Dealing with Shifting Labor Employment Sands

Changes in regulations and tighter interpretations of existing regulations engaged participants in 14th annual Labor and Employment Roundtable, hosted by the Cornell Institute for Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations. They also reviewed changes in union organizing rules. Two Supreme Court decisions dealt with the challenging application of accommodating workers’ health and religious needs, while a new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board calls into question the supposedly arm’s length relationship of employee leasing firms and their clients, as well as franchisors and franchisees. The NLRB also has shortened the campaign time for union elections. In one Supreme Court case, Young v. United Parcel Services, Inc., the Court pointed to a simple principle when employers implement policies for those with illness or medical conditions. Policies must be consistent with regard to how on-job and off-job health issues are treated, and the company’s policy must not be driven by economic considerations. That is, the Court stated that an employer’s denial of a light-duty assignment for an employee could not be based on cost or convenience. The case relating to religious accommodation also involved an economic hinge. In an earlier case, the Court had held that religious accommodations are limited to that which would have no more than a de minimus cost on the employer. In this case, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc., Abercrombie had declined to hire a woman wearing a headscarf on the assumption that she would need a religious accommodation. The Court frowned on the idea that an employer would take religious accommodations into account when deciding whether to hire a person. The franchising industry is attempting to make sense of the NLRB ruling regarding joint employment, in which the board ruled that franchisors that maintain some kind of control over their franchisees’ employees should be considered joint employers of those employees. This is a complicated matter, and the situation is still in flux. Finally, with regard to the telescoped union campaign ruling, these are supposed to benefit the unions. So far, however, there’s no indication that the change has affected the overall outcome of union election campaigns.

Global Trade Governance and ASEAN: Studies of Trade-Related Aspects of Labor, Environment and Culture in Southeast Asia

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

CAST OFF: MARITIME LABOR IN AMERICA FROM 1935 TO 1955

Many studies have observed the precipitous decline in American shipping following the Second World War. Most focus on changes in maritime policy and the upsurge of flags of convenience. Yet this interpretation relegates mariners to a footnote. This thesis argues that America abandoned its seamen years before it abandoned its merchant marine, and that the labor story is an integral and largely overlooked dimension of the industry’s broader decline. It explores how the status and makeup of American seamen underwent monumental shifts from 1935 to 1955. Increased nationalization, improved conditions, and a patriotic cause boosted the standing of the industry, but federal and union intervention also changed the composition of the workforce and even eroded seamen’s status. These greater controls on mariners negatively affected the industry and this work contends that labor played a role in the transformation, and even decline, of the overall American Merchant Marine.

Evaluating health policy and legal responses : how to reduce barriers and improve access to orphan drugs for rare diseases in Canada

Abstract : Rare diseases are debilitating conditions often leading to severe clinical manifestations for affected patients. Orphan drugs have been developed to treat these rare diseases affecting a small number of individuals. Incentives in the legal framework aimed to recoup the research and development cost of orphan drugs for pharmaceutical companies have been implemented in the United States and the European Union. At the present time, Canada is still lacking a legal and policy framework for orphan drugs. Several problems at the federal and provincial levels remain: lack of research funds for rare diseases, discrepancies on orphan drug policies between provinces, difficulties to access and reimburse these high price drugs. Recommendations and measures are proposed, such as a pan-Canadian (national) scientific committee to establish evidence-based guidelines for patients to access orphan drugs uniformly in all provinces with a disease specific registry, a formal agreement for a centralized Canadian public funding reimbursement procedure, and increasing the role of “guardian” for prices by the Patented Medicines Review Board in Canada. These recommendations and measures will be beneficial for the implementation of a policy framework for orphan drugs in Canada.

Trade Shocks and Local Labor Markets' Linkages: Theory and Evidence

In the past few years, there has been a concern among economists and policy makers that increased openness to international trade affects some regions in a country more than others. Recent research has found that local labor markets more exposed to import competition through their initial employment composition experience worse outcomes in several dimensions such as, employment, wages, and poverty. Although there is evidence that regions within a country exhibit variation in the intensity with which they trade with each other and with other countries, trade linkages have been ignored in empirical analyses of the regional effects of trade, which focus on differences in employment composition. In this dissertation, I investigate how local labor markets' trade linkages shape the response of wages to international trade shocks. In the second chapter, I lay out a standard multi-sector general equilibrium model of trade, where domestic regions trade with each other and with the rest of the world. Using this benchmark, I decompose a region's wage change resulting from a national import cost shock into a direct effect on prices, holding other endogenous variables constant, and a series of general equilibrium effects. I argue the direct effect provides a natural measure of exposure to import competition within the model since it summarizes the effect of the shock on a region's wage as a function of initial conditions given by its trade linkages. I call my proposed measure linkage exposure while I refer to the measures used in previous studies as employment exposure. My theoretical analysis also shows that the assumptions previous studies make on trade linkages are not consistent with the standard trade model. In the third chapter, I calibrate the model to the Brazilian economy in 1991--at the beginning of a period of trade liberalization--to perform a series of experiments. In each of them, I reduce the Brazilian import cost by 1 percent in a single sector and I calculate how much of the cross-regional variation in counterfactual wage changes is explained by exposure measures. Over this set of experiments, employment exposure explains, for the median sector, 2 percent of the variation in counterfactual wage changes while linkage exposure explains 44 percent. In addition, I propose an estimation strategy that incorporates trade linkages in the analysis of the effects of trade on observed wages. In the model, changes in wages are completely determined by changes in market access, an endogenous variable that summarizes the real demand faced by a region. I show that a linkage measure of exposure is a valid instrument for changes in market access within Brazil. By using observed wage changes in Brazil between 1991-2000, my estimates imply that a region at the 25th percentile of the change in domestic market access induced by trade liberalization, experiences a 0.6 log points larger wage decline (or smaller wage increase) than a region at the 75th percentile. The estimates from a regression of wages changes on exposure imply that a region at the 25th percentile of exposure experiences a 3 log points larger wage decline (or smaller wage increase) than a region at the 75th percentile. I conclude that estimates based on exposure overstate the negative impact of trade liberalization on wages in Brazil. In the fourth chapter, I extend the standard model to allow for two types of workers according to their education levels: skilled and unskilled. I show that there is substantial variation across Brazilian regions in the skill premium. I use the exogenous variation provided by tariff changes to estimate the impact of market access on the skill premium. I find that decreased domestic market access resulting from trade liberalization resulted in a higher skill premium. I propose a mechanism to explain this result: that the manufacturing sector is relatively more intensive in unskilled labor and I show empirical evidence that supports this hypothesis.

