Benefits Of Work Research Articles

Come Together Now! New Technologies and Collective Representation of Platform Workers

The purpose of this short discussion paper is to outline the problems faced by collective labour law in face of new forms of work organization such as digital platforms. The digital economy has brought automation of work, digitalisation of processes and coordination by platforms. In comparison to other companies there are significant differences in the way platforms are organized and managed using algorithms. Employment platform workers have gone a long way from initial form of organising in self-help communities, guilds to co-operatives and full participation in trade union structures. Nowadays it has to be considered how to use technologies and data collected by platform companies to the benefit of workers.

Novel thoraco-lumbo-sacral corset design increases Biering-Sorensen back endurance and alters knee and ankle angles during a box lifting task

Research investigating lumbosacral corset designs and their effects are limited and conflicting. The objective was to compare thoraco-lumbo-sacral support corsets (polyester/nylon: TLSSC-poly and neoprene: TLSSC-neo) with a traditional model (TRAD) and Control. Twenty male, university-aged, healthy, recreationally active, participants performed Biering-Sorensen back endurance (BS) test and box lifting tasks (BL:30 repetitions using 20% body mass). Lower and upper erector spinae and hamstrings electromyography (EMG); trunk-hip, knee, and ankle kinematics as well as endurance time were monitored. With BL, the TLSSC-poly (121.4°±17.9) exhibited 1.9% (p = 0.01), 2.7% (p = 0.003), and 3.7% (p = 0.0003) greater knee flexion than TRAD (119.1°±17.5), TLSSC-neo (116.8°±17.4) and Control (120.1°±17.6) respectively. The TLSSC-poly (101.9°± 8.9) demonstrated significant 3.5% (p = 0.005), 2.2% (p = 0.002) and 1.4% (p = 0.01) greater dorsiflexion than TRAD (103.4°±8.7), TLSSC-neo (104.2°±9.8) and Control (105.7°±7.2) respectively. With BS, TLSSC-poly (137.4-s±31.2, 9.7%, p = 0.018) and TLSSC-neo (133.8-s±32.3, 9.2%, p = 0.006) exhibited significantly longer durations than Control (124.8-s±29.8). Relevance to industry: The TLSSC increased BS endurance and TLSSC-poly increased BL knee and ankle angles, possibly providing benefits for workers, with repeated actions over a full work day.

Leading the charge in addressing racism and bias: implications for social work training and practice

ABSTRACT As a profession with social justice as an ethical mandate, social work is well positioned to lead systems towards anti-racist practice and equity through consciousness-raising efforts. At a time of heightened overt bigotry, polarization, and ‘othering,’ training social workers on how to identify, name, and disrupt oppressive practices is that much more critical. This paper outlines the development and components of customized anti-racist/anti-bias trainings for the Social Work Department of a large, urban healthcare system in the US. The trainings were developed in partnership with the system’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and built upon unconscious bias core curriculum. The trainings intentionally drew connections between systemic oppressive structures, US history, the creation and maintenance of dominant narratives, and micro-level bias, all of which culminate in inequitable outcomes and disparate experiences for service users and communities. This paper suggests possible application and implications of such trainings to diverse settings including classrooms and organizations. Social workers benefit from enhancing their ability to analyze their role in perpetuating racism and bias in organizations and with the people served.

Integrating operations management and occupational health and safety: A necessary part of safety science!

Occupational safety and health (OSH) management has expanded inside companies, and research is now indicating that it yields benefits for both workers’ safety and health and for business performance. However, in daily operations, OSH management tends to end up in a ‘sidecar’ to operations management (OM). We argue that the division between the two fields can be explained by conflicts between the dominant logics of risk for OSH management and efficiency for OM. These conflicts are translated into differences in goals, rationales behind practices, and the organisation of the OSH and operations tasks, respectively. We argue that the future of safety science requires research in the relations between the two fields to increase the impact of the OSH field. By investigating competitive and cooperative constellations of the two logics, we identified potentials for additive constellations amplifying both productive and safety capabilities in companies, and potentials for facilitative cooperation where a new overarching institutional logic of responsible and sustainable business can create a need for synergy between the two logics. Furthermore, a broader understanding of the need for worker well-being and commitment for both OSH and OM opens the possibility for a closer integration of the two fields.

Designing a sustainable supply chain network for producing high-value products from waste glass.

