At a time when our knowledge and understanding of health and safety at work is at its highest, statistics show that ongoing improvements in accident rates and time taken off work due to injury and ill-health are stagnating. Alongside the fact that around 80% of accidents can be attributed to human error, there is also increasing concern that modern-world issues of mental and physical wellbeing are undermining recent gains made ensuring the safety of people at work. By applying the principles of marginal gain and using lessons drawn from the high-risk world of outdoor adventure and high level sport, this book provides a variety of practical solutions and seeks to reduce the incidence of human error in the workplace and the number of accidents and near-misses. The concept of Free Thinking Hazard Identification is introduced alongside the importance of managing changing circumstances and minimising the frequently underestimated risk to experienced workers. A range of practical recommendations are also made to help reduce time taken off work due to injury or ill-health, through managing fitness, diet and health and paying attention to mental wellbeing.

With growing concern about the conditions facing low wage workers and new challenges to traditional forms of labor market protection, this book offers a timely analysis of the purpose and effectiveness of minimum wages in different European countries. Building on original industry case studies, the analysis goes beyond general debates about the relative merits of labor market regulation to reveal important national differences in the functioning of minimum wage systems and their integration within national models of industrial relations. There is no universal position on minimum wage policy followed by governments and social partners. Nor is it true that trade unions consistently support minimum wages and employers oppose them. The evidence in this book shows that interests and objectives change over time and differ across industries and countries. Investigating the pay bargaining strategies of unions and employers in cleaning, security, retail, and construction, this book's industry case studies show how minimum wage policy interacts with collective bargaining to produce different types of pay equity effects. The analysis provides new findings of 'ripple effects' shaped by trade union strategies and identifies key components of an 'egalitarian pay bargaining approach' in social dialogue. The lessons for policy are to embrace an inter-disciplinary approach to minimum wage analysis, to be mindful of the interconnections with the changing national systems of industrial relations, and to interrogate the pay equity effects.

Doron Taussig invites us to question the American Dream. Did you earn what you have? Did everyone else? The American Dream is built on the idea that Americans end up roughly where we deserve to be in our working lives based on our efforts and abilities; in other words, the United States is supposed to be a meritocracy. When Americans think and talk about our lives, we grapple with this idea, asking how a person got to where he or she is and whether he or she earned it. In What We Mean by the American Dream, Taussig tries to find out how we answer those questions. Weaving together interviews with Americans from many walks of life-as well as stories told in the US media about prominent figures from politics, sports, and business-What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not. Taussig's frank assessment of the state of the US workforce and its dreams allows him to truly and meaningfully ask the question that underpins so many of our political debates and personal frustrations: Did you earn it? By doing so, he sheds new light on what we mean by-and how we can deliver on-the American Dream of today.

As robots are used more and more to perform a variety of tasks in a range of fields, it is imperative to make the robots as reliable and safe as possible. Yet no book currently covers robot reliability and safety within one framework. Robot System Reliability and Safety: A Modern Approach presents up-to-date information on robot reliability, safety, and related areas in a single volume, eliminating the need to consult diverse sources. After introducing historical, mathematical, and introductory aspects, the book presents methods for analyzing robot system reliability and safety. It next focuses on topics related to robot reliability, including classifications of robot failures and their causes and hydraulic and electric robots' reliability analysis. The book then explains the analysis of robot-related safety and accidents, covers key elements of robot maintenance and robotics applications in maintenance and repair, and addresses human factors and safety considerations in robotics workplaces. The book concludes with chapters on robot testing, costing, and failure data as well as six mathematical models for reliability and safety analysis. Written by a well-known expert in reliability engineering, this book will be useful to system, design, reliability, and safety engineers along with other engineering professionals working in the area of robotics. It can also be used in courses on system engineering, reliability engineering, and safety engineering.

Extreme events such as accidents, crises and disasters occur in organizations of all types. Sometimes these hit the headlines, but they also occur regularly beyond the public gaze. What follows is normally an investigation in which 'lessons will be learned' and the event 'must never happen again'. These produce recommendations to limit the damage from a future event, or to prevent it altogether. In many cases, this doesn't happen, and the changes are not implemented. Why should this be the case? Containing a unique collection of cross-sector and international case studies, this book investigates the conditions and processes that encourage or inhibit change after an extreme event. There are nine research-based cases including: a re-examination of change in Haringey Social Services in the aftermath of the deaths of Victoria Climbie and 'Baby P'; a leak at Sellafield Nuclear reprocessing plant; an explosion on an offshore gas platform operated by Centrica Storage, and the multi-agency response to bush fires in Australia. In providing a comprehensive analysis of organizational change and crisis management, the book identifies a common event sequence and recurrent issues, themes and mechanisms. The cross-case analysis provides both unique insights into organizational change following extreme events and realistic guidance for improving change implementation. The result is a resource that will be vital reading for advanced students, researchers and managers involved with organizational studies and crisis management.

