Labor Work Research Articles

Labour standards in global garment supply chains and the proposed EU corporate sustainability due diligence directive

Growing concerns over labour standards and workers’ rights in global supply chains (GSCs) have led many companies to adopt codes of conduct (CoCs) as part of increasing attempts to self-regulate through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) instruments to promote international labour standards in suppliers’ factories. However, improvements in labour standards and the level of protection of workers’ rights in GSCs are unsatisfactory, the garment industry labour force being a case in point. At European Union (EU) level this has led to the adoption of an EU corporate sustainability package in addition to previously adopted sector-specific/thematic due diligence legislation. This article looks closely at selected labour standards and labour rights aspects of the EU proposed Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDD) and evaluates its contribution to the improvement of workers’ rights protection in global garment supply chains.

Anthropometric measurements of male and female workers in bipedestation in the Venezuelan industrial direct labor force

In the Venezuelan labor context, there is scarce information associated with anthropometric measurements, due to the existing gaps in the field of ergonomics in Latin America and the Caribbean, of which there are few professionals trained in ergonomics. In this sense, it has affected the proper achievement of anthropometric studies that allow an adequate follow-up in the population in general and more specifically in the labor world. General objective: to measure and determine the anthropometric variables in standing position of Venezuelan workers in order to obtain more results in the field of occupational health. Methods: A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, epidemiological and field study was carried out in a Venezuelan population of industrial direct labor workers in standing. The sample consisted of 185 workers (M:131, W:54) in the main industrial areas of the state of Aragua-Venezuela. The measuring instruments used in the investigation were: anthropometric tables for standing measurements, flexible tape measure for perimeter measurements and a wall height meter with a scale for weight measurements. The minitab-17 statistical package was used for the analysis and statistical study. Results: The study group consisted of 185 workers with an age range between 20-59 years; 131 men (70.8%) and 54 women (29.2%). The people evaluated had an average age of 43 years, their height x: 170.08 m, they are workers with 10 to 15 years of work experience, with wear and tear and possible pre-existing diseases, likewise, the female workers have an age x: 40.33 years and their height x: 156.27 cm, as well as the male worker have an average work experience between 10 and 15 years and possible pre-existing diseases. Conclusion: The study provides an approximation of anthropometric measurements in standing position of Venezuelan industrial direct labor workers (MODIV), which will allow the adaptation of workstations

Job Insecurity, Mental Health, and General Health Over Time: A Longitudinal Update of a Cross-sectional Study.

The aim of the study is to test the relationship between different conceptualizations of job insecurity and health over time by applying a longitudinal design. 543 workers were reinterviewed after 1 year to check if being exposed to job insecurity affected their general and mental health. Robust Poisson regressions were fitted to calculate the incidence rate ratio between job insecurities and two health outcomes. Cognitive job loss insecurity increases the risk of poor mental and general health. Other expressions of job insecurity such as labor market insecurity and working conditions insecurity, as well as affective job insecurity, are not significantly related to health across time. Caution is needed when interpreting cross-sectional results. Protection against the threat of losing a job would prevent mental health issues and poor general health.

Determinants of postpartum depression among women in Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia

ObjectiveThis study aimed to identify the prevalence of postpartum depression (PPD) and the factors associated with PPD in Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia. Study designA cross-sectional study. ParticipantsThis study included 440 Cambodian women at 6–8 weeks postpartum who visited health centers between July and September 2021. Materials and methodsData were collected through face-to-face interviews by midwives and nurses using a structured questionnaire. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in the Khmer language was used to screen for PPD, and suspected PPD was defined as a total EPDS score ≥ 10. Logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the factors associated with suspected PPD. FindingsThe average age of participants was 28.6 years old. The prevalence of suspected-PPD was 30.2 % (n = 133). Factors associated with suspected PPD were income dissatisfaction (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.66, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.27–5.56, P = 0.010), unintended pregnancy (AOR = 1.99, 95 % CI 1.10–3.61, P = 0.023), and a partner employed as a manual laborer (AOR = 3.85, 95 % CI 1.11–13.33, P = 0.034), farmer (AOR = 3.69, 95 % CI 1.11–12.31, P = 0.034), and factory worker (AOR = 5.43, 95 % CI 1.38–21.41, P = 0.016). In addition, poor relationship with partners (AOR = 2.14, 95 % CI 1.17–3.94, P = 0.014), poor relationship with mother-in-law (AOR = 3.51, 95 % CI 1.70–7.21, P < 0.001), and a history of depression before pregnancy (AOR = 6.34, 95 % CI 1.59–25.34, P = 0.009) were significantly associated with suspected-PPD. Key conclusions and implications for practiceThis study highlighted the need for mental health services in primary healthcare settings. Mental health training for healthcare workers, particularly primary-level nurses, should be prioritized and strengthened. Further clinical study on EPDS validation should be carried out to justify the appropriate cut-off EPDS score for Cambodian women. The EPDS should be integrated into routine PNC services to identify women with suspected-PPD. Education on PPD should be provided not only to the nurses and midwives, but also to the women and their families to support the mental health of pregnant and postpartum women.

