Abuse Work Research Articles

Occupational Health and Safety in the RMG Sector of Bangladesh: An Enormous Order

Today it’s a matter of concern to ensure the occupational health and safety in the Ready Made Garments (Hereinafter referred to as RMG) sector of Bangladesh. Some accidents such as the Tazrin Fashion Fire and the Rana Plaza collapse draw attention - to the critical situation the workers of Bangladesh are working in, and to what extent they are at risk. It's a matter of regret and shame that, it has been forgotten that the RMG sector not only contributes to our national economy but also emancipates the poor people from poverty and hunger, This sector also highlights our country in front of the world. Textiles and clothing account for earnings a lot in Bangladesh, where most of these come from the apparel sector. This sector has a crucial role in alleviating poverty in Bangladesh. However, rapid growth, as well as the failure of the Bangladesh government to enforce its building and labour regulations, resulted in worker abuse and unsafe for poorly constructed factories. This series has been elucidated to what extent occupational health and safety covered and their impact, also focuses on how the rights of the worker are violated and analysis the duties and responsibilities of the related persons such as occupiers of the factories, Trade Unions, Collective Bargaining Agent, Inspector, buyer and so on. It also focuses the statutory protection to ensure Occupational health and safety. Finally, put some recommendations or ways out to ensure the safe and sound working conditions of the workers of the RMG sector in Bangladesh.

Seeing like an algorithm: the limits of using remote sensing to link vessel movements with worker abuse at sea

Seeing like an algorithm: the limits of using remote sensing to link vessel movements with worker abuse at sea

‘You can’t go home because you are at home’: critical reflections on capturing and reflecting the trauma of domestic violence work during COVID-19

Drawing on video data collected between June and September of 2020, this piece reveals the unique challenges presented by COVID-19 frontline domestic abuse workers in the UK and provides critical reflections from the authors in the form of a collective interview. This innovative study uses participant-led data collection (in the form of self-recorded video diaries) and filmed focus groups with CEOs of UK charities, parliamentarians, the police and NHS professionals. The authors produced a film, Lifeline, drawing on the knowledge produced from these focus groups and video-diaries, foregrounding the voices of the women who work in this sector. The conversation presented here unpacks the complexities of representing domestic violence provision both in creative and academic outputs. Furthermore, the conversation reveals the epistemological challenges that come with representing and understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the domestic violence sector.

Establishing Operational Norms for Labor Rights Standards Implementation in Low-Cost Apparel Production

Low-cost production has driven many global apparel brands and retailers to source apparel from less developed countries. However, low-cost apparel production is often accompanied by labor rights violations. A persistent pattern of labor rights violations exists in the global apparel supply chains, including minimum wage violations, unpaid overtime, forced overtime, worker abuse, restricting workers’ unions, and many other violations. Research suggests that low-cost pressures restrict factory level resources, which often leads to labor rights violations in global apparel supply chains. To date, academics and practitioners remain unaware of the actual cost of implementing labor rights standards in factories. We sought to establish a baseline taxonomy of the fundamental cost-bearing activities required to provide a safe and ethical factory workplace. A Delphi survey was adopted to capture data from an expert group of experienced factory compliance auditors in Asian apparel production. The research provides practical insights for factory adoption of actions that can improve enforcement of multiple labor standards, as well as specific actions required to enforce unique requirements that arose in our analysis.

Expanding Conflicts of Interest in Public Health Research

Expanding Conflicts of Interest in Public Health Research

Specialist support for survivors of domestic abuse during COVID-19

Health visitors have a crucial and unique role in identifying and supporting those affected by domestic abuse as the current pandemic increases the risk of harm towards survivors. This article reflects on how COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions have exacerbated risks to survivors, barriers to support and the mental and physical health effects. It will provide insight into how frontline domestic abuse workers at Solace Women's Aid have continued to support survivors, from the experience of three Identification and Referral to Improve Safety (IRIS) Advocate Educators, working across two London boroughs.