Financial incentives have long been used to try to influence professional values and practices. Recent events including the global financial crisis and the BP Texas City refinery disaster have been linked to such incentives, with commentators calling for a critical look at these systems given the catastrophic outcomes. Risky Rewards engages with this debate, particularly in the context of the present and potential role of incentives to manage major accident risk in hazardous industries. It examines the extent to which people respond to financial incentives, the potential for perverse consequences, and approaches that most appropriately focus attention on major hazard risk. The book is based in part on an empirical study of bonus arrangements in eleven companies operating in hazardous industries, including oil, gas, chemical and mining.

Sensational tales of true-life crime, the devastation of the Irish potato famine, the upheaval of the Civil War, and the turbulent emergence of the American labor movement are connected in a captivating exploration of the roots of the Molly Maguires. A secret society of peasant assassins in Ireland that re-emerged in Pennsylvania’s hard-coal region, the Mollies organized strikes, murdered mine bosses, and fought the Civil War draft. Their shadowy twelve-year duel with all powerful coal companies marked the beginning of class warfare in America. But little has been written about the origins of this struggle and the folk culture that informed everything about the Mollies. A rare book about the birth of the secret society, The Sons of Molly Maguire delves into the lost world of peasant Ireland to uncover the astonishing links between the folk justice of the Mollies and the folk drama of the Mummers, who performed a holiday play that always ended in a mock killing. The link not only explains much about Ireland’s Molly Maguires—where the name came from, why the killers wore women’s clothing, why they struck around holidays—but also sheds new light on the Mollies’ re-emergence in Pennsylvania. The book follows the Irish to the anthracite region, which was transformed into another Ulster by ethnic, religious, political, and economic conflicts. It charts the rise there of an Irish secret society and a particularly political form of Mummery just before the Civil War, shows why Molly violence was resurrected amid wartime strikes and conscription, and explores how the cradle of the American Mollies became a bastion of later labor activism. Combining sweeping history with an intensely local focus, The Sons of Molly Maguire is the captivating story of when, where, how, and why the first of America’s labor wars began.

First published in 1991, this book investigates not only the processes of industrial relations themselves but also the climate in which they work. As well as studying union behaviour, it views the topic from the wider perspective of human resource management and integrates theories of industrial relations and organizational analysis. The extensive empirical evidence presented, which draws on manufacturing and service industries in Canada, is used to examine such areas as cooperation between union and management, employee perceptions and corporate culture. This interesting reissue will be of importance to all those studying the dynamics of organizations and industrial relations processes, and ways in which a productive climate can be established and maintained.

With growing concern about the conditions facing low wage workers and new challenges to traditional forms of labor market protection, this book offers a timely analysis of the purpose and effectiveness of minimum wages in different European countries. Building on original industry case studies, the analysis goes beyond general debates about the relative merits of labor market regulation to reveal important national differences in the functioning of minimum wage systems and their integration within national models of industrial relations. There is no universal position on minimum wage policy followed by governments and social partners. Nor is it true that trade unions consistently support minimum wages and employers oppose them. The evidence in this book shows that interests and objectives change over time and differ across industries and countries. Investigating the pay bargaining strategies of unions and employers in cleaning, security, retail, and construction, this book's industry case studies show how minimum wage policy interacts with collective bargaining to produce different types of pay equity effects. The analysis provides new findings of 'ripple effects' shaped by trade union strategies and identifies key components of an 'egalitarian pay bargaining approach' in social dialogue. The lessons for policy are to embrace an inter-disciplinary approach to minimum wage analysis, to be mindful of the interconnections with the changing national systems of industrial relations, and to interrogate the pay equity effects.

In Union Voices, the result of a thirteen-year research project, three industrial relations scholars evaluate how labor unions fared in the political and institutional context created by Great Britain's New Labour government, which was in power from 1997 to 2010. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery present a multilevel analysis of what organizing means in the UK, how it emerged, and what its impact has been.

