Employment, growth and reforms in Jamaica

Includes bibliography

EMPLOYMENT AND EXPOSURES IN THE PETROLEUM REFINING AND PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES AND THE RISK OF LUNG CANCER (EPIDEMIOLOGY, ASSESSMENT)

This dissertation addresses the risk of lung cancer associated with occupational exposures in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries. Earlier epidemiologic studies of this association did not adjust for cigarette smoking or have specific exposure classifications. The Texas EXposure Assessment System (TEXAS) was developed with data from a population-based, case-comparison study conducted in five southeast Texas counties between 1976 and 1980. The Texas Exposure Assessment System uses job and process categories developed by the American Petroleum Institute, as well as time-oriented variables to identify high risk groups.^ An industry-wide, increased risk for lung cancer was associated with jobs having low-level hydrocarbon exposure that also include other occupational inhalation exposures (OR = 2.0--adjusted for smoking and latency effects). The prohibition of cigarette smoking for jobs with high-level hydrocarbon exposure might explain part of the increased risk for jobs with low-level hydrocarbon exposures. Asbestos exposure comprises a large part of the risk associated with jobs having other inhalation exposures besides hydrocarbons. Workers in petroleum refineries were not shown to have an increased, occupational risk for lung cancer. The increased risk for lung cancer among petrochemical workers (OR = 3.1--smoking and latency adjusted) is associated with all jobs that involve other inhalation exposure characteristics (not only low-level hydrocarbon exposures). Findings for contract workers and workers exposed to specific chemicals were inconclusive although some hypotheses for future research were identified.^ The study results demonstrate that the predominant risk for lung cancer is due to cigarette smoking (OR = 9.8). Cigarette smoking accounts for 86.5% of the incident lung cancer cases within the study area. Workers in the petroleum industry smoke significantly less than persons employed in other industries (p << 0.001). Only 2.2% of the incident lung cancer cases may be attributed to petroleum industry jobs; lifestyle factors (e.g., nutrition) may be associated with the balance of the cases. The results from this study also suggest possible high risk time periods (OR = 3.9--smoking and occupation adjusted). Artifacts in time-oriented findings may result because of the latency interval for lung cancer, secular peaks in age-, sex-specific incidence rates, or periods of hazardous exposures in the petroleum industry. ^

Construcciones identitarias de clase media y precariedad laboral : Un estudio sobre trabajadores contratados de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de La Plata (2013-2014)

Con la presente investigación nos proponemos indagar y problematizar las construcciones identitarias de clase media de trabajadores contratados en ámbitos laborales precarios de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de la Plata en 2013-2014. Al referirnos a los trabajadores contratados es ineludible vincular su origen al proceso de reestructuración del Estado en la década del '90, el cual habilitó la propagación de formas de contratación temporarias y precarizadas al interior de la Administración Pública. Actualmente los trabajadores contratados constituyen una planta con características mixtas, en tanto poseen alguna o varias de las prerrogativas de la planta permanente, con excepción fundamentalmente de la estabilidad, ya que se trata de contratos con plazo de vencimiento máximo de un año. Si bien el trabajo en el Estado ha sido considerado tradicionalmente como una referencia identitaria de clase media, la precarización, por el contrario, presenta signos desestabilizadores de algunos de sus presupuestos -como la estabilidad, la certidumbre y derechos asociados-. Situándonos en la contemporaneidad de estas atribuciones precarias, nuestro interés se centra en analizar los diversos modos en que los trabajadores contratados narran su pertenencia clasista, en particular aquellos que lo hacen alrededor de una idea de clase media

Construcciones identitarias de clase media y precariedad laboral : Un estudio sobre trabajadores contratados de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de La Plata (2013-2014)

