Bank Workers Research Articles

Adaptation to a New Workplace According to Reactivity and Values-Motives Coherence at Work

A new workplace is a result of changing a work post or undertaking a new job. Direct indices of adaptation to this situation (average mood at the workplace and job satisfaction) and the indirect ones (costs like health complaints and the level of depressing or facilitating anxiety) are analysed with regard to reactivity and values-motives coherence at work. Sixty bank workers were investigated. The obtained results confirm that mood and costs depend on reactivity, but satisfaction with work depends on coherence. Only achievement values-motives coherence at work differentiates direct and indirect indicators of adaptation. Considering both kinds of variables modifies dependencies. Some theoretical and practical conclusions resulting from the research are included.

Test scores of urban and rural bank workers in Nigeria: an analysis of the effect of location on test performance

Reviews the literature relating to job‐related testing, and describes a specific study which examined the test scores, on written tests, of urban and rural bank workers in a national bank. The purpose of the test was to determine the effect of location on test performance of the two sets of bank workers. Also compares the test performance of individual bank workers in both urban and rural branches, and attempts to determine the degree of difficulty and/or ease of the materials to both urban and rural bank workers. Concludes that the location of the bank workers does not have any significant effect on test performance, nor do the individual test scores of both urban and rural bank workers have any significant relationship with location. Also concludes that the test materials were equally difficult for both categories of worker.

Female health workers: an obstetric risk group

Objective: The aim of the study was to gather information about the pregnancies of female health workers and to compare them with those of another group of working women with different working conditions, namely bank workers. Methods: Using a cross-sectional comparative design, physicians (184), nurses (197) and bank-workers (192) were interviewed about their previous pregnancies and working conditions during those pregnancies. Results: The majority of physicians (70.6%) and nurses (81.2%) had night work during their pregnancies and two-thirds of them continued this work until the last month of pregnancy, even though they have a legal right not to work during the night after the 7th month of pregnancy. Health workers had shorter maternity leaves than bank workers ( P < 0.001) and complained more about the negative attitudes of managers and colleagues during their pregnancy ( P < 0.001). Health workers had more preterm deliveries ( P < 0.05) compared with bank workers, and nurses had more low birth weight babies compared with bank workers ( P < 0.05). Conclusion: There is a need for a change in the climate in hospitals in terms of the working conditions of pregnant health staff and the attitudes towards them.

Determinants of Pay Levels in the Financial Sector in Japan

Editor's Note: The banking industry still refuses to make pay information public (e.g., the agreement on annual pay raises reached at in the Spring Labor Offensive). On September 2, 1992, the president of the Nikkeiren (Japan Federation of Employers' Associations) held a press conference where he asked the banking industry to make information public on bank workers' salaries. A director of the Nikkeiren noted that all that the public knows about bank pay is that it is about the same as in other industries at the entry level but rises quickly to more than ¥10 mn annually for workers in the early thirties. (Yomiuri Shimbun, September 3, 1992).

The Quality of the Social Environment at Work and Job Satisfaction1

The relation between social factors at work and job satisfaction was studied by measuring two components of a social environment: a common social environment, the social climate shared by employees in the same work setting: and an individual social environment, the individual's unique social space within that setting. An analysis of questionnaire data from 299, mostly female, bank workers indicated that there is a moderate relation between the quality of the social environment at work and individual job satisfaction. This finding held even when independent judges' (i.e., coworkers') ratings were used as the measure of the common social environment. The results were also consistent with the hypothesis that job satisfaction is more strongly linked to the quality of supervisor relations than to relationships with coworkers. Contrary to expectations, the common social environment at work was a better predictor of job satisfaction than was the individual social environment, and supervisors and coworkers appeared to contribute equally to perceptions of the common environment.

Some Unions Are More Equal Than Others: A Response to Rosemary Warskett’s “Bank Worker Unionization and the Law”

Rosemary Warskett's article, Bank worker unionization and the law (Studies in Political Economy No. 25) is an important and thought-provoking contribution to research on bank organizing in Canada.

Bank Worker Unionization and the Law

InJune 1977, a small independent union in British Columbia--the Service, Office and Retail Workers Union of Canada (SORWUC)--broke through the defences set up by the chartered banks and gained certification of several bank branches under the provisions of the Canada Labour Code. This achievement was hailed as the beginning of a movement that would result in the unionization of a previously unorganized sector of the economy.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in milk.

