A State’s Gendered Response to Political Instability: Gendering Labor Policy in Semi-Authoritarian El Salvador (1944-1972)

Unlike much of the gender and welfare literature, this study examines why a regime that constrains pressure from below would adopt gendered social policies. The Salvadoran case (1944-1972) suggests that political instability rather than societal pressures may prompt semi-authoritarian regimes to adopt gendered labor reforms. We extend the motivations for adopting gendered labor reforms to include co-opting labor by examining gendered labor reforms in the context of El Salvador’s historically contingent labor strategy. This gendered analysis helps explain how a semi-authoritarian regime secured political stability and reveals the special appeal gendered labor reforms may have to semi-authoritarian regimes

Colonels and Industrial Workers in El Salvador, 1944-1972: Seeking Societal Support through Gendered Labor Reforms

[Excerpt] How do military regimes seek support or legitimacy from society? What strategies, besides violent repression, do military leaders use to remain in power? In other words, how do military leaders try to achieve hegemony? El Salvador’s long period of military rule (1931-1979) gives researchers ample opportunity to investigate the mechanisms whereby military regimes try to gain societal support. Erik Ching’s chapter shows that General Martinez’s regime sought support through locally based patron-client relationships. Some analysts of El Salvador’s subsequent military regimes find that these regimes pursued a political alliance with urban industrial workers in order to gain support. Nevertheless, the alliance between the state and urban industrial workers during the 1950s and 1960s remains overgeneralized in the literature. Even those who specify Salvadoran governmental policy during this period as “repression with reforms” do not fully elaborate the mechanisms whereby military leaders formed an alliance with urban industrial workers. Moreover, research on these later military regimes has not explored the role that gendered labor reforms played in solidifying the alliance. As a result of this oversight, researchers may have underestimated the reformist tendency of Salvadoran military regimes from 1944 to 1972. Drawing on newspaper accounts and government publications, we show that adopting labor legislation designed to protect women workers was an element of a broader government strategy to ally with urban industrial workers. Examining how military regimes seek societal support is important because each strategy to secure regime legitimacy may have different social implications. For example, gendered labor legislation can have important social implications for industrial women workers. Research on other countries suggests that labor laws giving women special protections tend to make employers less willing to hire them and that special legal protections for women workers can depress women’s participation in the industrial labor force. Therefore, by illuminating the gendered nature of the reforms pursued by the Salvadoran military regimes, we hope to contribute to future research on the potential relationship between labor reforms and women’s industrial labor force participation in El Salvador

Worker Centers: Labor Policy as a Carrot, not a Stick

Worker centers empower communities of workers that are challenging for labor unions to organize. This includes immigrant workers and other vulnerable workers in high turnover jobs. These centers often organize workers that fall within the definition of “employee” under the Depression-era laws designed to protect some forms of collective worker activity from employer retaliation. Although employees associated with these centers can benefit from labor law’s carrot, worker centers are not “labor organizations” subject to labor law’s vast reporting requirements and restrictions on associational behavior (labor law’s stick). We use an original study of worker centers’ filings to the Internal Revenue Service to reveal that worker centers are more similar to nonprofits, than labor organizations. Both First Amendment and labor law principles affirm the characterization of worker centers as organizations that are not subject to labor law’s stick. Providing worker centers access to labor law’s carrot, but not its stick, is particularly compelling given that they are operating at a historical moment when income inequality parallels New Deal levels and hostility to worker organizations and workers’ rights is pervasive. Our carrot-but-not-a-stick approach has implications for the vitality of American labor policy. It opens up space for emerging worker centers to expand their efforts to amplify employee voice and improve the working lives of the growing low-wage workforce

Milking Outdated Laws: Alt-Labor as a Litigation Catalyst

Even though alt-labor does not have significant labor market power when compared to labor unions, its impacts are manifold. Alt-labor has given rise to novel state and local legislation improving wages and working conditions for low-wage workers across the country. It has fostered new collaborations with government enforcement agencies to improve the implementation of rights on the books—to “make rights real.” It has promoted new bargaining and worker organizing strategies, outside of traditional models. This article highlights another achievement of alt-labor. Alt-labor has served as a catalyst for creative litigation efforts that argue for application of existing workplace protections to non-traditional populations of workers and their organizing efforts. In this way, it has pushed to reinterpret, and thus to revitalize, what many perceive to be outdated labor and employment laws. We focus on initiatives that reimagine the interpretation of these laws in light of new organizing strategies and new global economic realities, all the while staying true to the existing laws on the books. Along with raising questions, and proposing new interpretations of New Deal and civil rights era gains, sometimes alt-labor’s litigation efforts are successful and lead to case law “wins.” To build its approach, the article draws from literature on litigation as a social movement strategy and provides an in-depth analysis of the ways courageous dairy workers in upstate New York have inspired innovative litigation theories and successes. Alt-labor’s achievements as a litigation catalyst are laudable—given the challenge of enacting federal legislation to address income inequality and the decline of labor union power—in the current era