This paper aims to design a supply chain network for producing double glazed glass from the recycling of waste glass. All three pillars of sustainability are taken into consideration. The economic objective tries to maximize total profits. The environmental objective considers the energy consumption, the generated waste, the greenhouse gas emission, the water consumption, and the fuel consumption of vehicles. The social objective addresses created job opportunities, the worker safety, the regional development, the worker benefit, and training hours. To solve the model, a two-stage framework based on the group best-worst method and an interactive fuzzy programming approach is developed. The proposed model is validated through a real case study based on waste glass management in the city of Shiraz. It is revealed that when sustainable development goals are approached, a great degree of improvement will be attained in environmental and social aspects without a significant decrease in the economic sustainability. The results also demonstrate that the locations of glass recycling centres are different under economic, environmental, and social pillars, and the proposed model yields an optimal system configuration with a proper satisfaction degree of all objectives. Moreover, applying the proposed solution procedure enables system designers to obtain the most desirable trade-off between different aspects of sustainability.

Determining the Implementation Status of Benefits Under Magna Carta of Public Health Workers (RA 7305) in the Philippines

Background. The Republic Act 7305 or the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers was enacted in 1992 to address health workers' welfare. However, the implementation of this act was reportedly inconsistent among local government units (LGUs).
 Objectives. This study was conducted to determine the implementation status of provisions under the law among LGUs.
 Methods. This is a descriptive case study employing mixed methods. The quantitative data were derived from LGU scorecards, and the qualitative data were obtained from focus group discussions and key informant interviews of mayors, municipal health officers, and budget officers.
 Results. A total of 1,557 LGU scorecards with 2017 data showed that more than half (52.0%) of LGUs do not provide the full benefits of hazard pay, subsistence allowance, and laundry allowance. Disaggregation by income class showed that the provision of benefits is higher among LGUs with higher income classes (56.10%) compared to LGUs of lower-income classes (38.73%), and this translates to a correlation of income class with the provision of benefits (χ2=59.0, p<0.001). Factors influencing the provision of benefits include the political will of the mayor, the active role of municipal health staff to lobby for their rights, the limited resources of the LGU, the personnel services budget ceiling, the lack of enforcement of the law, and the limiting specifications of the law.
 Conclusion. This study demonstrated that the Magna Carta benefits for public health workers in municipalities and cities are inadequately implemented. Local governments must enforce public health workers' rights and benefits, but the national government should aid and ensure its unvarying implementation.

Access to employer-provided paid leave and eldercare provision for older workers

ABSTRACT Paid leave for family and medical reasons is an important workplace benefit for older workers with eldercare responsibilities by offering time off from work to deal with the need for caregiving, but little is known about its effects on eldercare provision. I study the association between employer-provided paid leave and eldercare provision among workers aged 45 or over, using the 2011 and 2017–18 American Time Use Survey and its Leave Modules. Among various types of leave, paid leave for eldercare was the only type of leave associated with an increase in any care provision by six percentage points. The positive relationship was stronger for care provided less than daily than care provided daily. The significant, but small, increase in care provision associated with paid leave for eldercare suggests the role of paid leave in facilitating care for older adults among middle- and old-aged workers.

\u201cRunning myself ragged\u201d: stressors faced by peer workers in overdose response settings

BackgroundPeer workers or “peers” (workers with past or present drug use experience) are at the forefront of overdose response initiatives, and their role is essential in creating safe spaces for people who use drugs (PWUD). Working in overdose response settings has benefits for peer workers but is also stressful, with lasting emotional and mental health effects. Yet, little is known about the stressors peer workers face and what interventions can be implemented to support them in their roles.MethodsThis project used a community-based sequential mixed-methods research design. Eight peer researcher-led focus groups (n = 31) were conducted between November 2018 and March 2019 to assess needs of peer workers. The transcripts were thematically coded and analysed using interpretative description. These results informed a survey, which was conducted (n = 50) in September 2019 to acquire quantitative data on peer workers’ perception of health, quality of life, working conditions and stressors. Frequency distributions were used to describe characteristics of participants. X2 distribution values with Yates correction were conducted to check for association between variables.ResultsFive themes emerged from the focus groups that point to stressors felt by peer workers: (1) financial insecurity; (2) lack of respect and recognition at work; (3) housing challenges; (4) inability to access and/or refer individuals to resources; and (5) constant exposure to death and trauma. Consistent with this, the factors that survey participants picked as one of their “top three stressors” included financial situation, work situation, and housing challenges.ConclusionPeer workers are faced with a diversity of stressors in their lives which often reflect societal stigmatization of drug use. Recognition of these systemic stressors is critical in designing interventions to ease the emotional, physical and financial burden faced by peer workers.

