Bargaining health benefits in the workplace: an inside view.
(1/14)
Before contract negotiations in 1999, the author served on an "issue-based" health benefits committee of faculty union representatives and university administrators. Although the committee solicited estimates from health insurers regarding the impact of higher copayments on monthly premiums, in subsequent negotiations, the projected cost savings did not lead to changes in coverage or copayments. The explanations offered are (1) national or regional employers may be reluctant to raise employees' health benefit copayments when labor markets are tight; (2) collective bargaining, particularly when other, nonmonetary issues are being bargained, may lead to results different from those from a strictly competitive model; and (3) employers with market power in the product market may shift these highest costs to consumers through higher prices. (+info)
An evaluation of emergency room services during the New York City house officer strike.
(2/14)
A chart audit of emergency services provided by attending staff during the New York City House Officers' strike is compared to an audit of work previously performed by house staff. The usual quality of services provided in this institution was maintained during the strike. However, deficiencies in quality noted in house staff charts, continued to be noted in the charts of attending staff. Failure to improve quality of medical records when trained staff substitute for trainees suggests that the central strike issue of poor working conditions contributes to low quality of care. (+info)
Brazilian union actions for workers' health protection.
(3/14)
CONTEXT: Many authors have emphasized the importance of worker strength through unionized organizations, in relation to the improvement of working procedures, and have reported on the decisiveness of labor movement actions in achieving modifications within the field of work and health. OBJECTIVE: To describe the ways in which Brazilian unions have tried to intervene in health-illness and work processes, identifying the existence of commonality in union actions in this field. TYPE OF STUDY: Qualitative study. SETTING: Postgraduate Program, Environmental Health Department, Faculdade de Saude Publica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. METHODS: Union health advisers and directors were interviewed. Documents relating to union action towards protecting workers' health were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: Unions articulate actions regarding workers' health of a technical and political nature that involve many aspects and high complexity. These have been divided into thematic categories for better analysis. DISCUSSION: Union actions regarding workers' health in Brazil are restricted to some unions, located mainly in the southern, southeastern and northeastern regions of the country. Nonetheless, the unions undertaking such actions represent many professions of great economic and political importance. CONCLUSIONS: The recent changes in health and safety at work regulations, recognition of professional diseases, creation of workers' health services and programs within the unified health system, and operational improvements in companies' specialized safety and occupational medicine services, all basically result from union action. There is commonality of union action in this field in its seeking of technical and political strengthening for all workers and their general and local representation. This has the objective of benefiting collective bargaining between employers and workers. Inter-institutional action on behalf of workers' rights guarantees and amplifies the improvement of health and working conditions. (+info)
Effect of the new contract on GPs' working lives and perceptions of quality of care: a longitudinal survey.
(4/14)
The United Mine Workers of American and the recognition of occupational respiratory diseases, 1902-1968.
(5/14)
This study examines the early efforts of the United Mine Workers of America to illuminate the problem of occupational respiratory diseases in the coal fields. The union used the hearings of the US Anthracite Coal Strike Commission of 1902-3 to draw public attention to "miners' asthma." In 1915, it began to agitate for the provision of workers' compensation benefits for victims of this disorder. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the union's Welfare and Retirement Fund disseminated information on advances in understanding chronic pulmonary diseases of mining. In particular, the miners' fund promoted the British conceptualization of a distinctive coal workers' pneumoconiosis. At the same time, the staff of the union health plan pressed the US Public Health Service and the Pennsylvania Department of Health to investigate the prevalence of occupational respiratory diseases among bituminous miners. Taken together, these endeavors contributed significantly to growing recognition of the severity and extent of this important public health problem and thus helped lay the foundation for the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. (+info)
Are physicians' strikes ever morally justifiable? A call for a return to tradition.
(6/14)
Though physicians strike provides an opportunity to generate more knowledge about the process in which legitimacy of an organization can be restored, it meets with a great deal of resistance not only by the public but from within the medical profession. This paper critically examines the legitimacy of strike by medical doctors heretofore referred to as physicians. Though critically reflecting on strikes of physicians in general, the paper makes more emphasis on Africa where physician strikes are rampant. More importantly, the paper argues that strike implies a failure for everyone in the organization (including the strikers themselves), not only the responsible government or authority. This is because when a strike occurs, an organization/fraternity is subjected to questions, scrutiny and slander. It becomes difficult to decouple what is said, decided and done. Traditionally, all medical fraternities the world-over are committed to acting comfortably to external demands-guaranteeing the patients' lives and public health. By paying attention to external reactions, the medical fraternity adapts and learns what ought and should be done so that it is never again caught in the same messy. At the same time, the fraternity prepares itself for the future strikes. When the fraternity and those outside consider it is doing up to the external expectations, its lost legitimacy is restored. When legitimacy is restored, external pressure like once disturbed water returns to normal. (+info)
Mobilising community collectivisation among female sex workers to promote STI service utilisation from the government healthcare system in Andhra Pradesh, India.
(7/14)
Risk reduction and perceived collective efficacy and community support among female sex workers in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, India: the importance of context.
(8/14)