Essays on labor economics.

Doctor of Philosophy in subject of Economics

Prevalence of preterm labor in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Preterm labor, which defines as live-birth delivery before 37 weeks of gestation is a main determinant of neonatal morbidity and mortality around the world. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of preterm labor in Iran by a meta-analysis study, to be as a final measure for policy makers in this field. Materials and Methods: In this meta-analysis, the databases of Thomson database (Web of Knowledge), PubMed/Medline, Science Direct, Scopus, Google Scholar, Iranmedex, Scientific Information Database (SID), Magiran, and Medlib were searched for articles in English and Persian language published between 1995 and 2014. Among the studies with regard to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 studies (out of 1370 publications) were selected. Data were analyzed by using Stata software version 11. The heterogeneity of reported prevalence among studies was evaluated by the Chi-square based Q test and I2 statistics. Results: The results of Chi-square based on Q test and I2 statistics revealed severe heterogeneity (Q=2505.12, p-value < 0.001 and I2= 99.5%) and consequently, the random effect model was used for the meta-analysis. Based on the random effect model, the overall estimated prevalence of preterm in Iran was 9.2% (95% CI: 7.6 – 10.7). Conclusion: Present study summarized the results of previous studies and provided a comprehensive view about the preterm delivery in Iran. In order to achieve a more desirable level and its reduction in the coming years, identifying affecting factor and interventional and preventive actions seem necessary.

Rural Non-Farm Sector and Labor Market in Rural Vietnam: Trends and Determinants

This dissertation aims to investigate the Trends and Determinants of the Rural Non-Farm Sector and Labor Market in Rural Vietnam since the global economic crisis occurred in 2007 with the focus on the household's diversification; the involvement of rural individuals in Rural Non-Farm Employment; Rural Labor Market development; and assessment of a specific labor market policy.

Condiciones dignas de la labor docente del siglo XXI, un derecho inalienable, no una opción

Recibido 14 de abril de 2011 • Aceptado 26 de agosto de 2011 • Corregido 29 de agosto de 2011   Se desarrolla el tema de las condiciones dignas de la labor docente en el desafiante siglo XXI. El objetivo recae en realizar una contextualización de la sociedad emergente en el siglo XXI, en general; así como plantear una revisión, en América Latina, del contexto educativo y de las mismas condiciones laborales del profesional de la educación. Otro objetivo es revisar las condiciones laborales en que se encuentran los educadores en distintos sistemas educativos, incluyendo realidades de Europa y América Latina, entre otras. En las principales ideas que se abordan, se define el perfil del educador de siglo XXI en comparación con el educador de la sociedad tradicional y se desarrollan algunos indicadores de consenso en distintas realidades educativas, así como su integración en tres grandes dimensiones: cognitivas, operativas e institucionales. Sobresale, entre las principales conclusiones, la determinación de políticas públicas que respalden las condiciones laborales en las que se desempeñe el docente de manera digna, lo cual se considera fundamental para una educación inclusiva de calidad, en armonía con las exigencias de la desafiante sociedad emergente. Concluye la autora que este tema es inacabado y debe ser una constante en las agendas educativas de las distintas sociedades.

Work/Family Balance: HRM Policy and Practice in Australia

An employee's inability to balance work and family responsibilities has resulted in an increase in stress related illnesses. Historically, research into the nexus between work and family has primarily focused on the work/family conflict relationship, predominately investigating the impact of this conflict on parents, usually mothers. To date research has not sufficiently examined the human resource management practices that enable all parents to achieve a balance between their work and family lives. This paper explores the relationship between contemporary family friendly HRM policies and employed parents perceptions of work/family enhancement, work/family satisfaction, propensity to turnover, and work/family conflict. Self-report questionnaire data from 326 men and women is analysed and discussed to enable organisations to consider the use of family friendly policies and thus create a convergence between the well-being of employees and the effectiveness of the organisation.