Although the supportive legislation of the New Labour government led to considerable optimism in the late 1990s about the prospects for renewal, Simms, Holgate, and Heery argue that despite considerable evidence of investment, new practices, and innovation, UK unions have largely failed to see any significant change in their membership and influence. The authors argue that this is because of the wider context within which organizing activity takes place and also reflects the fundamental tensions within these initiatives. Even without evidence of any significant growth in labor influence across UK society more broadly, organizing campaigns have given many of the participants an opportunity to grow and flourish. The book presents their experiences and uses them to show how their personal commitment to organizing and trade unionism can sometimes be undermined by the tensions and tactics used during campaigns.

This book, first published in 1944, examines the productiveness of British industry and the British worker, and carries out a close comparison with their American counterparts. It also studies the industries of other countries around the world and analyses industry under various political systems, including dictatorships and democracies.

The creation of European Works Councils is arguably the most important measure taken in global industrial relations in recent years. Adopted with the primary goal of facilitating European-level workers' participation in information-sharing and consultation in multinational companies, EWCs have also been central to a wide-ranging process of institution-building at the European level. European Works Councils charts the growth in the number of EWCs and the development of practices associated with EWCs between 1994, when legislation on EWCs was adopted, and 2009, when the initial legislation was amended. Drawing on original, large-scale, survey data, the book shows that the quality of information and consultation is generally poor, thus bringing into question the soft touch legislative approach to employee participation of the European Commission.

The reforms implemented within trade union organizations to accommodate the development of EWCs are explored, together with the initiatives taken to extend the role of EWCs beyond information and consultation to incorporate negotiation. Articulation between EWCs and trade union organizations is shown to be integral to EWCs as institutions of information and consultation, and as a means to influence managerial decision-making. Similarly, the development of EWCs is shown to be a process contested by employers' organizations and managers on the one hand and labour organizations on the other. The character of this contestation ensures that the category 'EWC' includes a wide range of institutional forms and practices.

A century of union growth ended in the 1980s. Since then, declining union membership has undermined the Labor Movement s achievements throughout the advanced capitalist world. As unions have lost membership, declining economic clout and political leverage has left them as weak props upholding wages and programs for social justice. Since the earliest days of the labor movement, activists have debated the appropriate strategy, the mix of revolutionary and reformist goals and the proper relationship between labor unions and broader social and political movements. So long as the labor movement was growing, moving from gain to gain, debates over strategy could remain abstract, safely confined to academic quarters. Decline and impending failure, however, have now made these urgent debates.

Written in a readable style, this book uses information from sixteen countries including the UK, US, Germany and France to chart the fortunes of the labor movement over recent years. The author, based at one of the top centres for heterodox economics, examines the current debates over strategy and suggests ways of reigniting its fortunes.

Industrial and business economics is a very important field with a great deal of relevance to the commercial world and to business studies students as well as to economists. It is a rapidly developing field in which many new research advances have been made in recent years. This book, first published in 1986, considers many aspects of both the theory of and the evidence on economic behaviour, and in particular the operations of firms and markets. The book was written in honour of Basil Yamey by his former research students.

A century of union growth ended in the 1980s. Since then, declining union membership has undermined the Labor Movement's achievements throughout the advanced capitalist world. As unions have lost membership, declining economic clout and political leverage has left them as weak props upholding wages and programs for social justice. Since the earliest days of the labor movement, activists have debated the appropriate strategy, the mix of revolutionary and reformist goals and the proper relationship between labor unions and broader social and political movements. So long as the labor movement was growing, moving from gain to gain, debates over strategy could remain abstract, safely confined to academic quarters. Decline and impending failure, however, have now made these urgent debates. Written in a readable style, this book uses information from sixteen countries including the UK, US, Germany and France to chart the fortunes of the labor movement over recent years. The author, based at one of the top centres for heterodox economics, examines the current debates over strategy and suggests ways of reigniting its fortunes.

For Resilience Engineering, 'failure' is the result of the adaptations necessary to cope with the complexity of the real world, rather than a breakdown or malfunction. The performance of individuals and organizations must continually adjust to current conditions and, because resources and time are finite, such adjustments are always approximate. This definitive new book explores this groundbreaking new development in safety and risk management, where 'success' is based on the ability of organizations, groups and individuals to anticipate the changing shape of risk before failures and harm occur. Featuring contributions from many of the worlds leading figures in the fields of human factors and safety, Resilience Engineering provides thought-provoking insights into system safety as an aggregate of its various components, subsystems, software, organizations, human behaviours, and the way in which they interact. The book provides an introduction to Resilience Engineering of systems, covering both the theoretical and practical aspects. It is written for those responsible for system safety on managerial or operational levels alike, including safety managers and engineers (line and maintenance), security experts, risk and safety consultants, human factors professionals and accident investigators.