Research on the Protection of Labor Rights and Benefits of Taiwanese Working Abroad ─Case Study of Working in the Philippines

Under the influence of rapid economic development and policy, the tendency of Taiwanese to go overseas for employment has gradually increased. However, in the face of limited foreign legal protection and the inability to extend the application of relevant domestic labor laws, there is currently a lack of protection for nationals working overseas; on the contrary, the Philippines, a major labor force going abroad adjacent to Taiwan (ROC), has plans for regulations, insurance systems, and care after returning to the country. It can be said that the protection of the rights and benefits of overseas workers is relatively sound. This paper reviews the literature and relevant laws and regulations, and cooperates with in-depth interviews to understand the labor rights issues that Taiwanese may face in overseas employment, and compare the differences in the systems of the two countries. We look forward to identifying the experience and methods that Taiwan (ROC) can use as a reference, and putting forward suggestions for policy and system improvements.

Benefits and challenges for Malaysian hotels when employing foreign workers and interns

PurposeIn Malaysia, globalization has increased the number of multinational hotel chains and independent five-star hotels employing foreign professionals, interns and labourers. This study aims to explore the benefits and challenges for hotels of the many foreigners working in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted with Malaysian hotel managers concerning employment of foreign workers.FindingsThe results indicate that the employment of foreign workers benefits customers, enlarges the hotel’s network of industry contacts and enhances the knowledge, professionalism and service culture of the hotel workforce. This study identified challenges for the foreign workers such as culture shocks and problems with learning the Malay language.Research limitations/implicationsThis is an exploratory qualitative study conducted prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. The unemployment issue is worsened as COVID-19 spreads globally. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first study to examine the positive and negative impacts of foreign workers employment in hotels in Malaysia.Practical implicationsThe employment of foreign workers reduces the availability of jobs for locals. Recommendations are provided for locals to improve their employability and for hotels to better host international interns.Social implicationsThis study highlights the need for balance between the benefits of foreign workers employment, and its challenges such as local unemployment.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first in the international human resources management literature to provide a first-hand perspective of employment of expatriate managers, foreign labourers and interns in hotels in a Southeast Asian developing country.

Urban Transit Infrastructure and Inequality: The Role of Access to Non-Tradable Goods and Services

With 68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, mass transit networks are expanding faster than ever before. But how are the economic gains from such expansions being shared between low- and high-income workers? Existing research focuses on the role of commuting to work, however much of urban travel is related to the consumption of non-tradable goods and services (retail, F&B, personal services etc.). Since low-income workers are overwhelmingly employed in these non-tradable sectors, changes in consumption travel patterns in response to a transit expansion leads to a spatial re-organization of low-income jobs in the city which has important implications for inequality. This paper develops an urban spatial model with heterogeneous worker groups and incorporating travel to consume non-tradable goods and services. We estimate our model using detailed farecard and administrative data from Singapore to quantify the impact of the Downtown Line (DTL). We find large welfare gains for high-income workers, but near zero gains for low-income workers. All workers benefit from improved access to consumption opportunities, but low-income non-tradable sector jobs move to less attractive workplaces. Abstracting away from consumption travel results in a five-fold underestimation of the inequality effects and failure to capture the spatial re-organization of low-income jobs in the city.

Promoting written employment contracts: evidence from a randomised awareness campaign

Abstract Written employment contracts may improve the conditions of agricultural workers in developing countries, but farmers as employers often prefer less formal oral arrangements. We evaluate whether farmers’ preferences, which are deeply rooted in traditional norms, can be influenced through a group awareness campaign. In a randomised experiment in Côte d’Ivoire, we show that such a campaign increases farmers’ preferences for written contracts and for contract features involving social benefits for workers. The campaign also increases farmers’ likelihood to initiate concrete steps towards signing a contract with their workers. We conclude that group-based interventions can change farmers’ traditional views about employment relations.

The Gig Is Up: Who Does Gig Economy Actually Benefit?

This article takes on the task of exploring gig economy in its various forms and definitions, starting from its economic origins as a way to reduce transaction costs and overheads in firms making use of modern technology, and working up to some of its social consequences, such as the transforming of employees in just-in-time resources, fragmenting their labour and eroding their ability to organize and unionize in order to better defend their rights. Focussing on the influence platforms have on their users, be it in the role of workers or customers, it questions their far-reaching impacts on society and economy in terms of their positive, neutral or negative consequences for workers, as most of the literature agrees on the heavily skewed positive consequences for businesses. In order to make sense of existing research made on “giggers” this article tries to provide a scope of the gig economy using, which has been difficult to achieve as numerous researchers, institutions, and even states, define gig economy in different ways, with their data varying depending on definitions, dates, and methodological approaches. Finally, the article explores three distinct “selling points” of gig economy, namely: the possibility to generate (not always) steady income, the flexibility it offers to its users, and its consequences on workers’ social and emotional state, putting into question their benefits for workers, for the profit of platforms and businesses.

