influence member job satisfaction through their leadership.

Purpose The purpose of this article is to critically examine the collective bargaining strategies employed by unions during the closure of Nissan Zona Franca and to challenge the assumption that institutional and mobilising power resources are mutually exclusive. By focusing on unions’ ability to mobilise rank-and-file workers and intervene in industrial policy, the article highlights the limitations of micro-corporatist approaches in securing long-term employment. It argues for a more dynamic, context-sensitive understanding of how unions can combine and generate power resources. Ultimately, the study seeks to contribute to union renewal literature by offering actionable insights for navigating global industrial challenges. Design/methodology/approach This study examines union responses to the closure of Nissan Zona Franca, drawing on fieldwork conducted between November 2023 and January 2024. Over 20 in-depth interviews were carried out with workers, union delegates, senior union officials and representatives from the Spanish Ministry of Industry and two Catalan political parties. Additionally, union pamphlets, official documents and news articles were analysed to contextualise the negotiation process. Special attention was given to capturing differences and similarities among the four unions representing the workforce. This multi-level approach ensured a nuanced understanding of union strategies, highlighting how confrontational tactics shaped industrial policy under shared adversity. Findings The article finds that unions at Nissan Zona Franca successfully combined institutional and confrontational power resources, challenging the view that these strategies are incompatible. Despite initial fragmentation, unions mobilised rank-and-file workers to push for an industrial plan, demonstrating how confrontational tactics can activate and transform institutional power. The study also highlights the relational, context-dependent nature of power resources and critiques the lack of industrial policy in Spain. It emphasises the importance of unions adopting proactive roles in shaping industrial alternatives, offering evidence that union-led interventions can influence corporate decisions and create new avenues for worker representation and protection. Practical implications The practical implications of this paper suggest that unions must adopt more creative and resourceful strategies in response to upcoming economic and industrial shifts in Western countries. The study underscores the importance of strategically combining existing power resources to create new, more effective ones, requiring foresight and vision from union leaders. While some leaders demonstrated insight in managing the Nissan Zona Franca closure, the broader context highlights the need for long-term strategies that prioritise workers’ economic well-being on a global scale. Whether through consensus or conflict, the paper suggests that conflict may often be necessary to build more cohesive and democratic societies, pointing to the need for unions to balance both approaches to effectively navigate industrial transformations. Originality/value The originality of the article lies in its examination of how unions at Nissan Zona Franca combined institutional and confrontational power resources to respond to a factory closure, challenging dominant assumptions in union renewal literature. Unlike most studies that treat these power strategies as mutually exclusive, this article highlights their dynamic interplay and mutual reinforcement. Additionally, it shifts focus from the governance of industrial policy to the processes of its formation, demonstrating how unions can shape industrial alternatives through rank-and-file mobilisation. This case study provides a novel, context-sensitive perspective on union strategy in the face of global industrial challenges.

Editorial

This study examines by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging the neural mechanisms underlying adolescents’ risk decision-making in social contexts. We hypothesize that the social context could engage brain regions associated with social cognition processes and developmental changes are also expected. Sixty participants (adolescents: 17–18, and young adults: 21–22 years old) read narratives describing typical situations of decision-making in the presence of peers. They were asked to make choices in risky situations (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) or ambiguous situations (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog). Risky as compared to ambiguous scenarios activated bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right medial prefrontal cortex, and the precuneus bilaterally; i.e., brain regions related to social cognition processes, such as self-reflection and theory of mind (ToM). In addition, brain structures related to cognitive control were active [right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral orbitofrontal cortex], whereas no significant clusters were obtained in the reward system (ventral striatum). Choosing the dangerous option involved a further activation of control areas (ACC) and emotional and social cognition areas (temporal pole). Adolescents employed more neural resources than young adults in the right DLPFC and the right TPJ in risk situations. When choosing the dangerous option, young adults showed a further engagement in ToM related regions (bilateral MTG) and in motor control regions related to the planning of actions (pre-supplementary motor area). Finally, the right insula and the right superior temporal gyrus were more activated in women than in men, suggesting more emotional involvement and more intensive modeling of the others’ perspective in the risky conditions. These findings call for more comprehensive developmental accounts of decision-making in social contexts that incorporate the role of emotional and social cognition processes.

