Today is dedicated to the remembrance of the Holy Innocents, who were victims of a state sponsored terrorist attack at the very beginning of the Christian era. We believe this is an appropriate spiritual time to review and question the moral judgement of the Catholic Bishops of the United States of America that our nation's war on the people of Afghanistan is just. We do this in a spirit of fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church and to the (...) charism bequeathed to us as Catholic Workers by our founders, the Servants of God Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day of New York. Our statements, questions, and conclusions may seem startling to you, they may make you uncomfortable. This is because we come to you, not as the rich and powerful, but as the weak, poor, and powerless. (shrink)

Written in 1932, just before the fall of the Weimar Republic and on the eve of the Nazi accession to power, Ernst Jünger’s The Worker: Dominion and Form articulates a trenchant critique of bourgeois liberalism and seeks to identify the form characteristic of the modern age. Jünger’s analyses, written in critical dialogue with Marx, are inspired by a profound intuition of the movement of history and an insightful interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy. -/- Martin Heidegger considered Jünger “the only genuine (...) follower of Nietzsche,” singularly providing “an interpretation which took shape in the domain of that metaphysics which already determines our epoch, even against our knowledge; this metaphysics is Nietzsche's doctrine of the ‘will to power.’” In The Worker, Jünger examines some of the defining questions of that epoch: the nature of individuality, society, and the state; morality, justice, and law; and the relationships between freedom and power and between technology and nature. -/- This work, appearing in its entirety in English translation for the first time, is an important contribution to debates on work, technology, and politics by one of the most controversial German intellectuals of the twentieth century. Not merely of historical interest, The Worker carries a vital message for contemporary debates about world economy, political stability, and equality in our own age, one marked by unsettling parallels to the 1930s. (shrink)

Craft food and beverage makers regularly emphasize transparency about the ethical, sustainable sourcing of their ingredients and the human labour underpinning their production, all of which helps elevate the status of their products and occupational communities. Yet, as with other niche ethical consumption markets, craft industries continue to rely on employment conditions for agricultural workers that reproduce inequalities of race, class, and citizenship in the dominant food system. This paper interrogates the contradiction between the exaltation of craft cidermakers’ labour and (...) the devaluation of farmworker labour by assessing how craft beverage actors make sense of inequalities facing manually skilled agricultural workers. Through a focus on the emerging craft cider industry, this paper draws on in-depth interviews and ethnographic data with a range of urban and rural cider actors in the Pacific Northwest. I find that actors in the craft cider industry engage with inequalities affecting farmworkers through three main patterns: Justifications of the status quo; Supply chain fog; and Misgiving/critique. By using an analytical framework that integrates critical agrarianism and the politics of sight, this study provides insights into both barriers and opportunities to redistribute social recognition and material rewards across food supply chains. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Catalan Institute of Health is the largest health services public provider in Catalonia. “CIH Code of Ethics Virtual Forum”, was created within the Intranet of the CIH to facilitate participation among their employees. The current study aims to: a) Analyse the CIH workers’ assessment of their own, their colleagues’ and the organization’s observance of ethical values; b) Identify the opinions, attitudes, experiences and practices related to the ethical values from the discourse of the workers that contributed voluntarily to the (...) CEVF.MethodsMixed methods study with convergent parallel design:1.Cross sectional study by means of a self-administered, ad hoc, anonymous questionnaire to assess the observance of the ethical values of the CIH according to the participants. A total of 712 workers responded to the questionnaire. A descriptive, bivariate analysis of the results was carried out. 2.Qualitative study to determine the meaning for the workers of the ethical values put forward by the organization. Their individual opinions and experiences were explored by means of a thematic contents analysis of 225 comments posted in the CEVF. The study was conducted between May and December 2008.ResultsThe average score for observance of the CE by the respondents themselves was high, between 3.5-4/5 for the observance by their colleagues and close to 3/5 for the CIH management. These results do not change when we compare by gender, age group and professional discipline. The comments on the values are information-rich, they mirror the ethical environment of the institution and show various ethical dilemmas and suggestions.ConclusionsResults show that it is feasible for a publicly funded health care organization to develop a CE with the participation of employees and the support of the management. Results underscore the relevance of this strategy for the implementation, improvement and update of the CE as a responsibility shared by all workers. Practices consistent with ethical values are rewarded by social approval, enhance employee’s confidence and coherence in decision-making and improve public engagement and institutional policies. (shrink)

This paper argues that the deepening and widening of existing worker rights in work environment issues is a necessary condition to promote much needed reform in present day industry, and to reduce the frequency and severity rate of accidents and incidence of industrial disease.

