Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel’s Struggle to Survive is Pulitzer Prize winner Strohmeyer’s account of the collapse of Bethlehem Steel. As editor of the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Globe-Times from 1956 to 1984, Strohmeyer followed the steel industry from the height of its power through its decline. He evaluates the self-indulgence of both the unions and industry management and movingly describes the human agony caused by the failure of steel. His account is reinforced by over one hundred interviews with steelworkers, union leaders, steel executives, and industry analysts. First issued in 1986, the book is more significant than ever. In this edition, Strohmeyer includes an update on steel today.

Sascha Kristin Futh untersucht anhand von drei zeitgeschichtlich bedeutenden Kampagnen zum ersten Mal vergleichend die strategische Kommunikation von Gewerkschaften. Sie analysiert die Bedingungen, unter denen die Gewerkschaften ihren Einfluss uber Kampagnen-Kommunikation geltend machten und stellt im Vergleich die ausschlaggebenden Faktoren fur die gewerkschaftliche Kampagnenfahigkeit heraus. Die Verknupfung von Kampagnen und tarifpolitischen Verhandlungen ist dabei ein zentraler Erfolgsfaktor. Der Kampagnen-Vergleich zeigt, dass fur die Handlungsfahigkeit der Gewerkschaften insbesondere die Aufstellung des gewerkschaftlichen Apparats entscheidend ist.

From grassroots to global activism, the untold story of the world's first domestic workers' movement. Domestic workers exist on the margins of the world labor market. Maids, nannies, housekeepers, au pairs, and other care workers are most often 'off the books,' working for long hours and low pay. They are not afforded legal protections or benefits such as union membership, health care, vacation days, and retirement plans. Many women who perform these jobs are migrants, and are oftentimes dependent upon their employers for room and board as well as their immigration status, creating an extremely vulnerable category of workers in the growing informal global economy. Drawing on over a decade's worth of research, plus interviews with a number of key movement leaders and domestic workers, Jennifer N. Fish presents the compelling stories of the pioneering women who, while struggling to fight for rights in their own countries, mobilized transnationally to enact change. The book takes us to Geneva, where domestic workers organized, negotiated, and successfully received the first-ever granting of international standards for care work protections by the United Nations' International Labour Organization. This landmark victory not only legitimizes the importance of these household laborers' demands for respect and recognition, but also signals the need to consider human rights as a central component of workers' rights. Domestic Workers of the World Unite! chronicles how a group with so few resources could organize and act within the world's most powerful international structures and give voice to the wider global plight of migrants, women, and informal workers. For anyone with a stake in international human and workers' rights, this is a critical and inspiring model of civil society organizing.

In March 1999, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) cosponsored a Chemical and Biological Respiratory Protection Workshop with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Defense, U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). The objectives of this meeting were to: (1) identify and understand the hazards associated with a terrorist chemical and biological incident, (2) identify the different civilian responders and their respiratory protections needs, (3) determine which respirators and selection criteria are currently being used for response to these incidents, and (4) determine public and medical community concerns that must be considered in developing standards for chemical and biological respiratory protective devices. NIOSH began collaborating with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), OSHA and RDECOM, which includes Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) and Natick Soldier Center (NSC), to address the concerns identified at the workshop, and to discuss the development of standards for emergency first responder respiratory protection. In April 2001, NIOSH held a public meeting on developing and implementing standards for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) respiratory protective devices. At the meeting it was announced that actual military chemical warfare agents (CWA) would be used in future NIOSH certification testing of CBRN respiratory protective devices. Sarin (GB) and sulfur mustard (HD) had been chosen as representative CWA in their categories. Respirator and other personal protective equipment (PPE) manufacturers requested that NIOSH identify chemical compounds that could be used as test simulants in lieu of GB and HD. These manufacturers expressed an interest in using CWA simulants for in-house material and product development testing and to pretest their respirator systems for CWA agent permeation resistance. Manufacturers do not have access to CWA to perform testing and there are a limited number of certified laboratories able to perform CWA testing because of the high cost, toxicity, and the extensive regulatory controls. This makes any type of CWA testing very expensive and inconvenient as a result of the required lead-time.

This publication is a revised edition of the NIOSH document Histoplasmosis: Protecting Workers at Risk, which was originally published in September 1997. The updated information in this publication will help readers understand what histoplasmosis is and recognize activities that may expose workers to the disease-causing fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. The publication also informs readers about methods they can use to protect themselves and others from exposure. Outbreaks of histoplasmosis have shared similar circumstances: People who did not know the health risks of breathing in the spores of H. capsulatum became ill and sometimes caused others nearby to become ill when they disturbed contaminated soil or accumulations of bird or bat manure. Because they were unaware of the hazard, they did not take protective measures that could have prevented illness. This publication will help prevent such exposures by serving as a guide for safety and health professionals, environmental consultants, supervisors, and others responsible for the safety and health of those working near material contaminated with H. capsulatum. Activities that pose a health risk to workers at these sites include disturbance of soil at an active or inactive bird roost or poultry house, excavation in regions where this fungus is endemic, and removal of bat or bird manure from buildings. Local, State, and national public health professionals may also find this publication useful for understanding the health risks of exposure to H. capsulatum so that they can provide guidance about work practices and personal protective equipment.