UP TO 1935, our country had been giving almost no support to collective action by workers. The Wagner Act-often cited as labor's Magna Charta-signed on July 5, 1935, made it illegal for employers to interfere with union organization of workers. Now for the first time workers no longer had to fear loss of jobs or permanent ostracism because of flirtation with unionization. The public had at last followed other democratic nations in encouraging collective bargaining and signed agreements between unions and employers. And by this action unions were destined to become important and controversial factors in our economic, political, and industrial life. The law was heralded by its advocates as the foundation of everlasting industrial harmony. It was-so they proclaimed-a long-needed democratic implement enabling workers to cope with the power of employers. It would mark the beginning of unparalleled industrial progress. The autocratic and unilateral system, traditional in industry, would give way to democratic processes and industrial jurisprudence. Workers, through their representatives, would negotiate contracts ensuring a higher standard of living and improved working conditions. These contracts, clearly defining the rights and obligations of labor and management, would dispel suspicion and misunderstanding. All of this would assure the public of prodigious benefits. But the advocates of the law failed to recognize that the field of labor relations is primarily one of human relations fraught with human frailties and emotions difficult to control by a code of behavior spelled out in a dull labor contract. The sponsors of the act had given little or no heed to the paucity of union and industrial leadership prepared to solve unforeseen obstacles. They had discounted, apparently, the stupendous task of creating trade-union consciousness and responsibility among the millions of union recruits. They had missed sight of a split in the labor movement and its devastating results. They had overestimated industry's capacity to adapt itself to a new type of employer-employee relationship. They had discounted the opportunities for abuse by power-drunk union leaders. Perhaps the sponsors of the act did foresee these perplexing aspects; and perhaps they were content to rely on public pressure for arresting any social evils arising from collective bargaining.

We applaud Dr. Meo and colleagues' effort to share their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic at the University of Washington (UW).1 In Seattle and across the country, residents and fellows remain critical to COVID-19 responses, but many have limited avenues for demanding changes to working conditions without fear of repercussion.We would know—the Resident and Fellow Physician Union–Northwest (RFPU-NW) represents nearly 1400 doctors at UW. In March 2020, RFPU-NW members faced redeployment, with many union leaders among the first to volunteer in COVID-19 units to serve our patients and community. Simultaneously, RFPU-NW pressed UW for resident and fellow representation in redeployment planning meetings following Meo et al's Guiding Principle 8, through a proposed memorandum of agreement on April 3, 2020, to UW. This request was denied on April 20, as were all subsequent requests for representation.Despite a lack of input from the elected leaders of the residents and fellows at UW, we support many of the Guiding Principles from Meo and colleagues and encourage other institutions to emulate them. UW consistently respected work hours (Principle 7), in contrast to some institutions in hard-hit locations.2 UW made efforts to balance trainee redeployment with upstaffing of other physicians and advanced practice providers (Principles 6 and 10). Finally, despite initial haphazard training, UW quickly rolled out just-in-time training for COVID-19 care and personal protective equipment (Principles 1 and 5).Unfortunately, many reasonable requests voiced by residents and fellows seemed unheard at our site. For example, UW did not include residents and fellows in preliminary planning stages, which forced RFPU-NW to the bargaining table to ensure our members received advance notice prior to redeployment, alternative work accommodations for high-risk groups, and paid administrative leave (rather than use of personal sick leave) for required quarantine after work-related COVID-19 exposure. Despite the goal of Meo et al's Principle 8 to “[w]henever possible, involve trainees to critically evaluate the process and provide feedback,” it seemed rare that our voices were heard outside of negotiations.Now, as COVID-19 cases continue across the country, residents and fellows regularly face disrupted clinical education to provide necessary patient care. Perspectives by trainees in JGME over the last year speak to the challenges they face. We largely agree with the recommendations Meo and colleagues make, with a crucial edit: It is imperative to seek out resident and fellow representation in the early stages of redeployment planning, especially their elected representatives. At UW and a growing number of institutions, those representatives are union leaders.3–5Currently at UW, with strong advocacy from program directors and RFPU-NW, residents and fellows are only being redeployed when faculty are also redeployed and the institution is prioritizing staffing with internal moonlighting and extra-pay-for-extra-duty opportunities (at the same rate as attendings) before pulling residents from educational activities for redeployment without additional pay.We urge other institutions to treat their residents and fellows similarly to attending physicians. Physicians: if your institutions are not doing this, we implore you to recognize the strength that comes from collective action and unionization. This is how you secure a seat at the table and change institutional culture. We need to be included from the very beginning of surge planning—after all, we are the ones being redeployed.