The aim of the present research was to develop a measure that could be used in future research for in-depth study of the psychological management of retirement. We report the results of six studies involving 1,898 French workers designed to develop and assess the psychometric properties of a new instrument named the Workers' Retirement Motivations Inventory (WRMI) using the push pull anti-push anti-pull model. The items were constructed based on a review of the relevant psychological literature and face-to-face interviews with (...) senior workers. A combined method of exploratory structural equations modeling and confirmatory factor analysis was employed and provided evidence for validating this structure of the inventory. The WRMI showed consistency of the four-factor structure across different samples, internal consistency, test-retest reliability and predictive validity of workers' plans for retirement. Implications of these findings and avenues for counseling activities and future research are discussed. (shrink)

This article surveys the history of labor- and middle-class-sponsored efforts to mobilize shopping on behalf of working people from the late nineteenth century through the present. It analyzes the class dynamics of these movements to, first, underscore workers' own ability to mount consumer campaigns and, second, critique middle-class campaigns in the present that can treat workers as unorganized, passive victims. It underscores the potential hierarchical dynamics inherent in consumer-labor campaigns, both between classes and within the labor movement, including dynamics of (...) race, gender, and space. (shrink)

An account is given of the emergence of the concept of work as a basic component of mechanics. It was largely an achievement of engineer savants in France during the Bourbon Restoration , with Navier, Coriolis and Poncelet playing the major roles. Some aspects of the eighteenth-century prehistory are described, and also concurrent developments in French engineering. The principal problem areas were friction, hydraulics, machine performance and ergonomics, and especially in the last context the developments became involved with social and (...) even philosophical movements in the 1820s. Education played an important role throughout; several of the principal sources are textbooks. (shrink)

Since around 2010, a workers’ history of science has emerged as a distinct set of research questions and professional practices. More than a consolidation of prior concepts, the workers’ history of science attends to resource distribution both in sites of science in the past and in present-day historians’ sites of training and labor—the university, the library, the research organization, the professional meeting, and more. To understand the timing and trajectory of the workers’ history of science, it is helpful to look (...) at the history of “mutual aid.” This example clarifies, first, how the workers’ history of science is enlivening the historiography of science: by bringing to the past a form of analysis that was actively politically suppressed in the workplaces of history in the United States after World War II. It also shows how the workers’ history of science can, in alliance with other movements, gradually transform the political economy of the profession—through small but consequential decisions about how to organize our shared professional worlds. (shrink)

This article analyses occupational health and safety discourse, bringing special attention to dilemmas that emerge as employees name and negotiate particular risks and safety measures. The study is based on 46 interviews conducted with employees in three chemical factories, and combines Michel Foucault’s conception of governmentality with a discursive psychology approach. The study demonstrates how dilemmas emerge when 1) respondents make others responsible for health and safety risks; 2) they personally assume responsibility as ‘risky’ workers; and 3) different rationalities – (...) such as environmental and behavioural or hierarchical – appear in the same set of statements. Overall, occupational health and safety management tends to exclude egalitarian beliefs, which creates dilemmas that become visible as speakers find themselves compelled to excuse, ironize or systematically downplay discursive moves that may diminish or exclude themselves or others. Given that previous research suggests that behavioural approaches to health become increasingly widespread in working life, this article contributes by highlighting the presence of dilemmas that implies some flux and openness to change. (shrink)

" ... the political situation into which Poland has been brought is a thoroughly revolutionary one, and it leaves Poland with no other choice but to be revolutionary or perish.".

