Employee Free Choice or Employee Forged Choice? Race in the Mirror of Exclusionary Hierarchy

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is arguably the most transformative piece of labor legislation to come before Congress since the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA). One of the newest attempts to transform labor relations is the EFCA. The first to disappear under the EFCA would be a system of union democracy whereby unions could only obtain the rights of exclusive representation for firms if they could prevail in a secret-ballot election. Second, the EFCA would eliminate tile necessity of a freely negotiated collective bargaining agreement between management and labor and instead substitute compulsory arbitration. While some labor union advocates contend that law ought to be conceived of as a vehicle to democratize tile workplace by redistributing power in labor markets in favor of workers, while concurrently demolishing hierarchical command structures that entrench gender, race and class lines, this proposal would likely expand labor hierarchy, labor market cartelization and diminish the employment prospects of racial minorities. As such, the EFCA is marked by contradiction. This Article deploys Critical Race Reformist theory, economics and apartheid-era South African labor history in order to shot\u27 that rather than embracing freedom for workers, eliminating, poverty, and expanding opportunities for all, this proposal would likely invert such goals and instead operate consistently with the record of exclusion and subordination tied to American Progressivism and the labor movement

A Clearing in the Forest: Infusing the Labor Union Dues Dispute With First Amendment Values

This article deploys public choice theory and postmodem identity claims to develop a far-reaching understanding of the union dues dispute, which suggests that the burden of proof on the existence of and/or the possibility of an enduring union community should be placed on proponents of this view. While the postmodern project can be seen as an unsettled approach that is riven by coherency issues, not the least, its insistence on offering the good without the true, it supplies modest benefits by revealing the conceivably infinite varieties of human preferences in contemporary America. The absence of preference convergence, understood from the perspective of both public choice theory and postmodern identity construal, vitiates prevalent assertions that unions operate as a paradigm of voluntary cooperation characterized by solidarity. The conflict between putative solidarity and the actual presence of preference diversity might well be the genesis of this ongoing dispute. Secondly, I both consider and differ with the Ninth Circuit\u27s recent holding in United Food and Commercial Workers v. NLRB, which enforced an NLRB order requiring dues objectors to fund union organizing expenses despite a largely contrary holding by the Supreme Court in Ellis v. Railway Clerks. I expose the Ninth Circuit\u27s opinion to a wide-ranging perspective on both First Amendment values and freerider issues. Conventional analysis suggests that union organizing expenses, on their face, do not provide evidence of either a political or an ideological purpose, if, of course, ideologically grounded objections to collective bargaining are overlooked. Even so, a conventional analyst must concede that the legitimacy of the implication of First Amendment norms is both contingent and contextual. It is contingent on the actual purpose that organizing and consequent union revenue augmentation can be seen to serve. It is contextual in the sense that organizing can be linked to an ongoing effort to stem the degeneration in union economic power and the fear that the currently substantial political influence of unions will diminish in the future. This examination endangers the Ninth Circuit\u27s conclusion that union expenditures aimed at organizing competing firms can be seen as germane within the meaning of the NLRA. I intend to show that union expenditures, such as organizing, that do not embrace an explicitly political purpose can nevertheless diminish the interest of workers in freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a variety of other interests that allow individual workers and subgroups of workers to define their own identities in what has become a pluralistic society. Lastly, I supply a number of proposals for clarifying judicial, NLRB, and scholarly analysis associated with the intensely fought debate over union dues. These proposals offer a clearing in a dense forest that has obscured the necessity of establishing a causal connection between contested union expenses, such as union organizing, and an actual, as opposed to an attenuated, collective bargaining purpose

The Kansas story: a sea of Koha green on the plains

Three regional systems document each massive collaboration project to provide small and rural libraries with a consortia catalog. The systems Central Kansas Library System (CKLS), Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS) and Southeast Kansas Library System (SEKLS) narrate their system experience with creating a consortia catalog for libraries in their designated region. Their experience includes the history, the challenges and achievements and the future plans of each of the three Koha integrated library systems. All three systems currently still use this open-source software

Challenges in diagnosing and treating snakebites in a rural population of Tamil Nadu, India: the views of clinicians

Snakebites cause death, disability and economic devastation to their victims, people who live almost exclusively in rural areas. Annually an estimated two million venomous bites cause as many as 100,000 deaths worldwide as well as hundreds of thousands of deformities and amputations. Recent studies suggest that India has the highest incidence of snakebite and associated deaths worldwide. In this study, we interviewed 25 hospital-based clinicians who regularly treat snakebites in Tamil Nadu, India, in order to gauge their opinions and views on the diagnostic tools and treatment methods available at that time, the difficulties encountered in treating snakebites and improvements to snakebite management protocols they deem necessary. Clinicians identified the improvement of community education, training of medical personnel, development of standard treatment protocols and improved medication as priorities for the immediate future

12．グルタミン酸ナトリウムはglucagon like peptide-1の食後早期の分泌を促進し, 食後血糖の上昇を抑制する

The purpose of this study was to compare the growth and nutritional status of infants fed different diets, some of whom received a low-fat formula. Beginning at four to six months of age, 101 infants were fed whole cow\u27s milk, one of two low-fat follow-up formulas, or a standard infant formula until 12 months of age. Weight, recumbent length, and head circumference were measured at one-month intervals. Analyses of status (values at an age) for all examinations showed no significant differences among the feeding groups in status for weight or recumbent length, but there were significant differences in head circumference for boys and for girls after adjustments for the initial values. Head circumferences were smaller in those fed whole cow\u27s milk and relatively large in those fed follow-up formula, but these differences were small and not of clinical significance. Comparisons with national reference data showed growth in weight, recumbent length, and head circumference was normal regardless of feeding group. These results indicate that, during the second half year of infancy, the use of lower fat concentrations in the follow-up formulas did not retard growth in weight, recumbent length, or head circumference

How are "teaching the teachers" courses in evidence based medicine evaluated? A systematic review

Background Teaching of evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become widespread in medical education. Teaching the teachers (TTT) courses address the increased teaching demand and the need to improve effectiveness of EBM teaching. We conducted a systematic review of assessment tools for EBM TTT courses. To summarise and appraise existing assessment methods for teaching the teachers courses in EBM by a systematic review. Methods We searched PubMed, BioMed, EmBase, Cochrane and Eric databases without language restrictions and included articles that assessed its participants. Study selection and data extraction were conducted independently by two reviewers. Results Of 1230 potentially relevant studies, five papers met the selection criteria. There were no specific assessment tools for evaluating effectiveness of EBM TTT courses. Some of the material available might be useful in initiating the development of such an assessment tool. Conclusion There is a need for the development of educationally sound assessment tools for teaching the teachers courses in EBM, without which it would be impossible to ascertain if such courses have the desired effect