Whose Job Is It, Anyway? Capital Strategies for Labor

[Excerpt] When corporate mergers and takeovers create massively debt-ridden new entities, with the resulting pressures to sell off assets, reduce costs (especially wages) and close marginal operations, it is the company\u27s workers and their communities who suffer. And, when corporate managers accept, and even encourage, huge levels of waste, or ignore obvious opportunities because they aren\u27t profitable enough, workers and their communities end up paying for the resulting inefficiencies and lost potential. I believe that a hallmark of the new economic era we seem to be entering will be that workers and unions will be forced to actively concern themselves with all aspects of an employer\u27s business — with the intricate details of corporate structure, finance, and operations. In the process, they will have to evolve a comprehensive approach to the process of production and distribution, to investment and financial issues, as well as to corporate organization and control. In short, they will need to begin learning how to organize economic resources themselves and evolve what have been called capital strategies

Breaking New Ground: Pension Fund Bargaining at Eastern

[Excerpt] Traditionally, unions have exercised their economic power through the strike and the boycott to gain collective bargaining agreements and through the day-to-day enforcement of contract provisions. But the rapidly growing mobility of capital and the increased rate of introducing new technologies have increasingly neutralized the effectiveness of labor\u27s fundamental tools. Thus, it is crucial that unions begin to develop new tools to enhance the economic power of workers. This means that labor must redefine its role with respect to the economy and to the process of allocating resources in the society. Increasingly, unions are demanding plant closing protections, a voice in the introduction of new technologies, restrictions on subcontracting, commitments for reinvestment in existing facilities, and job security for current workers

Contributions of organic and inorganic matter to sediment volume and accretion in tidal wetlands at steady state

A mixing model derived from first principles describes the bulk density ( BD) of intertidal wetland sediments as a function of loss on ignition (LOI). The model assumes that the bulk volume of sediment equates to the sum of self-packing volumes of organic and mineral components or BD = 1 / [LOI/k(1) + (1-LOI) / k(2)], where k(1) and k(2) are the self-packing densities of the pure organic and inorganic components, respectively. The model explained 78 % of the variability in total BD when fitted to 5075 measurements drawn from 33 wetlands distributed around the conterminous United States. The values of k(1) and k(2) were estimated to be 0.085 + / - 0.0007 g cm(-3) and 1.99 + / - 0.028 g cm(-3), respectively. Based on the fitted organic density (k(1)) and constrained by primary production, the model suggests that the maximum steady state accretion arising from the sequestration of refractory organic matter is \u3c = 0.3 cm yr (-1). Thus, tidal peatlands are unlikely to indefinitely survive a higher rate of sea-level rise in the absence of a significant source of mineral sediment. Application of k(2) to a mineral sediment load typical of East and eastern Gulf Coast estuaries gives a vertical accretion rate from inorganic sediment of 0.2 cm yr(-1). Total steady state accretion is the sum of the parts and therefore should not be greater than 0.5 cm yr(-1) under the assumptions of the model. Accretion rates could deviate from this value depending on variation in plant productivity, root: shoot ratio, suspended sediment concentration, sediment-capture efficiency, and episodic events

Doing memory work with older men: the practicalities, the process, the potential

This article describes the process of setting up and participating in a collective memory work group of older men, with a focus on the making and unmaking of older men and masculinities through age, ageing, gender, gendering, and other intersections. Memory work is located in relation to related but different forms of writing and group work, emphasizing how in this method everyone becomes a writer, an author, a listener, a reader, a discussant, and a commentator. The potential of memory work, both for working with older men, and more generally is outlined. Key issues are: genuine and collective commitment to substantive change, not just at a personal level, but also at wider social/political/cultural levels; willingness to trust in the other members of the group, an issue that may be difficult for some men; and commitment for caring for one another especially in their moments of greatest vulnerability

Contributions of organic and inorganic matter to sediment volume and accretion in tidal wetlands at steady state