This cross sectional study was carried out among the workers of British American Tobacco Company, Dhaka with a view to explore their nutritional status, personal hygiene and health seeking behavior as because they are working on a tobacco processing company. The sample size was 179 which were selected purposively. The study showed that out of 179 respondents 89 (49.7%) were in the age groups of 30-39 years and the mean age of the respondents were 31.99 ± 6.01 years. A large (...) number of respondents (55.9%) had monthly family income of Taka 10001-20000 and the mean family income was Taka 12776.54 ± 5230.13. Maximum respondents (73.7%) were Muslim, more than half (54.2%) were shift in charge, 39.1% of the respondents consisted of 4 family members, 43.6% respondents were accustomed to other type of eating habit and 38.5% respondents knew that malnutrition was the effect of lack of proper nutrition, 59.8% of the respondents knew that night blindness was the disease due to malnutrition, most of the respondents (91.6%) performed duties to maintain health, majority (62.0%) respondents used to do nothing to maintain healthcare for their children and 35.9% visited doctor’s single time in a month, 40.2% of the respondents told regular tooth brushing as type of healthy habits. Majority (64.8%) respondents used to brush twice a day, majority (50.8%) respondents used to wash hand after toileting, majority (62.08%) respondents used to bath daily, 43.0% and 31.8% of the respondents told that dysentery and diarrhea was due to eating without proper hand washing respectively. Majority (53.6%) respondents informed that they learned about personal hygiene from television, 45.8% respondents understood that use of safe water in every work as sanitation. Majority (50.84%) came from nuclear family; most (84.92%) had exercise habit and 40.22% had education level of class VIII. Most (75.42%) of the respondents had semi pucca houses and majority (69.83%) of the respondents used only water as materials for hand washing. This study provided some important information which might help the concerned authority to take appropriate measures to improve the health status of the workers. (shrink)

This study considers the verisimilitude of the harvest saying in Matthew 9.37–38 and Luke (Q) 10.2, specifically the opening statement that the harvest is plentiful but the workers few. By ‘verisimilitude’ is meant the tradition’s tendency to be viewed as realistic in its original socio-historical context. In other words, would the first listeners have nodded their heads in agreement at the claim that the harvest is plentiful but the workers few? The focus here is not on the logion’s possible metaphorical (...) application, but on the literal saying, which involves ancient agriculture. To address the verisimilitude question, the study will consider some individual features of the logion itself, as well as the socio-historical context of farming and harvesting in 1st-century Palestine and the Roman Empire. Contribution: This study attempts to determine the verisimilitude of the literal claim that the harvest is plentiful but the workers few. The author is not aware of any other study that attempts to answer this verisimilitude question about Matthew 9.37–38 and Luke (Q) 10.2. Answering this question is sure to contribute to the understanding and interpretation of the chosen logion in the future. (shrink)

Unlike many countries across the world, in Chile after 1968 a radical socialist government came to power with the electoral victory of Salvador Allende and Popular Unity underpinned by a whole range of movements toward a socialism “from below”. Using fragments gathered from workers’ newspapers produced during the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s, the aim of this article is to identify the changing content of radical socialist politics that coalesced by the time of this electoral victory in and through the “everyday” (...) experience of workers in the textile industry. Workers in this sector were at the forefront of the profound changes underway during the prior period of import-substitution industrialisation from the 1930s and the “pre-revolutionary” moment of 1970-1973, where major textile firms were amongst the first to be occupied and nationalised under the Allende government. By tracing the evolution of socialist ideas in these publications —published by trade unions, political parties and, in the 1970s, by workers in the occupied factories themselves— I unravel the development of a radical socialist politics through these decades that then coalesced with the electoral victory of the UP in 1970. Methodologically, I draw on the work of Chilean sociologist Tomás Moulian (1993) and his concept of ideas “en uso” to examine how radical socialist ideas developed and changed in their interaction with workplace conflicts of the time. Consequently, I identify four areas in which these ideas developed: expression of the changing workplace; interpretation of discontent through legalist and radical discourse; the complexities of Chilean socialist and anti-imperialist ideas; and the construction of historical memory. I demonstrate how the interplay of these four features of Chilean socialist ideas were represented in an “everyday socialism” that informed the factory occupations and nascent social transformations after 1970. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Understanding the social context of clinical ethics is vital for making ethical discourse central in professional practice and for preventing harm. In this paper we present findings about clinical ethics from in depth interviews and consultation with 7 members of a hospital social work department. Workers gave different accounts of ethical dilemmas and resources for ethical decision making than did their managers, whereas workers and managers agreed on core-guiding ethical principles and on ideal situations for ethical discourse. We discuss the (...) research team's initial interpretations, the relevance of the extant ethics literature to organizational structures and dynamics, and alternative perspectives on clinical ethics. (shrink)