Gender Gap in Indian Labour Market

Gender inequality constitute a shared practice wherein parity between men and women is not upheld. This study endeavours to gauge the extent of gender inequality in the Indian Labour market. Utilizing secondary data sourced from Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFs) 2022-23. The finding reveals a substantial disparity in labour force participation, work involvement, and unemployment rates between females and males.

Differentiated Borders of Belonging and Exclusion: European Migrants in Rural Areas in Iceland

This article addresses questions of difference, positionality, and belonging from the perspectives of international migrants living and working in rural communities in Iceland. With the recent integration of rural areas into the global economy, small villages and towns have undergone rapid social transformation. The development of new industries and growing tourism in these localities has attracted many international migrants. The share of migrants in the local populations oscillates between 10% to 50%, depending on the town, with the majority coming from Europe. Commonly, they make up the greater part of workers in service jobs and manual labour in rural towns and villages. This article builds on data from ethnographic field research over 15 months in five parts of Iceland located outside of the capital region. Based on the analysis of interviews with migrants, we examine different perceptions of affinity and belonging and explore their experiences of inclusion and exclusion. To what extent do migrants see themselves as part of local communities? How do they narrate their social positions in those places? The discussion highlights how social stratification and hierarchy affect migrants’ experiences of inclusion as commonly displayed in the interviews. Furthermore, we elaborate on how notions of relatedness and otherness reflect inherited ideas of Europe and contemporary divergent geopolitical positions.

The Art of Neighboring beyond the Nation: Ethnic and Religious Pluralism in Southwest China

Northwest Yunnan is nested in the border areas of Tibet, Myanmar, and Southwest China. The religiously and ethnically diverse region has astonishingly seen a lack of “conflict”, as is often assumed in regions of ethnic and religious differences. This paper argues that there is an organic form of pluralism through frequent inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriages, multi-lingual daily interactions, and strategic ethnicity registrations. Ethnic and religious boundaries are made permanently or temporarily permeable through the celebration of boundary-crossing rituals such as weddings and funerals and other shared experiences such as collective labor and migrant work. Despite an increasingly strong push to be integrated into the state power through various top-down developmental projects, minority peoples here still use kinship, collective rituals, and other shared experiences to foster group formation that is fluid, porous, and malleable, instilling empathy and obligation as the basis of this pluralistic borderland society. This organic form of pluralism presents an alternative to the nation as the standard modern form of community. This paper ultimately argues that this specific type of plurality requires us to think beyond the normative liberal notions of religious tolerance and diversity that are still promoted within the frame of the exclusivist nation-state.

Reframing the Indian Middle Class as a Labour Aristocracy

Abstract Taking from, and critiquing, both the scholarship on the Indian “middle class” as well as the scholarship on the ‘labour aristocracy’, this paper argues for the reformulation of the Indian “middle class” as a labour aristocracy or worker elite. We define the distinctive characteristics that set the Indian worker elite apart from the broader working class and highlight, through the case studies of international migration, patterns in urban living spaces and domestic service employment, the stark differences between the worker elite and the poor working masses in India, and the exploitative relationship that exists between the two. The analysis points to the semi-periphery being the locus of the largest inequalities in the capitalist world-system today, where the bourgeoisie and the worker elite both gain tremendously from the exploitation inherent to capitalism. Resultingly, the task at hand in India and the semi-periphery broadly remains to organize the poor, marginalised working masses.