A mixing model derived from first principles describes the bulk density (BD) of intertidal wetland sediments as a function of loss on ignition (LOI). The model assumes that the bulk volume of sediment equates to the sum of self-packing volumes of organic and mineral components or BD = 1/[LOI/k1 + (1-LOI)/k2], where k1 and k2 are the self-packing densities of the pure organic and inorganic components, respectively. The model explained 78% of the variability in total BD when fitted to 5075 measurements drawn from 33 wetlands distributed around the conterminous United States. The values of k1 and k2 were estimated to be 0.085 ± 0.0007 g cm−3 and 1.99 ± 0.028 g cm−3, respectively. Based on the fitted organic density (k1) and constrained by primary production, the model suggests that the maximum steady state accretion arising from the sequestration of refractory organic matter is ≤ 0.3 cm yr−1. Thus, tidal peatlands are unlikely to indefinitely survive a higher rate of sea-level rise in the absence of a significant source of mineral sediment. Application of k2 to a mineral sediment load typical of East and eastern Gulf Coast estuaries gives a vertical accretion rate from inorganic sediment of 0.2 cm yr−1. Total steady state accretion is the sum of the parts and therefore should not be greater than 0.5 cm yr−1 under the assumptions of the model. Accretion rates could deviate from this value depending on variation in plant productivity, root:shoot ratio, suspended sediment concentration, sediment-capture efficiency, and episodic events

Towards AI Standards Whitepaper: Thought-leadership in AI legal, ethical and safety specifications through experimentation

With the rapid adoption of algorithms in business and society there is a growing concern to safeguard the public interest. Researchers, policy-makers and industry sharing this view convened to collectively identify future areas of focus in order to advance AI standards - in particular the acute need to ensure standard suggestions are practical and empirically informed. This discussion occurred in the context of the creation of a lab at UCL with these concerns in mind (currently dubbed as UCL The Algorithms Standards and Technology Lab). Via a series of panels, with the main stakeholders, three themes emerged, namely (i) Building public trust, (ii) Accountability and Operationalisation, and (iii) Experimentation. In order to forward the themes, lab activities will fall under three streams - experimentation, community building and communication. The Lab’s mission is to provide thought-leadership in AI standards through experimentation

In the dedicated pursuit of dedicated capital: restoring an indigenous investment ethic to British capitalism

Tony Blair’s landslide electoral victory on May 1 (New Labour Day?) presents the party in power with a rare, perhaps even unprecedented, opportunity to revitalise and modernise Britain’s ailing and antiquated manufacturing economy.* If it is to do so, it must remain true to its long-standing (indeed, historic) commitment to restore an indigenous investment ethic to British capitalism. In this paper we argue that this in turn requires that the party reject the very neo-liberal orthodoxies which it offered to the electorate as evidence of its competence, moderation and ‘modernisation’, which is has internalised, and which it apparently now views as circumscribing the parameters of the politically and economically possible

Artificial Nightlight Alters the Predator–Prey Dynamics of an Apex Carnivore

Artificial nightlight is increasingly recognized as an important environmental disturbance that influences the habitats and fitness of numerous species. However, its effects on wide‐ranging vertebrates and their interactions remain unclear. Light pollution has the potential to amplify land‐use change, and as such, answering the question of how this sensory stimulant affects behavior and habitat use of species valued for their ecological roles and economic impacts is critical for conservation and land‐use planning. Here, we combined satellite‐derived estimates of light pollution, with GPS‐data from cougars Puma concolor (n = 56), mule deer Odocoileus hemionus (n = 263) and locations of cougar‐killed deer (n = 1562 carcasses), to assess the effects of light exposure on mammal behavior and predator–prey relationships across wildland–urban gradients in the southwestern United States. Our results indicate that deer used the anthropogenic environments to access forage and were more active at night than their wildland conspecifics. Despite higher nightlight levels, cougars killed deer at the wildland–urban interface, but hunted them in the relatively darkest locations. Light had the greatest effect of all covariates on where cougars killed deer at the wildland–urban interface. Both species exhibited functional responses to light pollution at fine scales; individual cougars and deer with less light exposure increasingly avoided illuminated areas when exposed to greater radiance, whereas deer living in the wildland–urban interface selected elevated light levels. We conclude that integrating estimates of light pollution into ecological studies provides crucial insights into how the dynamic human footprint can alter animal behavior and ecosystem function across spatial scales