Manual material handling (MMH) work contributes to a large percentage of the over half a million cases of musculoskeletal disorders reported annually in the United States. Musculoskeletal disorders often involve strains and sprains to the lower back, shoulders, and upper limbs. They can result in protracted pain, disability, medical treatment, and financial stress for those afflicted with them, and employers often find themselves paying the bill, either directly or through workers' compensation insurance, at the same time they must cope with the loss of the full capacity of their workers. Scientific evidence shows that effective ergonomic interventions can lower the physical demands of MMH work tasks, thereby lowering the incidence and severity of the musculoskeletal injuries they can cause. Their potential for reducing injury-related costs alone makes ergonomic interventions a useful tool for improving a company's productivity, product quality, and overall business competitiveness. But very often productivity gets an additional and solid shot in the arm when managers and workers take a fresh look at how best to use energy, equipment, and exertion to get the job done in the most efficient, effective, and effortless way possible. Planning that applies these principles can result in big wins for all concerned. This booklet will help you to recognize high-risk MMH work tasks and choose effective options for reducing their physical demands. Illustrated inside you will find approaches like: Eliminating lifting from the floor and using simple transport devices like carts or dollies; Using lift-assist devices like scissors lift tables or load levelers; Using more sophisticated equipment like powered stackers, hoists, cranes, or vacuum assist devices; Guiding your choice of equipment by analyzing and redesigning work stations and workflow.

Ionizing radiation and its sources are used every day in medical, industrial and governmental facilities around the world. Although some health risks from ionizing radiation exposures are widely recognized, the association of these exposures to specific diseases, especially various types of cancer, remains uncertain. Workers at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities have produced nuclear weapons, provided nuclear fuel materials for power reactors, and conducted a wide spectrum of research related to nuclear safety and other scientific issues. While completing this work, many of the employees have been exposed to ionizing radiation and other potentially hazardous materials. Since 1991, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has conducted analytical epidemiologic studies of workers at DOE nuclear facilities, through a Memorandum of Understanding between the DOE and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The agreement occurred in response to recommendations to the Secretary of Energy in 1989 by the independent Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiologic Research Activities (SPEERA). This technical report, entitled A Nested Case-Control Study of Leukemia and Ionizing Radiation at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, is one several products of the NIOSH Occupational Energy Research Program that are being published as a series. Most of these studies include detailed historical exposure assessments for radiation and other potentially hazardous agents so the health risks at different levels of exposure can be accurately estimated. Each of these studies contributes to the knowledge required to ensure that workers are adequately protected from chronic disease over their working lifetimes.

In 1897 a small landholder named Robert Eastham shot and killed timber magnate Frank Thompson in Tucker County, West Virginia, leading to a sensational trial that highlighted a clash between local traditions and modernizing forces. Ronald L. Lewis's book uses this largely forgotten episode as a window into contests over political, environmental, and legal change in turn-of-the-century Appalachia. The Eastham-Thompson feud pitted a former Confederate against a member of the new business elite who was, as a northern Republican, his cultural and political opposite. For Lewis, their clash was one flashpoint in a larger phenomenon central to US history in the second half of the nineteenth century: the often violent imposition of new commercial and legal regimes over holdout areas stretching from Appalachia to the trans-Missouri West. Taking a ground-level view of these so-called "wars of incorporation," Lewis's powerful microhistory shows just how strongly local communities guarded traditional relationships to natural resources. Modernizers sought to convict Eastham of murder, but juries drawn from the traditionalist population refused to comply. Although the resisters won the courtroom battle, the modernizers eventually won the war for control of the state's timber frontier.

The 1920s Jazz Age is remembered for flappers and speakeasies, not for the success of a declining labor movement. A more complex story was unfolding among the young women and men in the hosiery mills of Kensington, the working-class heart of Philadelphia. Their product was silk stockings, the iconic fashion item of the flapper culture then sweeping America and the world. Although the young people who flooded into this booming industry were avid participants in Jazz Age culture, they also embraced a surprising, rights-based labor movement, headed by the socialist-led American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (AFFFHW). In this first history of this remarkable union, Sharon McConnell-Sidorick reveals how activists ingeniously fused youth culture and radical politics to build a subculture that included dances and parties as well as picket lines and sit-down strikes, while forging a vision for social change. In documenting AFFFHW members and the Kensington community, McConnell-Sidorick shows how labor federations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations and government programs like the New Deal did not spring from the heads of union leaders or policy experts but were instead nurtured by grassroots social movements across America.

