25,055 research outputs found
Unfair Advantage: Workersâ Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards
This book exposes the violations of human rights witnessed daily in workplaces across the United States. Based on detailed case studies in a variety of sectors, it reveals an âunfair advantageâ in U.S. law and practice that allows employers to fire or otherwise punish thousands of workers as they seek to exercise their rights of association and to exclude millions more from laws that protect their rights to bargain and to organize. Unfair Advantage approaches workersâ use of organizing, collective bargaining, and strikes as an exercise of basic rights where workers are autonomous actors, not objects of unionsâ or employersâ institutional interests. Both historical experience and a review of current conditions around the world indicate that strong, independent, democratic trade unions are vital for societies where human rights are respected
Labour Rights in the FTAA
[Excerpt] Without an overall trade agreement containing stronger labour rights linkage than that of the NAALC model, advocates will have no central forum or mechanism for dealing with workers\u27 rights in the Americas. This paper suggests that labour rights advocates can and should shape a new viable social dimension in hemispheric trade and demand its inclusion in the FTAA.
The emphasis of this paper is on a viable, not a definitive or triumphant, solution. Workers and their advocates do not triumph in the current conjuncture of economic and political forces. They do not will their way to victory with the sharpness of their criticism or the strength of their denunciations; they hold their losses and make small gains where possible. Workers\u27 advocates must coldly calculate what can be done with the reality they are dealt, hoping the outcomes will advance the longer-term struggle for social justice
Chile: Report from the field, September 1972
[Excerpt] âEl pais es pobre.â Sooner or later any Chilean, whichever side he or she is on, makes the point explicit. You know it from the beginning, though; it\u27s the premise for any dialogue about social and political affairs
Legal Protection of Workersâ Human Rights: Regulatory Changes and Challenges in the United States
[Excerpt] In a 2002 study, the US Government Accountability Office reported that more than 32 million workers in the United States lack protection of the right to organise and to bargain collectively. But since then, the situation has worsened. A series of decisions by the federal authorities under President George Bush has stripped many more workers of organising and bargaining rights. The administration took away bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of employees in the new Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department.18 In the years before the 2009 change of administration, a controlling majority of the five-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), appointed by President Bush, denied protection to graduate student employees, disabled employees, temporary employees and other categories of workers.
An October 2006, a NLRB decision was especially alarming for labour advocates. The NLRB set out a new, expanded definition of \u27supervisor\u27 under the section of US labour law that excludes supervisors from protection of the right to organise and bargain collectively. This exclusion has enormous repercussions for millions of workers who might now become \u27supervisors\u27 and lose protection of their organising and bargaining rights.21 This case is discussed in more detail below in connection with a complaint to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association
Information Theoryâs failure in neuroscience: on the limitations of cybernetics
In Cybernetics (1961 Edition), Professor Norbert Wiener noted that âThe role of information and the technique of measuring and transmitting information constitute a whole discipline for the engineer, for the neuroscientist, for the psychologist, and for the sociologistâ. Sociology aside, the neuroscientists and the psychologists inferred âinformation transmittedâ using the discrete summations from Shannon Information Theory. The present author has since scrutinized the psychologistsâ approach in depth, and found it wrong. The neuroscientistsâ approach is highly related, but remains unexamined. Neuroscientists quantified âthe ability of [physiological sensory] receptors (or other signal-processing elements) to transmit information about stimulus parametersâ. Such parameters could vary along a single continuum (e.g., intensity), or along multiple dimensions that altogether provide a Gestalt â such as a face. Here, unprecedented scrutiny is given to how 23 neuroscience papers computed âinformation transmittedâ in terms of stimulus parameters and the evoked neuronal spikes. The computations relied upon Shannonâs âconfusion matrixâ, which quantifies the fidelity of a âgeneral communication systemâ. Shannonâs matrix is square, with the same labels for columns and for rows. Nonetheless, neuroscientists labelled the columns by âstimulus categoryâ and the rows by âspike-count categoryâ. The resulting âinformation transmittedâ is spurious, unless the evoked spike-counts are worked backwards to infer the hypothetical evoking stimuli. The latter task is probabilistic and, regardless, requires that the confusion matrix be square. Was it? For these 23 significant papers, the answer is No
Homunculus strides again: why âinformation transmittedâ in neuroscience tells us nothing
Purpose â For half a century, neuroscientists have used Shannon Information Theory to calculate âinformation transmitted,â a hypothetical measure of how well neurons âdiscriminateâ amongst stimuli. Neuroscientistsâ computations, however, fail to meet even the technical requirements for credibility. Ultimately, the reasons must be conceptual. That conclusion is confirmed here, with crucial implications for neuroscience. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach â Shannon Information Theory depends upon a physical model, Shannonâs âgeneral communication system.â Neuroscientistsâ interpretation of that model is scrutinized here.
Findings â In Shannonâs system, a recipient receives a message composed of symbols. The symbols received, the symbols sent, and their hypothetical occurrence probabilities altogether allow calculation of âinformation transmitted.â Significantly, Shannonâs systemâs âreceptionâ (decoding) side physically mirrors its âtransmissionâ (encoding) side. However, neurons lack the âreceptionâ side; neuroscientists nonetheless insisted that decoding must happen. They turned to Homunculus, an internal humanoid who infers stimuli from neuronal firing. However, Homunculus must contain a Homunculus, and so on ad infinitum â unless it is super-human. But any need for Homunculi, as in âtheories of consciousness,â is obviated if consciousness proves to be âemergent.â
Research limitations/implications â Neuroscientistsâ âinformation transmittedâ indicates, at best, how well neuroscientists themselves can use neuronal firing to discriminate amongst the stimuli given to the research animal.
Originality/value â A long-overdue examination unmasks a hidden element in neuroscientistsâ use of Shannon Information Theory, namely, Homunculus. Almost 50 yearsâ worth of computations are recognized as irrelevant, mandating fresh approaches to understanding âdiscriminability.
Memory model of information transmitted in absolute judgment
Purpose â The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular âinformation transmittedâ interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed.
Design/methodology/approach â The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannonâs Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, the similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory
capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on âinformation transmittedâ are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli.
Findings â Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, âchannel capacityâ is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence.
Research limitations/implications â Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments.
Originality/value â This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of âinformation transmittedâ. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments
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