Insomnia as a presentation of hypertension in a 37-year-old male: A case report

This case report explores the rare presentation of insomnia as a symptom of hypertension in a 37-year-old male labor worker named Dinesh. Presenting with a 3-week history of insomnia, the patient’s diagnosis of hypertension highlights the importance of considering systemic conditions in patients with nonspecific symptoms like insomnia. The report delves into the interplay between hypertension and sleep disturbances, emphasizing the influence of lifestyle factors, particularly alcohol consumption, on blood pressure and sleep quality. The case underscores the necessity for clinicians to be aware of atypical presentations of common conditions like hypertension, which is often asymptomatic in its early stages but can manifest in varied and unexpected ways. Through this case, the report demonstrates the effectiveness of a comprehensive management approach, combining pharmacological treatment with lifestyle modifications, in improving both hypertension and related insomnia, thereby emphasizing the need for holistic patient care.

The Need to Harmonize the Labor Legislation of Pharmaceutical Workers of the Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)

The paper is devoted to topical issues of legal regulation of the work of pharmaceutical workers both at the level of international legal acts of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and at the level of national legislation of the member states. These problems include the lack of a uniform integrated approach to the regulation of the work of pharmaceutical workers in international legal acts and its fragmentation. This leads to a decrease in the effectiveness of legal regulation of these categories of subjects of labor law. The situation gives rise to two dialectically interrelated trends at the EAEU level. On the one hand, international legal acts on the drug market of this organization contain norms that regulate the work of pharmaceutical workers. On the other hand, these norms do not cover all aspects of the work of pharmaceutical workers. The solution to this problem is seen in changing the international legal acts of the EAEU on the drug market by stipulating the norms regulating the work of pharmaceutical workers, considered in a single system and in close relationship with pharmaceutical activities. This is possible through the analysis, and in the future, the use of positive legal experience in regulating the labor of pharmaceutical workers in the EAEU countries to develop separate sections of the international legal acts of the EAEU in the field of regulation of the pharmaceutical market (in the form of appendices thereto).

IoT Based Greenhouse Condition Monitoring System for Chili Plant Growth

Over the last few years, most of greenhouses have been managed traditionally based on manpower to monitor and maintain the plants, such as watering, fertilizing, and using their skill in detecting plant diseases. Thus, this study focuses on developing a greenhouse monitoring system by using IoT technology. It aims to assist the local farmers in monitoring their greenhouse, instead of applying the conventional methods that are tedious and required more labour works. For data collection, parameters for chilli plants are measured using temperature and humidity sensors, soil moisture sensor, and light dependent resistor (LDR) sensor. The data are sent to microcontroller and transferred to the Ubidots cloud for the monitoring purpose. Watering pump and exhaust fan can be activated to control the plant parameters so that the plant remains in its normal condition. The sensor data are processed through classification using Support Vector Machine (SVM) to analyse the plant condition, whether the proposed method is suitable or not for the chilli plant to grow. Overall, a mini greenhouse prototype for chilli plant has been successfully constructed with a system interface on Ubidots dashboard to monitor the condition of the greenhouse plant. Results show that the developed system can be an alternative in monitoring the greenhouse condition with accuracy of 94.5%.

Comply or evade: factors influencing private enterprises' basic old-age insurance responsibilities.

