ASHHRA/OMNI labor survey: significant union activity in pre-petition stages.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
American Hospital Association↗
SEARCH · PubMed Health
Results for “LABOR UNIONS”
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Special report. The new hospital labor picture: More unions? More strikes? More problems for security directors?
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules for hospital bargaining units appears to be fueling union efforts to organize hospitals nationwide. As unions gain more footholds in hospitals, the prospects for strikes and labor unrest increase. This expected surge in organizing may place hospital security departments in critical situations, whether they're the specific target of unions or not. This report reviews the implications of the new bargaining unit rules as they affect hospital security operations.
Labor Unions↗
Cancer incidence in the United Farmworkers of America (UFW), 1987-1997.
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate cancer incidence in the membership a largely Hispanic farmworker labor union in California, the United Farmworkers of America (UFW) and to examine cancer-site specific distributions as well as histology and stage of cancer at diagnosis in this group. METHODS: An electronic record linkage was conducted between a membership roster of the UFW and the database of the California Cancer Registry, the population-based cancer registry in California for the years 1987-1997. Based upon the results of the linkage, morbidity odds ratios were calculated using the distribution of cancer in the California Hispanic population as the reference to determine if risk of specific cancers was higher or lower in the UFW. Time since first joining the union was evaluated, as was the proportional distribution of histologic subtypes and stage at diagnosis, again comparing the experience of the UFW membership to the California Hispanic population. RESULTS: Several types of cancer were elevated in the UFW membership in comparison to the California Hispanic population. Morbidity odds ratios and 95% confidence limits were elevated for leukemia (O.R. = 1.59: 95% C.I. = 1.07-2.37), stomach cancer (O.R. = 1.69: 95% C.I. = 1.24-2.27), uterine cervix cancer (O.R. = 1.63: 95% C.I. = 1.11-2.44) and uterine corpus cancer (O.R. = 1.68: 95% C.I. = 1.05-2.67). Brain cancer was also elevated although not significantly so (O.R. = 1.57: 95% C.I. = 0.96-2.53). CONCLUSIONS: Risk of leukemia, stomach, cervix and uterine cancers was elevated in California farmworkers. The histologic distribution of leukemia and brain cancers within the UFW membership did not differ from the distribution in the general California population although small numbers of cancers in the UFW hindered interpretation of these results. Members of the UFW experienced later stage of disease at diagnosis in comparison to California Hispanics for most major cancer sites but not for breast cancer.
Agricultural Workers' Diseases↗
Proportionate mortality among US shoeworkers, 1966-1977.
Proportionate mortality for various causes was examined among 3,754 decedents (2,144 men, 1,610 women) who had worked in shoe manufacturing plants represented by either of two labor unions in the US. None of the shoeworker deaths were attributed to nasal cancer, whereas 2.2 were expected on the basis of general population data. Mortality from leukemia and cancer of the urinary bladder was not unusual in either sex or either union. However, deaths from cancers of the liver and gallbladder combined were significantly increased among male and female members of one union. Three deaths from mesothelioma were seen among members of this same union. Rectal cancer mortality was higher than expected among men and women in both unions. The findings are at variance with previous reports of high risks of certain cancer sites among shoeworkers. However, results for liver and gallbladder cancer and mesothelioma suggest the possibility that other previously unsuspected hazards may have been present in certain areas of the US shoe industry.
Coronary Disease↗
National Conference on Ergonomics, Safety, and Health in Construction summary report.
Decision makers from the construction industry, labor unions, government, and academia met in Washington, DC, July 18 to 22 to focus for the first time as a group on the work-related safety and health problems of construction workers. The National Conference on Ergonomics, Safety, and Health in Construction drew more than 750 participants, including experts in economics, engineering, ergonomics, industrial hygiene, insurance, public health, public policy, and occupational and rehabilitative medicine.
Accidents, Occupational↗
Social epidemiology: directions for the future in academic and "shoe-leather" risk analysis.
In the past, social epidemiology has been a field of interest to only a few professionals, notably sociologists and a select few epidemiologists. Expansion of the scope of epidemiology beyond infectious diseases and a few chronic diseases has made social epidemiology vitally important in the work of a host of professionals in public health and preventive medicine. These include persons doing risk analysis, persons working in environmental and occupational health, health educators, and persons working in institutions such as labor unions and schools which mediate the effects of risk factors upon population groups. With the expansion of the field, it is becoming apparent that the interrelationships among social risk factors are complex. Some social factors are both predictors of health status and outcome factors. This complexity will require new analytic methods, some of which are outside the present repertoire of most epidemiologists and biostatisticians. This paper examines the changing scope and impact of social epidemiology and suggests directions for the future of teaching and research in the field. If these new directions, guide research and teaching in the field, public health professionals will be able to bring a host of newly acquired skills to their "shoe-leather" epidemiology. Using those skills will require broad interdisciplinary cooperation in health promotion and disease prevention.
