Health care labor relations law--understanding the issues

The 1974 amendments to the Labor Management Relations Act have created new problems of statutory interpretation in the rapidly evolving area of health care labor law. By including nonprofit hospitals under the auspices of the Act, the amendments have opened up a new area for unionization and have given rise to questions concerning the types of bargaining units that are appropriate in health care facilities. In the following article, the authors discuss these questions and other current issues in health care labor relations law. The issues include the determination of relevant bargaining units, the status of state nursing associations as labor organizations, and the ten-day strike notice requirement of the Labor Management Relations Act.     

Containing hospital labor costs--a separate-industries approach.

Steadily increasing costs in hospitals and other health care facilities have been of increasing concern to government agencies and the public alike. In recent years state legislatures and state cost review boards have acted to control these ever-escalating costs. The role played by these third parties in the collective bargaining process, the impact of cost control laws and regulations, and the constraints thus imposed upon the parties directly involved are the subjects of this thought-provoking article.     

Regulating hospital labor costs: a case study in the politics of state rate commissions

With the advent of various attempts to control hospital costs by direct state regulation, labor input costs have become a target of particular attention. This focus is due in part to the unique discretion administrators can exercise over labor factors, and in part to the large absolute part of hospital resources devoted to labor costs, conservatively estimated to be about 55 percent of total budget. This paper examines the impact of state efforts in prospectively setting rates on collective bargaining outcomes in the hospital sector. Specifically, bargaining in New York, Maryland and Connecticut is examined. The paper concludes that government attempts at controlling costs have, in all cases, required the regulatory bodies to consciously exert influence on the collective bargaining process. Further, while such attempts seem to be within the paradigm of multilateral bargaining, there are significant distinguishing features in the role hospital regulatory bodies play in the bargaining process. These variations from the multilateral paradigm may impede the long run ability of rate review efforts to control bargaining outcomes with respect to wages.     

Government health policy and hospital labor costs: the effects of wage and price controls on hospital wage rates and employment

This study examines the rapid growth of hospital wage rates and employment levels over the past decade, with particular attention to the period 1971-73, when wage and price controls were in effect throughout the economy. The analysis shows that the hospital regulations under the Economic Stabilization Program reduced real hospital wages below what they would have been in the absence of controls; a similar but smaller effect of the controls on hospital employment levels is also shown. This suggests that if the current HEW proposal for hospital cost containment is enacted, its impact would be a significant decrease in the rate of growth of hospital wages and employment.     

Trends in explosive contamination

This study sought to assign a rough order of magnitude for the amount of explosive residue likely to be available in real-world searches for clandestine explosives. A variety of explosives (TNT, TATP, HMX, AN, RDX, PETN) in various forms (powder, flake, detonating cord, plastic) were carefully weighed or cut into containers, and the amount of residue inadvertently remaining on the work area, hands, or containers was quantified. This was used to evaluate the spillage potential of each explosive. The adhesion of each explosive to a glass surface was quantified from amount of explosive adhering to the inside of a glass vial into which the explosive had been placed and then removed by vigorous tapping. In powdered form, most of the explosives--TNT, PETN, RDX, HMX, and TATP--exhibited similar spillage and adhesion to glass. However, PETN as sheet explosive and plasticized RDX (C-4), showed very little potential to contaminate surfaces, either by spillage or adhesion to glass.     

Object relations in criminal psychopaths

Although many empirical studies have documented the range and severity of problems caused by psychopaths, considerably less attention has focused on understanding its origins. Efforts to treat this potentially dangerous population have been equally frustrating, as psychotherapeutic approaches have almost always proven ineffectual. Because of the limited understanding of the psychological and interpersonal dynamics underlying psychopathy, the authors sought to assess the extent to which object relations theory could inform our understanding of psychopathy. In addition to eliciting background information, 74 men sentenced to probation following a criminal conviction were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version, a clinician-rated measure of psychopathy, and were administered the BORI, a self-report measure of object relations. Results showed significant correlations between object relations dimensions, psychopathy scores, and childhood environment data. Furthermore, object relations scores added to the prediction of psychopathy even after demographic and behavioral variables were considered, suggesting that object relations deficits comprise a significant component of psychopathy. Results suggest that psychopaths harbor profound underlying psychosocial damage including intense anxiety, anger, bitterness, and resentment. Implications for interventions and future research are discussed.     