Cameroon's choppy waters: The anatomy of fisheries crime in the maritime fisheries sector

This article removes the lid on fisheries crime in Cameroon by providing empirical evidence of criminal practices along the maritime fisheries value chain. To achieve this, the study relied on both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected from direct observation, informal group discussions and semi-structured interviews involving state officials, coastal community groups and other civil society organisations in the west maritime district of Southwest Cameroon. The article reveals a plethora of fisheries-related crimes encompassing corruption (i.e. bribery and abuse of office), document and identity fraud, illegal exploitation of fish maws and endangered marine mammals. Other crimes associated to the fisheries sector included: smuggling of contraband goods, arms smuggling, illegal migration, illegal recruitment and abuse of workers' rights. Through these examples, this research empirically demonstrates the interrelationship of the different criminal practices and their organised and transnational dimension. The study also paints a complex picture of criminality perpetuated by a sophisticated network of both local and foreign industrial fisheries stakeholders. Consequently, addressing illicit activities in the maritime fisheries sector requires cooperation from a wide range of both state and non-state actors in investigating and analysing the nature of fisheries crime practices, the agents involved and their modes of operation. This approach is necessary to gain a better understanding of the problem and enable actors design appropriate and targeted management responses.

Body trouble: sexual harassment and worker abuse in musical theater dance employment

ABSTRACT Beginning in the 1980s, and throughout years of employment on Broadway and beyond, I was an unwitting participant-observer to scenes of sexual harassment in musical theater dance workplaces. I experienced being a target of sexual harassment, not as trauma, but as an uncomfortable and accepted aspect of the employment landscape. The hypersexualized, bodily-aware, and emotional and physical intimacy of the work and work settings of theatrical dancers invite sexual banter and play that easily crosses the boundary between good-natured repartee and harassment. The uncertainty of dancers securing and maintaining work is amplified by employers’ and unions’ inability to guarantee employment. These aspects of the trade, along with extremely hierarchic employment power structures, encourage varieties of exploitation additional to all the usual ways in which workers are regularly abused in our market-driven systems of economy and employment. Taking an autoethnographic approach, along with contextualizing current literature on sexual harassment, this exploration addresses fundamental issues relevant to the present national conversation in the United States. Investigation into harassment in the explicitly sexually-charged environment of the theatrical dance workplace reveals the contradictions inherent to the hierarchies of worker abuse implicit in the current US cultural assessment of sexual harassment.

Improving the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse in primary care: protocol for a mixed method evaluation of the implementation of a complex intervention

BackgroundDomestic violence and abuse remains a major health concern. It is unknown whether the improved healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse demonstrated in a cluster randomised controlled trial of IRIS (Identification and Referral to Improve Safety), a complex intervention, including general practice based training, support and referral programme, can be achieved outside a trial setting. Aim: To evaluate the impact over four years of a system wide implementation of IRIS, sequentially into multiple areas, outside the setting of a trial.MethodsAn interrupted time series analysis of referrals received by domestic violence and abuse workers from 201 general practices, in five northeast London boroughs; alongside a mixed methods process evaluation and qualitative analysis. Segmented regression interrupted time series analysis to estimate impact of the IRIS intervention over a 53-month period. A secondary analysis compares the segmented regression analysis in each of the four implementation boroughs, with a fifth comparator borough.DiscussionThis is the first interrupted time series analysis of an intervention to improve the health care response to domestic violence. The findings will characterise the impact of IRIS implementation outside a trial setting and its suitability for national implementation in the United Kingdom.

Diffusion theory and multi-disciplinary working in children’s services

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how innovation in children’s services is adopted and developed by staff within new multi-disciplinary children’s safeguarding teams. It draws on diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory to help us better understand the mechanisms by which the successful implementation of multi-disciplinary working can be best achieved.Design/methodology/approachIt is based on interviews with 61 frontline safeguarding staff, including social workers, substance misuse workers, mental health workers and domestic abuse workers. Thematic analysis identified the enablers and barriers to implementation.FindingsDOI defines five innovation attributes as essential for rapid diffusion: relative advantage over current practice; compatibility with existing values and practices; complexity or simplicity of implementation; trialability or piloting of new ideas; and observability or seeing results swiftly. Staff identified multi-disciplinary team working and group supervision as advantageous, in line with social work values and improved their service to children and families. Motivational interviewing and new ways of case recordings were less readily accepted because of the complexity of practicing confidently and concerns about the risks of moving away from exhaustive case recording which workers felt provided professional accountability.Practical implicationsDOI is a useful reflective tool for senior managers to plan and review change programmes, and to identify any emerging barriers to successful implementation.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into what children’s services staff value about multi-disciplinary working and why some aspects of innovation are adopted more readily than others, depending on the perception of diffusion attributes.