Con la presente investigación nos proponemos indagar y problematizar las construcciones identitarias de clase media de trabajadores contratados en ámbitos laborales precarios de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de la Plata en 2013-2014. Al referirnos a los trabajadores contratados es ineludible vincular su origen al proceso de reestructuración del Estado en la década del '90, el cual habilitó la propagación de formas de contratación temporarias y precarizadas al interior de la Administración Pública. Actualmente los trabajadores contratados constituyen una planta con características mixtas, en tanto poseen alguna o varias de las prerrogativas de la planta permanente, con excepción fundamentalmente de la estabilidad, ya que se trata de contratos con plazo de vencimiento máximo de un año. Si bien el trabajo en el Estado ha sido considerado tradicionalmente como una referencia identitaria de clase media, la precarización, por el contrario, presenta signos desestabilizadores de algunos de sus presupuestos -como la estabilidad, la certidumbre y derechos asociados-. Situándonos en la contemporaneidad de estas atribuciones precarias, nuestro interés se centra en analizar los diversos modos en que los trabajadores contratados narran su pertenencia clasista, en particular aquellos que lo hacen alrededor de una idea de clase media

Construcciones identitarias de clase media y precariedad laboral : Un estudio sobre trabajadores contratados de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de La Plata (2013-2014)

Con la presente investigación nos proponemos indagar y problematizar las construcciones identitarias de clase media de trabajadores contratados en ámbitos laborales precarios de la Administración Pública de la Provincia de Buenos Aires y el Municipio de la Plata en 2013-2014. Al referirnos a los trabajadores contratados es ineludible vincular su origen al proceso de reestructuración del Estado en la década del '90, el cual habilitó la propagación de formas de contratación temporarias y precarizadas al interior de la Administración Pública. Actualmente los trabajadores contratados constituyen una planta con características mixtas, en tanto poseen alguna o varias de las prerrogativas de la planta permanente, con excepción fundamentalmente de la estabilidad, ya que se trata de contratos con plazo de vencimiento máximo de un año. Si bien el trabajo en el Estado ha sido considerado tradicionalmente como una referencia identitaria de clase media, la precarización, por el contrario, presenta signos desestabilizadores de algunos de sus presupuestos -como la estabilidad, la certidumbre y derechos asociados-. Situándonos en la contemporaneidad de estas atribuciones precarias, nuestro interés se centra en analizar los diversos modos en que los trabajadores contratados narran su pertenencia clasista, en particular aquellos que lo hacen alrededor de una idea de clase media

Training and the commitment of outsourced information technologies' workers: psychological contract fulfillment as a mediator

Outsourced workers in information technologies (IT) generally have high skills and a high value on the job market. Their IT outsourcing organizations are likely to provide them with training, in the first place for skill development, but perhaps also as a way to bind the workers to them. This can be understood along the role of the psychological contract. Outsourced IT workers may see training as a fulfillment of their psychological contract. Accordingly, we hypothesize that psychological contract fulfillment mediates the relationship between training and affective commitment to the IT outsourcer. This was tested in a sample of 158 Portuguese outsourced IT workers. The results showed that employees who considered that they were receiving good training opportunities felt a greater affective commitment to their IT outsourcers. This relationship was mediated by the fulfillment of the relational psychological contract.

Contingencies of contingent employment: psychological contract, job insecurity and employability of contracted workers

Drawing on psychological contract literature, the present study examines the emerging contingent employment relationships, which involve the contracted workers, the employment agency and the client organization on whose premises these employees work. This sample includes eighty-eight white-collar employees working for four Portuguese agencies. The results suggest that the perceived fulfilment of client?s obligations relates positively to the perceived fulfilment of agency?s obligations and that these constructs are independent of one another. Furthermore, as expected, we have found that the perception of job insecurity relates negatively to the fulfilment of agency?s obligations. No relationship was found between employability and the perceived fulfilment of client?s obligations. The results have implications for practitioners and future research.

Hours and earnings; estimated hours and earnings of production workers in manufacturing, mining, and contract construction in Kansas, 1949-1961.

Chiefly tables.