Motion pictures are made, not mass produced, requiring a remarkable collection of skills, self-discipline, and sociality-all of which are sources of enormous pride among Hollywood's craft and creative workers. The interviews collected here showcase the ingenuity, enthusiasm, and aesthetic pleasures that attract people to careers in the film and television industries. They also reflect critically on changes in the workplace brought about by corporate conglomeration and globalization. Rather than offer publicity-friendly anecdotes by marquee celebrities, Voices of Labor presents off-screen observations about the everyday realities of Global Hollywood. Ranging across job categories-from showrunner to make-up artist to location manager-this collection features voices of labor from Los Angeles, Atlanta, Prague, and Vancouver. Together they show how seemingly abstract concepts like conglomeration, financialization, and globalization are crucial tools for understanding contemporary Hollywood and for reflecting more generally on changes and challenges in the screen media workplace and our culture at large. Despite such formidable concerns, what nevertheless shines through is a commitment to craftwork and collaboration that provides the means to imagine and instigate future alternatives for screen media labor.

Public awareness of the potential for healthcare to actually be the source of harm to patients through exposure to infectious agents, unintended error or known side effects of hazardous treatments has spawned a highly visible "patient safety" movement. Less visible, however, is the risk this same environment and these same hazards impose on the health of the women and men who work there. Although often thought of as clean and safe, workplaces in the Healthcare and Social Assistance (HCSA) sector are associated with many of the same types of exposures to chemicals and hazards found in "blue collar" industrial settings. The HCSA sector is burdened by the historical and entrenched belief that patient care issues supersede the personal safety and health of workers and that it is acceptable for HCSA workers to have less than optimal protections against the risks of hazardous exposures or injuries. Because patients and providers share the healthcare environment, efforts to protect patients and providers can be complimentary, even synergistic, when pursued through a comprehensive, integrated approach. In order to address occupational safety and health issues of the nation, including those of the HCSA sector, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is working with a range of partners to develop an updated National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). Each industrial sector is being ad-dressed by a group of experts and stakeholders called a NORA sector council. This publication addresses the research needs of the occupational safety and health community within the Healthcare and Social Assistance (HCSA) industrial sector. This important industrial sector represents about 11% of the U.S. workforce-approximately 17.4 million workers in 2006-of which 80% are in healthcare. The HCSA sector contains 12 of the 20 fastest growing occupations, and the projected growth of this sector through 2014 exceeds that of any other industrial sector. Workers in the HCSA sector are exposed to a wide range of health and safety hazards including infectious, chemical, and physical agents; lifting and repetitive tasks (ergonomic hazards); stress (psychological hazards); workplace violence; and risks associated with suboptimal organization of work.

Thomas Hodgskin (1787 - 1869) was an English socialist writer on political economy, critic of capitalism and defender of free trade and early trade unions. He used Ricardo's labour theory of value to denounce the appropriation of the most part of value produced by the labour of industrial workers as illegitimate. He propounded these views in a series of lectures at the London Mechanics Institute (later renamed Birkbeck, University of London) where he debated with William Thompson, with whom he shared the critique of capitalist expropriation but not the proposed remedy. The results of these lectures and debates he published as "Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital" (1825), "Popular Political Economy" (1827) and "Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted" (1832). The title of "Labour Defended" was a jibe at James Mill's earlier "Commerce Defended" and signalled his opposition to the latter taking sides with the capitalists against their employees. Despite his high profile in the agitated revolutionary times of the 1820s, he retreated into the realm of Whig journalism after the Reform Act 1832. He became an advocate of free trade and spent 15 years writing for The Economist. He worked on the paper with its founder, James Wilson, and with the young Herbert Spencer. Hodgskin viewed the demise of the Corn Laws as the first step to the downfall of government, and his libertarian anarchism was regarded as too radical by many of the liberals of the Anti-Corn Law League. He left The Economist in 1857, but continued working as a journalist for the rest of his life.

1842 was a year of crisis in Britain, and no more so than in the West Riding town of Halifax. A great strike of all trades took place across England in 1842. It reached its zenith in the industrial towns of the north, starting in the small communities of Lancashire and quickly spreading to the West Riding of Yorkshire as Lancashire marchers poured across the Pennines. In hand with its neighbouring town of Huddersfield, Halifax was noted for its opposition to the New Poor Law which, in 1834, attempted to abolish outdoor relief for the poor, for its support of a maximum ten-hour working day and the Chartists' call for workers' voting rights. When Bradford publican 'Fat Peter' Bussey attended the first Chartist Convention in London in 1839, he took with him the West Riding petition bearing 52,800 signatures, 25 percent of which had been given at Halifax. This book discusses the efforts made by the men and women of Halifax in these early years of organised agitation for social reform, their 'clandestine meetings and nightly drilling', their 'determination, resilience and militancy' to gain a say in the laws under which they lived. It tells of the fight for the legislative rights of workers like seventeen-year-old Patience Kershaw, who dragged loads of coal for twelve hours each day along narrow and dangerous passages under the hills of Halifax. When the Lancashire marchers arrived at Halifax in the hot summer of 1842, the cavalry attempted to clear the streets with their sabres and a violent response was inevitable, arrests quickly followed. The climax came when many hundreds of the men and women of Halifax fought against British soldiers on 16th August 1842, an event which led to the humiliation of a proud platoon of Prince Albert's Own and to the death of at least six men of Halifax.