Epidemiologic Methods↗
Issues of causality in the history of occupational epidemiology.
Occupational epidemiology has its roots in classical medicine. However, it became a quantitative discipline only in the 20th century, through the pioneering work of individuals such as Case, Lloyd, and Selikoff and organizations such as the Division of Occupational Health of the U.S. Public Health Service. Studies of chemical dye workers, bituminous coal miners, smelting workers, and uranium miners have been especially important sources of innovations in methodology and in development of logical reasoning leading to acceptance of causal relationships of occupational exposures that lead to respiratory diseases and cancer. The cooperation of labor unions, such as those of steel and asbestos workers, has often been a crucial factor in providing essential data.
Causality↗
Lymphohematopoietic cancers in the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), 1988-2001.
OBJECTIVE: Agricultural risk factors for lymphohematopoietic cancers (LHC) in Hispanic farm workers in California were examined in a nested case-control study embedded in a cohort of 139,000 ever members of a farm worker labor union in California. METHODS: Crop and pesticide exposures were estimated by linking county/month and crop specific job history information from union records with California Department of Pesticide Regulation pesticide use reports during the 20-year period prior to cancer diagnosis. RESULTS: A total of 131 LHC diagnosed in California between 1988 and 2001 were included in the analysis. Analyses were conducted by gender and subtype of non-Hodgkins lymphoma (nodal, extra nodal) and by leukemia histology (lymphocytic, granulocytic). Odds ratios were calculated by stratification and by unconditional logistic regression. Risk for all LHC was elevated in workers cultivating vegetables (OR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.12-2.48). Risk of leukemia was associated with exposure to the pesticides mancozeb (OR = 2.35, 95% CI = 1.12-4.95) and toxaphene (OR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.04-4.65) while NHL risk was increased in association with 2,4-D (OR = 3.80, 95% CI=1.85-7.81). Risk of leukemia was particularly elevated among female workers and for granulocytic versus lymphocytic leukemia for several chemicals. No associations were noted for multiple myeloma. CONCLUSIONS: California farm workers employed where mancozeb and toxaphene were used had an increased risk of leukemia compared to farm workers employed elsewhere. Employment in farms using 2,4-D was associated with an increased risk of NHL.
Agricultural Workers' Diseases↗
Breaking the circuit of social control: lessons in public psychiatry from Italy and Franco Basaglia.
Much public discourse in the United States and in Canada acknowledges the dismal failure of the policy to 'deinstitutionalize' mental patients and to return them to some semblance of community living. The American Psychiatric Association has recently called for a reassessment of institutional alternatives--a call for a return to the asylum--in response to the needs of the new population of so-called homeless mentally ill. Here we contrast the failures of North American deinstitutionalization with the relative successes achieved in those regions of Italy where deinstitutionalization was grounded in a grassroots alternative psychiatry movement and professional and political coalition, Psichiatria Democratica. Democratic psychiatry challenged both the medical and the legal justifications for the segregative control of the 'mentally ill': madness as disease, and the constant over-prediction of the dangerousness of the mental patient. In addition, the movement challenged traditional cultural stereotypes about the meanings of madness, and was successful in gaining broad-based community support from political parties, labor unions, student groups, and artist collectives that were enlisted in the task of reintegrating the ex-mental patient. The Italian experiment, although flawed and riddled with its own inconsistencies and contradictions, offers evidence that deinstitutionalization can work without recreating in the community setting the same exclusionary logic that was the foundation of the asylum system.
Community Psychiatry↗
Personality and attitude correlates of psychosedative drug use.
Personality, attitude and psychosedative drug use data were obtained from 298 adult male and female members of labor unions. Instruments for assessing personality and attitude were the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scales (ZSS), Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (C-MSDS), the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS), and the Self-System Perception Questionnaire (SSPQ). Drug use information was obtained by administering the Wisconsin Substance Use Inventory (WSUI). Multiple regression and canonical correlation analyses were consistent in identifying a sub-set of the predictor battery associated with use of psychosedatives. Psychosedative use was found to be significantly predictable by the level of anxiety, a tendency toward rejection of puritanical attitudes, and a desire for non-traditional forms of self-expression and social experiences.
Adolescent↗
Agricultural exposures and gastric cancer risk in Hispanic farm workers in California.