Human Rights in Play, Transnational Solidarity at Work: Creative Playfulness and Subversive Storytelling among the Coalition of Immokalee Workers

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) employs creative playfulness and subversive storytelling in their human rights campaigns and solidarity-building practices. The article focuses on three particular media to illustrate how they construct transnational solidarity: (1) son jarocho music as a medium for organizing the March for Rights, Respect, and Fair Food targeting Publix Supermarkets for human rights abuses like wage theft; (2) mística theater as a medium for organizing the Encuentro gathering to build their campaign against Wendy’s for failing to free their supply chain from worker abuse; and (3) a grassroots community museum as a medium for building support against slavery. Creative playfulness and subversive storytelling contribute to successes built on human rights principles and realized through corporate accountability strategies. The article describes these media, and shows how they overcome challenges of building transnational solidarity. Finally, it suggests how the CIW has influenced recent farmworker strikes in Mexico.

Cross-Border Regulatory Interferences and Liberalisation of Government Procurement Markets

In my doctoral research, I have dealt with interfering with foreign sovereign regulatory matters with government purchases. For example, imagine that one day, some governmental agency in some Western country will refuse to buy Iphones because some reports allege that Apple’s sub-contractors abuse workers in their Chinese plants, and this governmental agency will keep Apple blacklisted until working conditions in those plants are improved. I will deliver more examples throughout this presentation. I have dealt with the problem of meddling with foreign regulatory matters in this way from the perspective of international trade and of opening government contracts to foreign goods, services and contractors. The link between government procurement and international trade is very straightforward in the global village in which we live now. For example, German industry wants to sell high speed trains to state enterprises in China, whereas Chinese giants like Huawei want to sell communications systems in the US, and so forth. However, in practice public procurement markets are still largely closed to free international competition, because governments still protect public procurement markets in more or less covert manner. The purpose of my project has been to look at interferences in foreign regulatory matters as a form of modern protectionism in public procurement markets. In simple terms, I wanted to prove that such interference undermine international liberalization of public procurement markets. And I wanted to propose some solutions to the problem which I had illustrated in the first place.

Does Working with Child Abuse Cases Affect Professionals’ Parenting and the Psychological Well-Being of Their Children?

Work in the field of sexual abuse is extremely stressful and may arouse negative personal reactions. Although these secondary trauma effects are well described on a personal level, there is not enough evidence to understand whether these professionals carry these effects to their homes, families, and offspring. This study aims to identify the effects of working with child abuse cases on the anxiety level and parenting styles of childhood trauma workers and on their children’s well-being. A total of 43 health and legal system workers who worked with abused children in any step of their process and who had children constituted the study group, and 50 control cases, each working in the same institution and having the same occupation as 1 of the participants from the study group and having children but not working directly with children and child abuse cases, were included in the study. Participants were asked to fill out a sociodemographic form, the Parental Attitude Research Instrument, the trait portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and an age-appropriate form of the Child Behavior Checklist for each child they had. Professionals in the study working with child abuse cases demonstrated significantly higher democratic parenting attitudes. Law enforcement workers working with child abuse cases demonstrated stricter and more authoritarian parenting strategies, as well as more democratic attitudes, than their colleagues. There was not a statistically significant relationship between child abuse workers’ anxiety level and their children’s well-being among control subjects.