Individualism and nationalism are often held to be competing or even mutually exclusive concepts. Hannah Arendt, for instance, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, argues that a focus on the rights of the individual could have provided an antidote to the kind of racist nationalism established by the Nazis.1 According to this logic, the more firmly individual rights are defended, the less dangerously nationalist the resulting society will be, because individuals' goals and desires will not be subordinated to those of a (...) larger group. Studies of the work of Ernst Jünger have confirmed this assessment of the importance of the individual.. (shrink)

The emergence of so-called ‘gig work’, particularly that sold through digital platforms accessed through smartphone apps, has led to disputes about the proper classification of workers: Should platform workers be classified as independent contractors (as platforms typically insist), or as employees of the platforms through which they sell labor (as workers often claim)? Such disputes have urgency due to the way in which employee status is necessary to access certain benefits such as a minimum wage, sick pay, and so on. (...) In addition, classification disputes have philosophical significance because their resolution requires some foundational account of why the law should make a distinction between employed and freelance workers in the first place. This paper aims to fill this foundational gap. Central to it is the idea that employment involves a worker ceding certain freedoms in return for a degree of security, at least with respect to income. Insofar as the misclassification objection has force against digital platforms, it is when a platform is attempting to have it both ways: Workers are giving up freedom but not being granted a proportionate increase in security. As I shall explain, this approach offers some flexibility as to how actual disputes might be resolved – justice may be indifferent between whether platforms offer greater security or permit workers greater freedom, provided they do at least one of these things. (shrink)

Review Articles : Cornelius Castoriadis, Political and Social Writ ings. Volume One: 1946-1955. From the Critique of Bu reaucracy to the Positive Content of Socialism. Volume Two: 1955-1960. From the Workers Struggle Against Bureaucracy to Revolution in the Age of Modern Capitalism, trans. and ed. by David Ames Curtis.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has successfully combated modern-day slavery by transforming the ways that over a dozen major brands, including Taco Bell, Subway, and Wal-Mart, manage their supply chains. The CIW’s efforts over more than 20 years have effectively stopped enslavement practices, including abuses such as wage theft and peonage indebtedness. We conducted a field ethnography, interviews, and archival analyses to understand this success. We find that the CIW employs a decentered, egalitarian, and ensemble approach to their multiplicities (...) of alliances by collectively “animating” themselves and their partners through ensemble leadership. This combination of alliances, along with worker-driven monitoring, brings life to the CIW motto “We are all leaders.” Translating this motto into daily practice is how the CIW virtually eradicates enslavement practices in corporate supply chains. (shrink)

This paper sheds light on the role of digital platform labour in the development of today’s artificial intelligence, predicated on data-intensive machine learning algorithms. Focus is on the specific ways in which outsourcing of data tasks to myriad ‘micro-workers’, recruited and managed through specialized platforms, powers virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and connected objects. Using qualitative data from multiple sources, we show that micro-work performs a variety of functions, between three poles that we label, respectively, ‘artificial intelligence preparation’, ‘artificial intelligence verification’ (...) and ‘artificial intelligence impersonation’. Because of the wide scope of application of micro-work, it is a structural component of contemporary artificial intelligence production processes – not an ephemeral form of support that may vanish once the technology reaches maturity stage. Through the lens of micro-work, we prefigure the policy implications of a future in which data technologies do not replace human workforce but imply its marginalization and precariousness. (shrink)

In Marxist circles it is common to refer to Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France for a theoretical analysis of the historical significance of the Paris Commune, and to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray’s History of the Commune of 1871 for a description of the facts surrounding the insurrection of the Paris workers and its repression by the National Assembly led by Adolphe Thiers. What is less well-known is that Marx himself oversaw the German translation of Lissagaray’s book and made numerous additions (...) to it. In this article we describe Marx’s addenda to Lissagaray’s work, showing how they contribute to concretising his analysis of the Paris Commune and how they relate to the split in the International Working Men’s Association between Marxists and anarchists that took place after the Commune’s defeat. We also show how Marx’s additions to the German version of Lissagaray’s book were linked to his involvement with the recently created Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany and to his criticism of the programme it had adopted at the congress celebrated in the city of Gotha. (shrink)