EKSTRAK JAHE MERAH (ZINGIBER OFFICINALE VAR. RUBRUM): UJI FITOKIMIA, ANALISA SIDIK JARI, KAPASITAS TOTAL ANTIOKSIDAN, DAN PENENTUAN KADAR FENOLIK

Stres oksidatif terjadi karena adanya ketidakeimbangan antara produksi Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) dalam sel dengan kemampuan sistem biologis untuk mendetoksifikasi ROS. Proses oksidasi yang terjadi di bawah pengaruh ROS dapat dihambat dengan antioksidan, dimana antioksidan berperan dalam mekanisme pertahanan organisme terhadap patologi yang berhubungan dengan serangan radikal bebas. Jahe merah (Zingiber officinale var. Rubrum) merupakan salah satu tanaman yang mengandung antioksidan alami. Jahe merah telah digunakan turun temurun oleh masyarakat Indonesia untuk mengobati nyeri tenggorokan, gatal, masuk angin, muntah, maupun diare. Selain itu, beberapa penelitian terbaru mengungkapkan bahwa jahe merah juga memiliki efek farmakologis seperti antiinflamasi, antidiabetes, antimikroba, antidepresan, antikanker dan lain sebagainya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan menemukan kandungan fitokimia, kadar antioksidan, kadar fenolik, serta kadar senyawa terpenoid pada ekstrak jahe. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode eksperimental in vitro, dengan sampel ekstrak jahe merah yang didapatkan dari metode ekstraksi maserasi dengan pelarut methanol. Skrining fitokimia dilakukan dengan metode Harborne, uji aktivitas antioksidan dilakukan dengan metode Blois menggunakan DPPH, kadar total fenolik dilakukan dengan metode Singelton, serta skrining High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) untuk menganalisa profil sidik jari senyawa terpenoid pada ekstrak jahe merah. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ekstrak jahe merah memiliki kandungan fitokimia seperti alkaloid, flavonoid, kardioglikosida, glikosida, saponin, kumarin, fenolik, kuinon, betasianin, steroid, terpenoid; kapasitas total antioksidan dengan IC50 sebesar 125,437 µg/mL, yang mengindikasikan antioksidan dengan aktivitas sedang; kadar total fenolik sebesar 4.065,7 ?g/mL; serta profil HPTLC dengan spray reagent vanilin sulfat menunjukkan nilai Rf 0,11 pada terpenoid 1, Rf 0,29 pada terpenoid 2, Rf 0,46 pada terpenoid 3, dan Rf 0,77 pada terpenoid 4 yang mengindikasikan bahwa jahe merah mengandung terpenoid

A State’s Gendered Response to Political Instability: Gendering Labor Policy in Semi-Authoritarian El Salvador (1944-1972)

Unlike much of the gender and welfare literature, this study examines why a regime that constrains pressure from below would adopt gendered social policies. The Salvadoran case (1944-1972) suggests that political instability rather than societal pressures may prompt semi-authoritarian regimes to adopt gendered labor reforms. We extend the motivations for adopting gendered labor reforms to include co-opting labor by examining gendered labor reforms in the context of El Salvador’s historically contingent labor strategy. This gendered analysis helps explain how a semi-authoritarian regime secured political stability and reveals the special appeal gendered labor reforms may have to semi-authoritarian regimes

Channelrhodopsin2 Mediated Stimulation of Synaptic Potentials at Drosophila Neuromuscular Junctions

The Drosophila larval neuromuscular preparation has proven to be a useful tool for studying synaptic physiology1,2,3. Currently, the only means available to evoke excitatory junctional potentials (EJPs) in this preparation involves the use of suction electrodes. In both research and teaching labs, students often have difficulty maneuvering and manipulating this type of stimulating electrode. In the present work, we show how to remotely stimulate synaptic potentials at the larval NMJ without the use of suction electrodes. By expressing channelrhodopsin2 (ChR2) 4,5,6 in Drosophila motor neurons using the GAL4-UAS system 7, and making minor changes to a basic electrophysiology rig, we were able to reliably evoke EJPs with pulses of blue light. This technique could be of particular use in neurophysiology teaching labs where student rig practice time and resources are limited

How do hospice nurses prepare to give end-of-life care? A grounded theory study of nurses in one UK hospice

Background: Literature for preparing hospice nurses to deliver end-of-life care is sparse. Aim: To investigate how nurses in one UK hospice prepared to deliver end-of-life care in their role. Methods: A classic grounded theory approach was used to investigate the experiences of 22 registered nurses in one UK hospice, to discover how they prepared for their role. A total of 17 individual interviews and one focus group were conducted. Constant comparison of data and member checking were performed to establish validity. Findings: Findings were synthesised into five categories: the 'shared ideal', feeling good at the job, making a difference, experience/exposure to hospice work and the importance of role models.The shared ideal formed the core category, which explained how hospice nurses feel a sense of 'fit' with their work. Conclusion: The feeling of a nurse feeling well-suited to the work and that there the work was a good 'fit' for them was identified as a core element to nurses' feelings of preparedness to provide end-of-life care