Previous studies have indicated that farm workers may be at increased risk of gastric cancer. Meta-analyses, ecological, case-control, and cohort studies suggest that some aspects of the agricultural environment may be implicated in the elevated risk. Hispanic farm workers in California are exposed to a multitude of potentially toxic substances in the work site, including excessive sunlight, fertilizers, diesel fumes, and pesticides. A previous analysis of a cohort of California farm workers who had been members of a farm labor union, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) found a proportionate cancer incidence ratio for stomach cancer of 1.69 when using the California Hispanic population as the standard. The aim of the current study was to further evaluate associations between gastric cancer and the types of crops and commodities UFW members cultivate and the associated pesticide use as recorded by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). We conducted a nested case-control study of gastric cancer embedded in the UFW cohort and identified 100 cases of newly diagnosed gastric cancer between 1988 and 2003. We identified 210 control participants matched on age, gender, ethnicity, and who were known to be alive and resident in California up to the date of the cases' diagnosis. Both stratified analyses and unconditional logistic regression were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Work in the citrus industry was associated with increased gastric cancer (OR=2.88; 95% CI=1.02-8.12) although no other specific crops or commodities were associated with this disease. Working in areas with high use of the phenoxyacetic acid herbicide 2,4-D was associated with gastric cancer (OR=1.85; 95% CI=1.05-3.25); use of the organochlorine insecticide chlordane was also associated with the disease (OR=2.96; 95% CI=1.48-5.94). Gastric cancer was associated with use of the acaricide propargite and the herbicide triflurin (OR=2.86; 95% CI=1.56-5.23 and 1.69, 95% CI=0.99-2.89, respectively). Gastric cancer in California Hispanic farm workers is associated with work in the citrus fruit industry and among those who work in fields treated with 2,4-D, chlordane, propargite, and trifluin. These findings may have larger public health implications especially in those areas of the country where these pesticides are heavily used and where they may be found in the ambient atmosphere.
Agricultural Workers' Diseases↗
Remembering Arthur Kornhauser: industrial psychology's advocate for worker well-being.
Arthur Kornhauser was an early industrial psychologist whose contributions have been neglected in written histories of applied psychology. Throughout his career, he was a staunch advocate for an industrial psychology that concentrated on improving workers' lives. This article describes his contributions to improving worker well-being in the research areas of testing, employee attitude surveying, labor unions, and mental health of workers. His most enduring quality was his outspoken advocacy for an industrial psychology that addressed workers' issues instead of management's prerogatives. On the basis of Kornhauser's accomplishments, a case can be made for him as one of industrial and organizational psychology's most important early figures.
Civil Rights↗
Employer and consumer perspectives.
This paper reviews various published reports from surveys on employer opinion, perception of needs, and trends with regard to healthcare benefits; the consumer perspective regarding healthcare is also discussed. Surveys indicate that businesses want continuous evidence that high-quality healthcare can positively impact company profits. Employers and labor unions are demanding more cost-effective healthcare. At both employer and consumer levels, greater patient education is needed, as well as traditional educational media. Direct-to-consumer advertising and use of the World Wide Web are increasingly important in enabling consumers to participate more fully in their own lipid-related decision-making. Finally, the transition of lipid-lowering drugs to over-the-counter accessibility has great implications with respect to issues of patient preferences and willingness to pay in the evolving healthcare environment. Groups in the United States, such as the National Committee on Quality Assurance and the Foundation for Accountability, are setting standards and beginning to assess both process and outcomes in patient care. Further collaborative efforts are needed that raise standards of care and stimulate more cost-effective healthcare. The pharmacoeconomics and outcomes data gathered will, one hopes, also demonstrate to global businesses the positive financial impact of high-quality healthcare and appropriate lipid therapy.
Journal Article↗
A randomized trial of treatment options for alcohol-abusing workers.
BACKGROUND: Employee-assistance programs sponsored by companies or labor unions identify workers who abuse alcohol and refer them for care, often to inpatient rehabilitation programs. Yet the effectiveness of inpatient treatment, as compared with a variety of less intensive alternatives, has repeatedly been called into question. In this study, anchored in the work site, we compared the effectiveness of mandatory in-hospital treatment with that of required attendance at the meetings of a self-help group and a choice of treatment options. METHODS: We randomly assigned a series of 227 workers newly identified as abusing alcohol to one of three rehabilitation regimens: compulsory inpatient treatment, compulsory attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, and a choice of options. Inpatient backup was provided if needed. The groups were compared in terms of 12 job-performance variables and 12 measures of drinking and drug use during a two-year follow-up period. RESULTS: All three groups improved, and no significant differences were found among the groups in job-related outcome variables. On seven measures of drinking and drug use, however, we found significant differences at several follow-up assessments. The hospital group fared best and that assigned to AA the least well; those allowed to choose a program had intermediate outcomes. Additional inpatient treatment was required significantly more often (P less than 0.0001) by the AA group (63 percent) and the choice group (38 percent) than by subjects assigned to initial treatment in the hospital (23 percent). The differences among the groups were especially pronounced for workers who had used cocaine within six months before study entry. The estimated costs of inpatient treatment for the AA and choice groups averaged only 10 percent less than the costs for the hospital group because of their higher rates of additional treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Even for employed problem drinkers who are not abusing drugs and who have no serious medical problems, an initial referral to AA alone or a choice of programs, although less costly than inpatient care, involves more risk than compulsory inpatient treatment and should be accompanied by close monitoring for signs of incipient relapse.