The “Protect, Respect, Remedy” Framework along with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is the current global standard regarding corporate conduct. This article analyses the UN Framework from the vantage point of labour rights in India by looking at the garment supply chain. It argues that it can do little to induce states and businesses to bring substantive improvements to working conditions in a largely informal economy like India. Without the state performing its duty to protect human (...) rights, the secondary responsibility of corporations can do very little in realising the rights of workers. Nonetheless, its tallest contribution is that it has given a platform for civil society to push for better conduct from all businesses and marks the beginning of a unified international business and human rights agenda. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have sought to investigate the impact that ethical leaders can have within organisations. Yet, only a few theoretical perspectives have been adopted to explain how ethical leaders influence subordinate outcomes. This study therefore draws on social rules theory (SRT) to extend our understanding of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to employee attitudes. We argue that ethical leaders reduce disengagement, which in turn promotes higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, as well as lower turnover intentions. (...) Co-worker social undermining is examined as a moderator of the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement, as we suggest that it is difficult for ethical leaders to be effective when co-worker undermining prevails. To test the proposed model, questionnaires were administered to 460 nurses in Romanian hospital settings over three time points separated by two-week intervals and the hypotheses were tested using generalised multilevel structural equation modeling (GSEM) with STATA. The findings revealed that ethical leadership has a beneficial effect on employee attitudes by reducing disengagement. However, the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement was moderated by co-worker social undermining, such that when undermining was higher, the significance of the mediated relationships disappeared. These results suggest that while ethical leaders can promote positive employee attitudes, their effectiveness is reduced in situations where co-worker undermining exists. (shrink)

Objective: The COVID-19 epidemic has generated great stress throughout healthcare workers. The situation of HCWs should be fully and timely understood. The aim of this meta-analysis is to determine the psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health care workers.Method: We searched the original literatures published from 1 Nov 2019 to 20 Sep 2020 in electronic databases of PUBMED, EMBASE and WEB OF SCIENCE. Forty-seven studies were included in the meta-analysis with a combined total of 81,277 participants.Results: The pooled prevalence of (...) anxiety is 37% from 44 studies. Depression is estimated in 39 studies, and the pooled prevalence of depression is 36%. There are 10 studies reported the prevalence of insomnia, and the overall prevalence of insomnia is 32%. The subgroup analysis showed a higher incidence of anxiety and depression among women and the frontline HCWs compared to men and non-frontline HCWs respectively.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused heavy psychological impact among healthcare professionals especially women and frontline workers. Timely psychological counseling and intervention ought to be implemented for HCWs in order to alleviate their anxiety and improve their general mental health. (shrink)

This essay examines the efforts by Austro-Marxists to identify, define, and incorporate (geistige Arbeiter) into their movement. In this struggle, socialists faced a hegemonic conservative establishment that controlled the largest scholarly societies and intellectual publications and held most positions in the universities and educational bureaucracy. Despite notable successes in a closer examination of the discourse on intellectuals reveals that conservative ideas remained entrenched in interwar Austria. Austro-Marxists could not overcome the class biases and status anxieties of the educated middle class (...) (BildungsbBlack Viennese” cultural field have largely escaped critical scrutiny despite, and likely because of, their pervasiveness during the First Republic and after World War II. In looking at Austrian and European debates on the role of intellectuals in modern society, this article places conservatives back at the center of interwar Austrian intellectual and cultural history, while contending that they must bear greater responsibility for the authoritarian and fascist turns of Austria during the 1930s. (shrink)

In the current global care regime, care shortages in wealthy nations such as the United States, Canada, Italy, and Hong Kong are being addressed through the global supply of cheap migrant care labor from less wealthy nations. This paper argues that Feminist Care Ethics has a great deal to offer in the analysis of this global care regime. Joan Tronto's own critiques of the migration of care workers have focused on analogies between workers and imported slaves: both are intrinsically exploited, (...) vulnerable, excluded, and stigmatized. She argues that this situation undermines human virtue and the possibility of adequate care, and she advocates instead a model wherein caregiving is seen as a basis for .. (shrink)