Private enterprises are playing an increasingly important role in production and employment in China. However, due to less regulation and a stronger profit motivation than state-owned enterprises with more standardized management, a considerable portion of these private enterprises fall short of fulfilling their basic responsibilities for government-mandated old-age insurance. This study establishes a comprehensive research framework aimed at delving into the precise factors contributing to the lax adherence of private enterprises to their basic old-age insurance obligations. This framework takes into account a range of factors, including enterprise profitability, the external environmental context (specifically the level of regional development), and internal organizational dynamics (such as the presence of labor unions and workers' congresses). To validate this framework, empirical data from a substantial sample of 3,123 private enterprises, which were part of the 10th Chinese Private Enterprise Survey (CPES), were utilized. This study employs the stepwise multiple regression analysis and conducts robustness tests to ensure the model's effectiveness. Enterprise profitability, regional development levels, and the existence of labor unions all wield a positive influence on basic old-age insurance coverage that private enterprises extend to their workforce. Moreover, an intriguing aspect emerges: the developmental stage of the region, as well as the presence of labor unions exercise a negative moderating effect on the relationship between enterprise profitability and the coverage rate of basic old-age insurance. In essence, this implies that the basic old-age insurance coverage rate for private enterprises operating in well-developed regions and those with established labor unions is relatively insulated from fluctuations in profitability. To increase the participation rate of private enterprises' basic old-age insurance, it is important to improve the overall development environment for private enterprises, enhance internal organizational mechanisms, and strengthen regulatory oversight of enterprises in various regions.

Caring for older parents in Norway – How does it affect labor market participation and absence from work?

As the population ages, younger generations will increasingly be called upon to provide informal care to their aging parents. To prepare for this development, it is essential to understand how employees combine the dual responsibilities of work and caring for aging parents. By analyzing data collected in Norway in 2022 from a nationally representative sample of 6049 respondents, aged 35 to 67, we investigated how caring for older parents affects labor market participation and work absence. We provide descriptive statistics and conduct analyses with structural equation modeling. These analyses indicated that caregiving had no substantial impact on overall participation in the workforce. However, employees did use work absences to assist their parents. We differentiate between using holidays, compensatory time, and three types of formal leave: paid, unpaid, and sick leave. More than a third of the formal leave was taken as sick leave. Women were moderately more likely to use work absence to care for their parents. We conclude that caregiving for older parents currently has little effect on work participation in Norway and attribute the favorable situation in Norway to its comprehensive public elderly care system. However, a contributing factor is Norway's generous sick leave policy. Although intended for use when employees are sick themselves, sick leave is used by employees to provide care to aging parents. Sick leave seems to act as a safety valve. To mitigate the effects of informal care on work participation, welfare states may create conditions that allow employees to combine work and informal care without resorting to unauthorized sick leave. A solution could be to extend the existing support scheme for employees with young children to those providing care for their aging parents.

Smoking effects on labor income: new evidence for Brazil

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effect of smoking on the income of workers in the Brazilian labor market.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from the 2019 National Health Survey (PNS), we initially address the sample selection bias concerning labor market participation by using the Heckman (1979) method. Subsequently, the decomposition of income between smokers and nonsmokers is analyzed, both on average and across the earnings distribution by employing the procedure of Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009) - FFL decomposition. Ñopo (2008) technique is also used to obtain more robust estimates.FindingsOverall, the findings indicate an income penalty for smokers in the Brazilian labor market across both the average and all quantiles of the income distribution. Notably, the most significant differentials and income penalties against smokers are observed in the lower quantiles of the distribution. Conversely, in the higher quantiles, there is a tendency toward a smaller magnitude of this gap, with limited evidence of an income penalty associated with this habit.Research limitations/implicationsThis study presents an important limitation, which refers to a restriction of the PNS (2019), which does not provide information about some subjective factors that also tend to influence the levels of labor income, such as the level of effort and specific ability of each worker, whether smokers or not, something that could also, in some way, be related to some latent individual predisposition that would influence the choice of smoking.Originality/valueThe relevance of the present study is clear in identifying the heterogeneity of the income gap in favor of nonsmokers, as in the lower quantiles there was a greater magnitude of differentials against smokers and a greater incidence of unexplained penalties in the income of these workers, while in the higher quantiles, there was low magnitude of the differentials and little evidence that there is a penalty in earnings since the worker is a smoker.