The broad and developing scope of ergonomics, the application of scientific knowledge to improve people's interaction with products, systems and environments, has been illustrated over the past sixteen years by the books that make up the Contemporary Ergonomics series. Presenting the proceedings of the Ergonomics Society's Annual Conference, the series embraces the wide range of topics covered by ergonomics. Chapters provide an insight into the current practice, present new research findings and form an invaluable reference source. Among the most interesting topics covered in this volume are rail safety, the development and applications of virtual reality and hospital ergonomics. Contemporary Ergonomics 2002 will appeal to all those who have an interest in people's interactions with their working and leisure environment, including designers, manufacturing and production engineers, health and safety specialists, occupational, applied and industrial psychologists, and applied physiologists.

This book, first published in 1944, examines the productiveness of British industry and the British worker, and carries out a close comparison with their American counterparts. It also studies the industries of other countries around the world and analyses industry under various political systems, including dictatorships and democracies.

This book represents an important stage in the development of an indigenous theory. The argument is presented with the special qualities of cogency and perception which have given the author a lasting influence within the labour movement.

This volume contains a concise history of the board in the USA from its inception in 1935, including an overview of current case law and a bibliographic essay of selected secondary literature.
The book details:
*how to find law review literature on specific cases and aspects of the law
*printed and electronic sources for rulings of the board and courts
*how to find relevant government documents containing information published by and about the board, and sources of manuscript information (unpublished case files, papers of key individuals, etc.).

The fast-food industry is one of the few industries that can be described as truly global, not least in terms of employment, which is estimated at around ten million people worldwide. This edited volume is the first of its kind, providing an analysis of labour relations in this significant industry focusing on multinational corporations and large national companies in ten countries: the USA, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Russia.

A common framework of analysis is used to examine the extent to which multinational enterprises impose or adapt their employment practices in differing national industrial relations systems. The findings reveal that the global fast-food industry is typified by trade union exclusion, high labour turnover, unskilled work, paternalistic management regimes and work organization that allows little scope for developing workers' participation in decision-making, let alone advocating widely accepted concepts of social justice and workers' rights.

This book will address collateral legal consideration that may affect emergency service organizations. Its primary focus is on the relationship between the emergency service employee and the organisation. With the deterioration of "At Will" employment doctrine by Congress and courts, emerging new technologies, and the dwindling number of "unionized shops", emergency service organizations face the potential of increased litigation under new and novel theories in areas which were not even fathomed by emergency service organizations twenty years ago.
Written by a lawyer for non-lawyers, the book is not consumed with the basic legalese that most books of this kind are. It seeks to inform the user of his or her rights under the law in a clear and comprehensive way. Legal Liabilities in EMS will cover topics such as workers compensation, negligence issues, employment discrimination, Family and Medical Leave Act, EMS and privacy in the workplace. To provide extra guidance the text also provides cases exemplifying the issue and an appendix of websites that can provide further information.

This important book contains case studies with substantive analysis of Chinese workers in a variety of settings: state enterprises, urban collectives, township and village enterprises, domestic private enterprises, and foreign funded enterprises. The cases include urban workers migrant workers from the countryside, and workers who are sent to work outside of China. The analytical framework for these case studies lays out why labor rights violations have been occurring in China and highlights the contex in which these violations operate and the extent to which these selected cases are not isolated incidents. Moreover, the dilemma of Chinese workers is put into international perspective: the context of the international labor market, the setting of competitive minimum wages in Asia, and the concern for Chinese workers' rights taken up by the International Labor Organization (ILO). This book debunks the conventional wisdom that Chinese workers are thriving because the Chinese economy is booming. Indeed the wage structures of these enterprises of different ownership types contribute to widening income disparities in China. The book uncovers what exactly overseas Chinese entrepreneurship (Taiwan and Hong Kong), means at the factory level. And it calls for a new approach to scrutinizing the phenomena of the so-called Chinese economic miracle and it's repercussions on other economies and labor markets.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.