Three separate outbreaks of gentamicin and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a special care baby unit are described. The outbreaks ceased only after a milk bank worker was identified as a carrier of the strain. It is postulated that the infant milk feeds served as a vehicle of spread.

The Industrial Attitudes of Australian Private Bank Employees

Recent years have brought considerable refinement to the analysis of white-collar unionism; the implications of the changing industrial attitudes of these employees have been particularly emphasized. This analysis has, to some degree, been con strained by a lack of empirical data. This article, in drawing on the results of a survey of Australian private bank workers, seeks to shed further light on white-collar employee attitudes. The survey revealed a number of variables relevant to the measurement of changing attitudes and also indicated the probable implications of workforce structural changes for union effectiveness. The most important variables in the measurement of industrial attitudes included position in and years ofservice to bank and 'market position' (i.e. the employee's view of his or her salary adequacy, the possibilities of retrenchment, of promotion, and of moving on to more satisfying bank work). Female bank employees were as dissatisfied as male employees with aspects of their work and were just as prepared to take industrial action. The survey data also allow for some discussion of the question of white-collar worker apathy and of the need for white-collar unions to adopt new industrial tactics in the light of rapid structural and technological changes.

Update on the Brazilian Labor Movement

Since the strike waves of 1978-1980, Brazil's new union movement has grown far beyond its initial base in the heavily concentrated automobile industry in Sao Paulo's ABC industrial belt. Combative union leaders have won control of major unions in a number of different sectors all over Brazil, particularly in metalworking, chemicals, and bank workers unions. In many other unions, traditional leaders responded to the upsurge of organizing with a new combativeness, recognizing that hanging on to their posts in a changed context required more than a monopoly over the official machinery. All sectors of the labor movement now pay lip service to the need for unions to become autonomous from the Brazilian state and to the demand for recognition of the right to strike. In spite of widespread agreement around these points, however, most unions still do not consider conditions ripe for a successful struggle around these issues; and some union leaders clearly benefit from the system as it is. Brazil's unions remain subordinated to the Ministry of Labor, which retains broad powers including the right to declare unions legal or not, oversee their finances, replace recalcitrant union leaders with its own appointees, and judge the legality of labor agreements in its labor courts. Perhaps the most important instrument of subordination is the union tax, one day's pay per year withheld from all workers' salaries and distributed by the Ministry of Labor to all unions, which is based not on the number of union members, but on the number of workers in the branch represented by that union. This system of financing reduces the incentive to recruit new union members, as the union's welfare services-financed by the union tax-are reserved for union members only. The union tax is still the most important source of financing for most unions; and most fear that an immediate abolition of the tax,

EDP Effects on Clerical Workers.

This article reports on the effects of EDP on clerical workers in large banks, insurance firms, and public utilities. Computer installation produces a need for job retraining and causes more transf...

EDP Effects on Clerical Workers

This article reports on the effects of EDP on clerical workers in large banks, insurance firms, and public utilities. Computer installation produces a need for job retraining and causes more transfers at the same geographical location. Concerning five additional questions investigated, the authors report that EDP effects on clerical workers are minimal.

Retrospective `Bridging' of Three Occupational Groups

The concept of `retrospective bridging' is suggested to describe those occupations in which experience of other kinds of work is relatively frequent. This is complementary to `prospective bridging', indicating the potentialities which one occupation holds for movement to another. Bank workers are shown to have little retrospective mobility by comparison with youth employment and child care officers. Occupation, not sex, is the major factor in determining the number of previous jobs. The past occupations of youth employment and child care officers were mainly those involving contact with clients or customers; banking requires fewer social or personal skills and a varied occupational history is no advantage. The occupationally mobile were more likely to use `most' or `only a few' of their abilities in their work, and the non-mobile to use `some'. Variations in the use of abilities were related to training and scope of present job.

THE "PROBLEM CROSSMATCH".

A scheme of action is presented which is useful when an unexpected incompatibility between the serum of the prospective recipient and the red cells of the donor is encountered. This includes elimination of sources of error which simulate incompatibility; interpretation of the past history of the patient; detection of nonspecific cold agglutinins and warm autoantibodies; and identification of irregular isoagglutinins. ProceDures are recommended that may assist the blood bank worker in his efforts to find compatible blood in these situations.