초임사회복지사의 감정노동 경험연구

This study aimed to explore the experiences of emotional labor among novice social workers. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with eight novice social workers, within their first three years of employment, working in cities and counties in Chungcheongnam-do, followed by qualitative analysis. The essence of the emotional labor of novice social workers was extracted into 14 sub-components and 6 core meanings. Participants work as professionals, but the environments they work in are different from what they expected. Social workers' duties sometimes escalate into various violent situations from problematic clients, and they also experience fear of intervening in someone's life. They feel stifled by the demands of the bureaucratic hierarchy. Despite choosing this path willingly, they contemplate whether to pursue a different career but seek to rediscover their calling as social workers. They strive to grow as professionals and hope for measures to prevent emotional labor so that social workers can continue working sustainably. Lastly, this study is significant in that it identifies the reality of emotional labor among novice social workers, providing policy and practical evidence. However, the study is limited in its generalizability as it only involves novice social workers in municipal facilities in the Chungcheongnam region.

Labor market power and worker turnover

The last two decades have seen a significant decrease in labor market turnover and an increase in labor market concentration. We investigate whether labor market power, as manifested by employer concentration and outside options, affect turnover rates. Utilizing online vacancy posting data, we find that moving from the 25th percentile to 75th percentile of employer concentration reduces the turnover rate by 5%, driven by high-school workers in low-skill industries. The same exercise for outside options implies a 39% increase in the turnover rate, driven by workers in high-skill industries.

Теоретические и практические основы применения грузоподъемных приспособлений при монтаже оборудования на животноводческих фермах

The article discusses some aspects of the theory and practice of using lifting devices. In our opinion, they directly influence labor productivity and work safety when installing equipment on livestock farms. The proposed material allows you to choose the right lifting devices for these works. Keywords: LIFTING EQUIPMENT, LABOR PRODUCTIVITY, WORK SAFETY, LIVESTOCK FARMS, INSTALLATION WORK, SLING

‘Hazardous on My Soul’: (Dis)compassion and Emotive Dissonance in Prison Work

Abstract A history of social research has aimed to illuminate consequences for the psyche of workers that carry out occupations in dehumanizing contexts. In criminology, scholarship has detailed concern over how carceral contexts produce detriment via emotional labour for workers. Although prison work has been shown to necessitate emotional suppression, studies also find workers can bear intimacy for the incarcerated. We contribute to the prison scholarship by illustrating these emotive paradoxes that represent dissonance for staff. We draw from 18 focus groups of staff, to examine how emotive dissonance manifests from contradictory feeling rules in prison work. We explore emotive disharmony among the workgroup that comes from opposing feeling rules, and, we explore how workers experience with emotive dissonance manifests as emotional estrangement. Our findings help contemplate the implications of navigating emotion within dehumanizing contexts and illustrate that how staff treat the incarcerated has implications for their own sense of humanity.

The Introduction of Basic Income is a Pillar of a Socio-cultural Revolution

Abstract The article proposes to defend the basic income as a pillar of a socio-cultural revolution. This is done exclusively from a literature review and articulation of different works. The introduction section presents the characteristics of a basic income. Section 2 brings how it would mitigate current capitalism problems, which are: increasing inequality, lack of equality of opportunity, means tested social security and its bureaucracy, narrow definition of paid work and future of labor. On Section 3, the author does a literature review to address two common objections against basic income: the cost, and potential labor decrease. Section 4 presents the author argument on three pillars of the socio-cultural revolution: austerity, active citizenship, and solidarity. The article ends with a general conclusion.

Trade unions, refugees and immigrant labour: Has the attitude changed? The stance of Swedish blue‐collar trade unions as evidenced by sentiment analysis

AbstractThe attitude of trade unions towards migration and migrants, be it of asylum seekers or those in search of jobs and better incomes, differs substantially across European countries. No matter the original stance, a common current pattern is that of the willingness to accept migrants being eroded over time. To see whether this is the case also in a country that both proved welcoming to labour migrants and refugees during the opening decades of the new millennium, we set out to explore the attitudes of blue‐collar trade unions in Sweden. Based on a diverse set of material issuing from the unions themselves, we use sentiment analysis to assess whether there are any changes to be discerned in the opinions of the representatives of 12 blue‐collar trade unions and their national confederation. At its most general, the trend appears to turn more negative over time, yet the influence of defining events and legal changes is not so easily observed at the aggregate level. The union representing workers in the industry with the largest proportion of immigrant labour, the Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union, is therefore selected for closer analysis. To the extent that changes can, or cannot, be observed, we relate those to major events and policy changes that have taken place over the 2010s.