Dispatch Workers Research Articles

Labour dispatch in China: flexibility and security in employment

ABSTRACT Across the globe, atypical, or nonstandard, employment can be found in many places. Since China began to undertake economic reforms four decades ago, dispatch workers have become a significant component of its workforce. Although China has a legal framework in place for regulating the labour-dispatch industry, the past decade witnessed instances of enterprise noncompliance and unfair treatment of dispatch workers. Accordingly, this study highlights the current situation of labour dispatch in China, outlines the current regulatory framework, and ascertains whether regulatory reforms are warranted to deal with issues arising from the tripartite relationship between the labour-dispatch entity, the labour-service user, and the dispatch worker.

Burnout and Work Engagement Among Dispatch Workers in Courier Service Organizations

Burnout and Work Engagement Among Dispatch Workers in Courier Service Organizations

Dispatch Workers and Their Psychological Contracts in China: A Preliminary Discussion from The Agency’s Perspective

This paper takes a new perspective from the dispatch labor agency to look at work and employment issues of Chinese dispatch workers through the lens of the psychological contract. It preliminarily discusses the significance of this perspective brining to light some initial and informal interview findings with the management of a labor agency in Anhui province China. This paper calls for more attention to be paid to dispatch workers agencies in China, which have been providing a major source of work, labor and employment since the Chinese employment reform.It further suggests the application of several psychological concepts for future research in this light, especially from the dispatch labor agency's perspective.

Screening of Workers with Presumed Occupational Methanol Poisoning: The Applicablility of a National Active Occupational Disease Surveillance System.

BackgroundMethyl alcohol poisoning in mobile phone–manufacturing factories during 2015–2016 was caused by methyl alcohol use for cleaning in computerized numerical control (CNC) processes. To determine whether there were health complications in other workers involved in similar processes, the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute conducted a survey.MethodsWe established a national active surveillance system by collaborating with the Ministry of Employment and Labor and National Health Insurance Service. Employment and national health insurance data were used. Overall, 12,048 employees of major domestic mobile phone companies and CNC process dispatch workers were surveyed from 2016 to 2017. We investigated methyl alcohol poisoning by using the national health insurance data. Questionnaires were used to investigate diseases due to methyl alcohol poisoning.ResultsOverall, 24.9% of dispatched workers were employed in at least five companies, and 23.9% of dispatched workers had missing employment insurance history data. The prevalence of blindness including visual impairment, optic neuritis, visual disturbances, and alcohol toxicity in the study participants was higher than that reported in the national health insurance database (0.02%, 0.07%, 0.23%, and 0.03% versus 0.01%, 0.07%, 0.13%, and 0.01%, respectively, in 2015). Moreover, 430 suspicious workers were identified; 415 of these provided an address and phone number, of whom 48 responded (response rate, 11.6%). Among the 48 workers, 10 had diseases at the time of the survey, of whom 3 workers were believed to have diseases related to methyl alcohol exposure.ConclusionThis study revealed that active surveillance data can be used to assess health problems related to methyl alcohol poisoning in CNC processes and dispatch workers.

The Practice and Theory of China’s Informal Economy

This article is based on the introduction-summary of the author’s new book awaiting publication. It deals mainly with the realities of China’s “informal economy” (understood as laboring people with little or no legal protection), to be distinguished from misleading and obfuscating “mainstream” theory’s construction and discourse about them. The working people of the “informal economy” today come mainly from the “half cultivator half worker” peasant families, and with them, make up a distinctive social formation that is very different from the expectations of both neoclassical economics and Marxist political economy. It cannot be understood in terms of the conventional categories of “mainstream” theory and needs new conceptualization and theory to grasp. The “informal economy’s” latest manifestation is the rapid spread of “dispatch workers,” who need also to be understood in terms of new theoretical concepts.

Problems and countermeasures of occupational health supervision archives management of labor dispatch workers

Problems and countermeasures of occupational health supervision archives management of labor dispatch workers

U.S.-Russia-East Asia Comparisons of Dispatch (Temporary) Worker Regulations

Russia had few temporary workers in the 1990s, but after the fall of the Soviet Union and the entrance of foreign MNCs, the percent of workers on temporary contracts grew in 2014. In 2016, a new law was implemented that bans hiring temporary workers except through government-accredited agencies, but only for the purpose of substituting for employees who are temporarily absent from the workplace; to assist in the temporary expansion of production or services (for up to a maximum of nine months); and to provide temporary employment to certain approved categories of workers (i.e., fulltime students, single parents, parents of multiple children, and former convicts). This paper will compare and contrast the current labor protections of temporary dispatch workers in the U.S. and Russia, with consideration also of the recent legislative labor protections provided in the East Asian countries of China, South Korea, and Japan. Following the Introduction, the paper, in Part I discusses the phenomena of “fissurization,” in employment relations and its resulting legal implications for the regulation of “dispatch (agency)” workers in the above countries. Part II compares and contrasts the regulatory approaches of the U.S. with Russia and the East Asian countries of China, Japan, and South Korea; and the Conclusion follows. Perhaps the menu of regulatory legislation provided in this paper will be useful for those looking for the tools to construct dispatch regulation in the U.S.