The systematic deregulation of labor relations was a cornerstone of the imposition of the neoliberal model in Chile. This process had a significant impact on both the strategies and the structure of unionism. A study of the perceptions and representations of precarious work of union leaders contributes to a discussion of the relationship between precarity and repertoires of collective action in workers’ pursuit of regulation, institutionalization, social improvement, and well-being in employment relations. La desregulación sistemática de las relaciones laborales fue la piedra angular de la imposición del modelo neoliberal en Chile. Este proceso tuvo un impacto significativo tanto en las estrategias como en la estructura del sindicalismo. En este trabajo se presentará un estudio de las percepciones y representaciones del trabajo precario de los dirigentes sindicales. Los resultados contribuyen a una discusión de la relación entre la precariedad y los repertorios de acción colectiva en la búsqueda de la regulación, la institucionalización, la mejora social y el bienestar de los trabajadores en las relaciones laborales.

Popular Education (PE) is an educational movement and pedagogical current that emerged in Latin America in the seventies. It was a result of Paulo Freire’s pedagogical proposals in a context of radicalization of popular struggle and cultural and intellectual movements. During the past five decades, hundreds of groups, practices and projects have identified themselves as part of the PE movement. As a pedagogical current, PE is understood as an educational perspective and practice, which is critical of institutionalized education and identifies with emancipatory political perspectives. Its purpose is to help populations that experience oppression or discrimination to strengthen their capacity to change their conditions, relationships, practices and ways of thinking and feeling by means of cultural, educational, dialogical, participatory, interactive and expressive practices. With respect to the history of PE in Latin America, its social contexts and educational practices, four stages can be identified: 1. The liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire at the end of the sixties. 2. The foundational stage PE in the seventies. 3. The re-foundation and expansion of the PE in the eighties and nineties. 4. The reactivation of the EP in the current context. During these periods, a constant interest in PE has been producing knowledge from and about its contexts, themes and practices. From its origins, it has created and incorporated qualitative research strategies in coherence with its political and epistemological options. As evidenced in each historical phase of the PE, the use of a qualitative methodology predominated: thematic research in Freire’s pedagogical proposal; participatory action research (PAR) in its foundational stage; collective reconstruction of the history and critical ethnography in its expansion phase; systematization of practices since the 1990s; and the emergence of innovative and aesthetic strategies at the present century. A set of methodological principles derive from this historical path of qualitative research in PE: 1. Maintaining a critical distance from institutionalized research modes in the scientific world, acknowledging their subordination to hegemonic powers. 2. Assuming PE to be both critical and emancipatory. This option is identified with values, willpower, and projects that involve new meanings of the organization of collective life. 3. Recognizing the place of the cultural and the intersubjective, both in social phenomena and in social research processes. 4. Linking it to emancipatory organizational processes and collective actions. 5. Not subordinating it to the institutional logic of disciplinary research. 6. Promoting group and organization participation in research process decisions. 7. Ensuring that it promotes formation of knowledge collectives. 8. Maintaining a critical and creative use of the theory. 9. Recognizing the plurality of subjects and promoting a “dialogue of knowledge.” 10. Incorporating diverse cultural practices within communities in order to produce and communicate their knowledge. 11. Assuming methodology to be a flexible practice. 12. Assuming research within PE is a permanent practice of critical reflection.