Adult↗
How critical can clinical anthropology be?
In recent years a dialogue has occurred between critical medical anthropologists and clinical anthropologists about the possibility of developing a critical clinical anthropology. Although critical medical anthropology aims to merge theory and praxis, I argue that achieving this goal in a biomedical clinical setting will be extremely difficult if not impossible. In pursuing their commitment to social action, critical medical anthropologists need to establish connections with other groups including: labor unions, ethnic minorities, women's organizations, environmentalists, and self-help groups, in the struggle to create a healthy society.
Anthropology↗
Recording of data of individual measurements of occupational exposure: guideline of the Dutch Society of Occupational Hygiene (October 1999).
Following the recommendations of the European Working Group on Exposure Databases, a Working Group (on Storage of Data of Measurements of Occupational Exposure) of the Dutch Occupational Hygiene Society has developed a Guideline which was presented at the International Symposium on Occupational Exposure Databases and Their Application for the Next Millennium, November 1-3, 1999, London. To establish the present situation, a small-scale telephone survey of monitoring practices and storage of data was done within the Society. The results of the telephone survey and the draft guidance document were discussed with the occupational hygienists and other stakeholders (e.g., authorities, industry, labor unions, and occupational physicians) in a society meeting. This meeting was used to gather ideas on the need and support for a guidance document and to get input for improving the draft guidance document and for implementation of the Guideline. After this meeting, the Guideline was further developed and published by the Dutch Occupational Hygiene Society. The Guideline concentrates on the data elements required when storing exposure data. The data elements presented are the minimum and should be stored minimally to ensure proper interpretation of results at present and in the future and definitions of the items used are given. The Guideline does not prescribe how the data should be stored, or which procedures need to be used to guarantee the quality of the recorded data elements.
Data Collection↗
Assessing truck driver exposure at the World Trade Center disaster site: personal and area monitoring for particulate matter and volatile organic compounds during October 2001 and April 2002.
The destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City on September 11, 2001, created a 16-acre debris field composed of pulverized and burning material significantly impacting air quality. Site cleanup began almost immediately. Cleanup workers were potentially exposed to airborne contaminants, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and asbestos, at elevated concentrations. This article presents the results of the exposure assessment of one important group of WTC workers, truck drivers, as well as area monitoring that was conducted directly on site during October 2001 and April 2002. In cooperation with a local labor union, 54 drivers (October) and 15 drivers (April) were recruited on site to wear two monitors during their 12-hour work shifts. In addition, drivers were administered a questionnaire asking for information ranging from "first day at the site" to respirator use. Area monitoring was conducted at four perimeter locations during October and three perimeter locations during April. During both months, monitoring was also conducted at one location in the middle of the rubble. Contaminants monitored for included total dust (TD), PM10, PM2.5, and volatile organic compounds. Particle samples were analyzed for mass, as well as elemental and organic carbon content. During October, the median personal exposure to TD was 346 microg/m3. The maximum area concentration, 1742 microg/m3, was found in middle of the debris. The maximum TD concentration found at the perimeter was 392 microg/m3 implying a strong concentration gradient from the middle of debris outward. PM2.5/PM10 ratios ranged from 23% to 100% suggesting significant fire activity during some of the sampled shifts. During April, the median personal exposure to TD was 144 microg/m3, and the highest area concentration, 195 microg/m3, was found at the perimeter. During both months, volatile organic compounds concentrations were low.
Air Pollutants↗
Viability of telework at PROCEMPA.
At the end of the 20th century, telework appears as one of the modalities of flexible work, which is related to new organizational structures as well as to increasing use of technology. It revolutionizes the traditional ways of performing work. Its implementation creates a number of questions to be answered by the organizations and the individuals involved. This article presents a case study on the viability of implementing telework at Procempa (The Data Processing Company of the City of Porto Alegre). The case study analyzes the technical, organizational, psychological, legal, and labor union dimensions. As a result of this study, we can identify the organization's stage of readiness for telework, the conditions under which it would be implemented, and the specific issues of an implementation.
Communication↗