The Social contract with endogenous sentiments

Moral values infuence individual behavior and social interactions. A specially signif- cant instance is the case of moral values concerning work e¤ort. Individuals determine what they take to be proper behaviour and judge the others, and themselves, accordingly. They increase their esteem -and self-esteem- for those who perform in excess of the standard and decrease their esteem for those who work less. These changes in self-esteem result from the self-regulatory emotions of guilt or pride extensively studied in Social Psychology. We examine the interactions between sentiments, individual behaviour and the social contract in a model of rational voting over redistribution where individual self-esteem and relative es-teem for others are endogenously determined. Individuals di¤er in their productivities. The desired extent of redistribution depends both on individual income and on individual attitudes toward others. We characterize the politico-economic equilibria in which sentiments, labor supply and redistribution are simultaneously determined. The model has two types of equilibria. In "cohesive" equilibria, all individuals conform to the standard of proper behav- iour, income inequality is low and social esteem is not biased toward any particular type. Under these conditions equilibrium redistribution increases in response to larger inequality. In a "clustered" equilibrium skilled workers work above the mean while unskilled workers work below. In such an equilibrium, income inequality is large and sentiments are biased in favor of the industrious. As inequality increases, this bias may eventually overtake the egoistic demand for greater taxation and equilibrium redistribution decreases. The type of equilibrium that emerges crucially depends on inequality. We contrast the predictions of the model with data on inequality, redistribution, work values and attitudes toward work and toward the poor for a set of OECD countries.

Overtime Working and Contract Efficiency

We present a wage-hours contract designed to minimize costly turnover given investments in specific training combined with firm and worker information asymmetries. It may be optimal for the parties to work ‘long hours’ remunerated at premium rates for guaranteed overtime hours. Based on British plant and machine operatives, we test three predictions. First, trained workers with longer tenure are more likely to work overtime. Second, hourly overtime pay exceeds the value of marginal product while the basic hourly wage is less than the value of marginal product. Third, the basic hourly wage is negatively related to the overtime premium.

Governance by Contract? The impact of the International Finance Corporation's Social Conditionality on Worker Organization and Social Dialogue

This study considers the question of the relationship between private labour regulation and workers' capacity to take collective action through the lens of an empirical study of the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) 'performance standards' system of social and environmental conditionality. The study covered some 150 IFC client businesses in four world regions, drawing on data made public by the IFC as well as the results of a dedicated field survey that gathered information directly from workers, managers and union representatives. The study found that the application of the performance standards system has had remarkably little impact on union membership and social dialogue. In those few cases where change could be causally linked to the standards, the effect depended on the presence of workers' organizations that already had the capacity to take effective action on behalf of their members. The study also uncovered some prima facie evidence of breaches of freedom of association rights occurring with no reaction from IFC. The study concludes that the lack of impact is largely due to the private contractual structure that supposedly guarantees standards compliance.

Public-private sector wage differentials by type of contract: evidence from Spain

The article examines public-private sector wage differentials in Spain using microdata from the Structure of Earnings Survey (Encuesta de Estructura Salarial). When applying various decomposition techniques, we find that it is important to distinguish by gender and type of contract. Our results also highlight the presence of a positive wage premium for public sector workers that can be partially explained by their better endowment of characteristics, in particular by the characteristics of the establishment where they work. The wage premium is greater for female and fixed-term employees and falls across the wage distribution, being negative for more highly skilled workers.

Public-private sector wage differentials by type of contract: evidence from Spain

The article examines public-private sector wage differentials in Spain using microdata from the Structure of Earnings Survey (Encuesta de Estructura Salarial). When applying various decomposition techniques, we find that it is important to distinguish by gender and type of contract. Our results also highlight the presence of a positive wage premium for public sector workers that can be partially explained by their better endowment of characteristics, in particular by the characteristics of the establishment where they work. The wage premium is greater for female and fixed-term employees and falls across the wage distribution, being negative for more highly skilled workers.

Collective Labour Agreement between the Public Utilities Commission of the City of St. Catharines and Local 556, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 1952

In 1952, Local 556 of The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers negotiated a contract with The Public Utilities Commission of the City of St. Catharines. The contract was to be in effect from July 1952 to September 1953. The document is unsigned.