Boycott Hyatt and Patronize Union Hotels

Boycott Hyatt and Patronize Union Hotels

Child Sexual Abuse Workers’ Emotional Experiences of Working Therapeutically in the Western Cape, South Africa

South African child sexual abuse workers active in low-income communities bear witness to stories of sexual and physical abuse, neglect, pervasive deprivation, and violence. North American, British, and European workers’ emotional experiences have been captured in the literature, and a gap remains to be filled by those of their South African colleagues. This research aims to focus on the emotional experiences of social workers who engage therapeutically with sexually abused children in the Helderberg basin of the Western Cape, and resonate in some way with readers working in situations of poverty and trauma in other parts of the world. This study employed an explorative inductive research method, and followed a critical realist and contextual constructionist approach. Multiple-case study data collection took place by means of semi-structured interviews with social workers who engage therapeutically with sexually abused children. Data were examined by means of thematic analysis, and psychoanalytic theory was employed to analyse defences that surfaced during interviews. There were similarities in emotional experiences between South African participants and their abovementioned counterparts. The research also identified salient features of working with child sexual abuse in South Africa. The emotional experiences of doing such work, coupled with participants’ ways of managing sexually abused children’s material, gave rise to possible vicarious traumatisation symptoms and allowed for a psychoanalytic understanding to be put forward. The research also reports on useful measures that might enable individuals to continue interventions. To enable ongoing effective therapeutic engagement, social workers should have access to opportunities for acknowledging countertransferences and processing dynamic material defended against. The research contributes to knowledge of working in South Africa by exploring the emotional experiences of those who help sexually abused children daily, and by investigating the psychological impact prolonged therapeutic engagement has on workers active in Western Cape low-income communities.

Using the theory of planned behavior to examine residential substance abuse workers intention to use evidence-based practices.

There is considerable discrepancy between what is considered evidence-based practice (EBP) and what is actually delivered in substance abuse treatment settings. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TpB) is a well-established model that may assist in better understanding clinician's intentions to use EBPs. A total of 106 residential substance abuse workers employed by The Salvation Army participated in the current study. The workers completed an anonymous survey that assessed attitudes toward EBP and examined the constructs within the TpB. A linear regression analysis was used to predict clinicians' intentions to use EBPs. Overall, the model accounted for 41% of the variance in intentions, with attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control all significant predictors. The discussion highlights the potential for social reinforcement in the workplace to promote the implementation of EBPs.

Papal pronouncements on labor unions and workplace democracy

The author traces over a century of Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII to John Paul II, emphasizing in particular workplace democracy and labor unions. Until John Paul II, Gruenberg argues, the Church’s teaching on labor organizations was deliberately ambiguous. Leo XIII had the greatest problem because of the extreme diversity among union movements throughout the industrialized world and the drive of Marxism to take the lead in solving workers’ problems. Pius XI saw the Great Depression as a sign that Marx might be right, and did his best to offer an alternative in the form of worker cooperatives and union‐management co‐determination. However, John Paul II stated unequivocally that labor unions are “indispensable” for workplace justice, and collective bargaining is just another name for workplace democracy. Unions are seen by John Paul II as the democratic institutions that form a bulwark against the abuse of workers at the hands of either the employer or the state. A detailed reading list is attached.

Ten common errors beginning substance abuse workers make in group treatment.

Beginning therapists sometimes make mistakes when working with substance abusers in groups. This article discusses ten common errors that the author has observed. Five center on the therapist's approach and five center on the nuts and bolts of group leadership. Suggestions are offered for how to avoid them.

Issues in AIDS training for substance abuse workers

Workers in drug treatment programs need specialized training concerning acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) to meet the demands of their expanding roles. Initially, the treatment community failed to anticipate training needs fully, but now, comprehensive and systematic AIDS training programs must be developed. This article discusses the five steps in developing and implementing such programs: (a) assessment and information gathering, (b) curriculum development, (c) training of instructors, (d) training delivery, and (e) evaluation.

Contrasting Organizational Responses to Alcohol and Illegal Drug Abuse among Employees

The example of the employer response to substance abuse provides an illustrative case of the importance of environmental influences in shaping the employer response to worker deviance. Despite similar claims of the ill effects of worker abuse on the business interests of employers (e.g., absenteeism and lost productivity), abuse of alcohol and drugs are defined differently, the proper limits of employer interest are defined differently, and the two substances are dealt with quite differently, strongly influenced by the organizational environment. The author describes major differences in employer control efforts in the policy areas of identification, discipline, and rehabilitation for alcohol versus illegal drug cases and provides a conceptual framework for thinking about these differences and the influences on them.