Trends in Police-recorded Offences

This article presents 10-year trends (1998–2007) on some common crimes: homicide, assault, rape, robbery, car theft, domestic burglary and drug offences. In addition, a few less common offences in police statistics, such as money laundering, corruption, offences against computer data and systems are discussed, even though trends of these crimes are not available. Trends are shown from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, where significant sociopolitical changes have occurred. Although police data actually describes more the recording practices of the officials than the amount of crime, police data is highly valuable for research purposes. Most countries continuously collect information about police activity, and the police is mostly the starting point for proceeding with a case in the criminal justice system. In the USA, all common offences recorded by the police have decreased during the recent years. In Europe, property crimes, homicide and robbery have decreased in most countries, but violence and drug crimes have increased. According to the crime victim surveys, the increase in assault cannot be explained by the increasing reporting activity of victims; the increase seems real. The level of crime differs considerably in different areas: for instance, homicide is most common in Eastern Europe, but assault is much higher in Western Europe.     

Prison labor and recidivism

This study examines recidivism among inmates who participated in prison industry programs during confinement and a comparison group of inmates who were not employed in prison industry. Industry participants had lower recidivism rates than nonparticipants, but when differences between the groups on other characteristics associated with recidivism were controlled, the recidivism rates of participants and nonparticipants were virtually identical. A proportional hazards regression model was estimated that showed that, net of other variables, the effect of prison industry participation on the probability of postrelease felony arrest was small and insignificant. The findings are discussed in the context of existing correctional outcome research and recent developments in prison work programs.     

Crime Trends in the EU

The paper’s aim is to show to EU policy makers, academics, journalists and the general public what the available information tells us about crime levels, trends in crime and public opinion about crime among Member States. The paper centres on an analysis of current trends on crime levels and trends based on the data available both from victimisation surveys and police statistics. The victimisation survey source is the published data collected in the International Crime Victimisation Survey. A separate analysis based on the Eurobarometer was also carried out. Data on police statistics present two separate sources i.e. the Council of Europe Sourcebook and the crime data published annually by the UK Home Office. These two sources both add considerable value to the raw police statistics by their choice of data, their commentary and their technical explanations and definitions. The paper compares data on three crime types (robbery, domestic burglary and theft of a motor vehicle) across the 15 Member States of the European Union (as in 2003). These three types were selected in line with the priorities of the EU Commission and as types of crime that are a major concern for EU-citizens. The paper has been modified from a report produced by the European Crime prevention network for the EU Directorate of Justice and Home Affairs with the permission of the EU. The members of the network are listed in the appendix.     

Trends in jail admissions rates

Historical data on national and state jail admissions trends have not been fully explored for theoretical and empirical insights into what causes jail populations to vary over time. This study draws on New York State historical jail records, research on national and state imprisonment trends, and “macro” perspectives on crime control and punishment. The analysis explores some of the possible causal relationships between variation in jail admissions and unemployment, major demographic trends, war, depression, jail capacity, and law enforcement and judicial practices. Theoretical, methodological, and operational implications of the research are discussed.     

Seasons of labor:

This article examines the place of occupational pluralism in the adaptive family economy of rural shipyard workers in nineteenth-century Weymouth, Nova Scotia. The concept of the adaptive family economy emphasizes that families attempt to maximize economic well-being by diversifying the employment opportunities of family members. For most shipyard workers, shipbuilding was a part-time activity that complemented seasonal farming and lumbering activities. The role of space, land ownership, and the characteristics of workers reveal certain economic and sociocultural features that are associated with pluralism, including larger family size, the use of land for farming and security of food production, and the importance of job location for participation in pluralist activities. These features stand more clearly revealed by examining them within the larger economic and cultural context of shipbuilding, farming, and lumbering in the Confederation era.     

Free and unfree labor in Qing China

Though internal migration in China during the Qing era (1644–1911) was mostly unrestricted, the government tightly controlled the movement of peasants who worked state lands in frontier regions and certain other locations. Such peasants accounted for 5–10% of China's population. In the state farms of northeast China, households could move legally only from one place to another within the system. Departure from the system was illegal. In this article, one of the first quantitative studies of migration in late imperial China, we apply discrete-time event-history methods to longitudinal, nominative household register data from six northeast Chinese state farm systems to compare how characteristics of the farm system, village, and household influenced the chances of legal moves and illegal departures. We show that among these state peasants, who were supposedly “unfree,” migration was not uncommon. We also show that the determinants of legal and illegal migration differed substantially. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for our understanding of migration processes in late imperial China.