Up and Down the Multinational Corporations’ Global Labor Supply chains: Making Remedies that Work in China

Today, multinational and domestic corporations in many industries are no longer self-contained vertical structures with permanent staff, but increasingly are horizontal organizations with fissured employment characteristics using outsourcing, franchising, and subcontracting with contractors and chains of subcontractors. Too often, the workers of the subcontractors suffer the consequences of the subcontractors’ cost cutting measures, work in unfavorable conditions, and have low wages and few benefits, all for the purpose of serving the interests and profitability of the primary corporation. This paper therefore focuses on domestic laws that provide workers with an additional avenue of remedy from an expanded employment relationship—a doctrine of joint employer liability that places obligations “up the chain” on the in-country originating contractor who benefits from the supply chain or operates it for the benefit of the offshore multinational corporation. Some form of this doctrine is already used to provide workers with wage remedies against Chinese construction companies and to provide dispatch workers wage and “employee” benefit remedies. Given China’s extensive role in multinational supply chains, this paper examines the doctrine of joint employer liability up the chain and evaluates whether it can be expanded in China to remedy labor law violations and protect workers in the labor supply chains.

Exploring the Plight of Dispatch Workers in China and How to Improve Their Conditions: A Preliminary Study

The International Labour Organization has noted that “[i]n a world of globalized supply chains where employers seek to do away with their responsibilities in the name of ‘flexibility’ and ‘competitiveness’ and where governments have all but given up on the objective of full and decent employment, workers have found themselves increasingly reduced to accepting forms of work arrangements that afford lower pay, less security, less favourable working conditions and make it ever more difficult to access the right to collective bargaining.” The use of dispatch labor in China's development is one example of this. The dispatch labor system was introduced in China more than thirty years ago and has developed into a huge industry. However, attention to the working conditions and lives of the dispatch workers involved in this industry chain is still insufficient. It was not until the 2008 “Labour Contract Law” that the dispatch labor system was formally written into the law; nonetheless, legal loopholes and weak penalties for violations have meant that the situation for dispatch workers has not improved much. This study found that the impact of the dispatch labor system on dispatch workers is poorly understood by dispatch workers. Dispatch workers' labor contracts are unable to provide them with adequate protection, they are often treated unfairly regarding wages, social security, and welfare benefits, and their occupational health and safety is not treated seriously, meaning that they are vulnerable to occupational hazards. The occupational instability of dispatch workers is also unfavorable to their career development. At the same time, as the trade union does not fulfill its role, this also has a negative impact on the safeguarding of dispatch workers' interests. Interestingly, however, dispatch workers themselves did not hold clear negative views of their own identity.

Predicting Use of Lights and Siren for Patient Illnesses

Lights and siren are frequently used by Emergency Medical Service (EMS) groups to reduce response times and increase a patient’s chance for survival. However, the use of lights and siren in EMS patient transport has been associated with occasional inappropriate use, higher crash rates involving the ambulance, and a potential “wake effect” increasing crash rates in ambient traffic. This study examines types of patient illnesses and their involvement with either emergency (lights and siren engaged) or non-emergency transport. Patient care records were analyzed from a five-year period from a private medical transportation company. A binary logistic regression model was built to predict the transportation mode (lights and siren or non-emergency-mode) most likely to accompany each unique primary patient illness. Patient illnesses were identified that showed a higher probability of transport using lights and siren. Fifteen illness descriptions were identified from the records as being more likely to result in emergency mode travel, including airway obstruction, altered level of consciousness, breathing problems, cardiac arrest, cardiac symptoms, chest pain, congestive heart failure/pulmonary embolism, heart/cardiac, obstetrics, respiratory arrest, respiratory distress, stroke/cerebrovascular accident, trauma, unconscious, and patients where data was not entered. The patient illnesses associated with lights and siren were not limited to cardiac conditions and symptoms, which suggest that response-time goals based solely on cardiac arrest patients may need to be expanded to include other illnesses such as respiratory conditions. Expanded studies could assess whether or not lights and sirens result in a clinically significant time savings across the spectrum of illnesses that are currently being transported using lights and siren. The list of illnesses identified here as more commonly utilizing lights and siren could be useful to untrained EMS or dispatch workers to assist in minimizing unnecessary emergency mode travel, thereby increasing safety for EMS workers, patients, and the general public.

年越し派遣村村民の健康

In Japan, the liquidity of employment is progressing rapidly. Due to the global recession which started in 2008, large-scale unemployment of precarious workers, including dispatch workers, is expected in 2009. In recent studies, it has been suggested that the unstable employment status itself may affect the health conditions of such workers. At the end of 2008, "Toshikoshi Haken Mura" (Dispatch Workers' New Year Village) was established in central Tokyo as a shelter for about 500 workers who had lost their jobs and accommodation. We participated in health consultations and medical checkups conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on January 8-10, 2009 to investigate the health conditions of the "villagers". Eighty-nine people attended health consultations and medical checkups (mean age, 48 yr). Physical complaints in the order of prevalence were as follows: respiratory (cough, 43%; sputum, 36%), low-grade fever (16.9%), musculoskeletal (13.5%), dermal (5.6%), digestive (3.4%), neurological (3.4%) and others including mental complaint (10.1%) such as anxiety, insomnia, and depression. During individual consultations, we found many cases who had had difficulty in getting medical consultations and whose treatment had been discontinued. Moreover, the rate of getting periodic medical examination remained low at 23.8% (among 84 people). Health problems of precarious workers have not been sufficiently recognized; however, there were cases whose poor health was indeed related to unstable employment. Studies on the health effects of temporary work should have higher prioritizes in the occupational health field.