Bidenism as Trumpism 2.0: America’s Bipartisan Embrace of Neo-Mercantilist Policies and What this Entails

A hefty dose of nationalism infuses Build Back Better, U.S. President Joe Biden’s economic policy priorities. Echoing Trump’s Make America Great Again promises, it embraces a zero-sum logic regarding economic relations with China, and is centered on trade protectionism, restrictions on capital and technological flows, and an industrial strategy that subsidizes American suppliers. Why? Many American politicians, if not average citizens, claim that China benefits much more than the U.S. from their economic interdependence. We debunk this idea, rejecting the logic of the arguments that policymakers deploy to justify their economic nationalism. American businesses, consumers, and workers benefit from Sino-U.S. interdependence. Plus, many of Trump’s supporters backed him not because of his protectionism, but despite it. We also discuss concerns over relative versus absolute gains in Sino-U.S. economic relations. China’s increased economic convergence with the U.S. may help explain America’s neo-mercantilism, especially in light of stagnating median wages.

Do workers benefit from wage transparency rules?

Wage transparency rules arguably enable workers better to assess their contribution to firm value, allowing them to make wage demands that more accurately reflect their value for the employing firm. This paper contains a formal analysis of transparency rules and their effects on wages. We find that these rules induce firms to behave strategically with the aim of manipulating the information workers receive. We identify a large class of rules that yield an identical equilibrium outcome. For productivity distributions with decreasing (increasing) hazard rate, transparency rules increase (potentially decrease) workers’ payoff.

Remote working challenges and solutions: insights from SMEs in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of global COVID-19 pandemic, both in health and economic terms is becoming clearer. This article critically explores the challenges in implementing remote working practices in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Bangladesh. Based on the qualitative approach, interviewing 14 participants from SME owners, consultants, government officials and professors, we found several challenges such as financial constraints, bureaucracy, lack of knowledge and interest, communication problem, high employee turnover and difficulty to find trustworthy employee implementing remote working practices. The study also advanced some solutions such as convincing the benefits of remote working practices, government rules, financial incentives, training and IT courses, remote (online) classes in universities, and in implementing remote working practices in the SMEs not only during COVID-19 pandemic but also for the long-term. These have several implications regarding SMEs performances and worker benefits.

Gender Wage and Longevity Gaps and the Design of Retirement Systems

We study the design of pension benefits for male and female workers. Women live longer than men but have a lower wage. Individuals can be single or live in couples who pool their incomes. Social welfare is utilitarian but an increasing concave transformation of individuals' lifetime utilities introduces the concern for redistribution between individuals with different life-spans. We derive the optimal direction of redistribution and show how it is affected by a gender neutrality rule. With singles only, a simple utilitarian solution implies redistribution from males to females. When the transformation is sufficiently concave redistribution may or may not be reversed. With couples only, the ranking of gender retirement ages is always reversed when the transformation is sufficiently concave. Under gender neutrality pension schemes must be self-selecting. With singles only this implies distortions of retirement decision and restricts redistribution across genders. With couples, a first best that implies a lower retirement age for females can be implemented by a gender-neutral system. Otherwise, gender neutrality implies equal retirement ages and restricts the possibility to compensate the shorter-lived individuals. Calibrated simulations show that when singles and couples coexist, gender neutrality substantially limits redistribution in favor of single women and fully prevents redistribution in favor of male spouses.

Working from Home and Changes in Work Characteristics during COVID-19

A relatively high proportion of U.S. workers started working from home during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. There has been extensive tracking of employment trends, but it is less clear what kind of impact working from home during the pandemic has had on job experiences. The authors use data from the October 2020 Pew Research Center American Trends Panel. On the basis of a sample of 4,508 respondents, the authors find that working from home improves job satisfaction, flexibility over when to put in one’s work hours, work-family balance, productivity, and work hours. Working from home reduces connectedness to coworkers, job security, and opportunities for advancement. The benefits for both workers and employers of working from home may encourage working from home even after the pandemic.

The Impact of a National Surgical Mask Wearing Policy on COVID-19 Transmission in Haemodialysis Units in the Republic of Ireland

The Impact of a National Surgical Mask Wearing Policy on COVID-19 Transmission in Haemodialysis Units in the Republic of Ireland

Psychological Wellbeing of Employees

The qualified shortage of material concerning various ways where Mental Health Conditions (MHC) practiced over in addition enacted over organizations. This was seen where guidance to the work-linked stress gets protracted, leading to physical and psychological weakening, including anxiety or depression. Hence, the work aggravates pre-existing situations, moreover complications at work, making belongings worse. The helpful action of the healthy working setting for the wellbeing of staff. The paper explains the health benefits for workers, explaining clear joining among healthy workforce, leading to rarer sick days and intricate and productive workforces.