Towards comprehensive and transparent reporting: context-specific additions to the ICF taxonomy for medical evaluations of work capacity involving claimants with chronic widespread pain and low back pain

BACKGROUND: Medical evaluations of work capacity provide key information for decisions on a claimant's eligibility for disability benefits. In recent years, the evaluations have been increasingly criticized for low transparency and poor standardization. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a comprehensive spectrum of categories for reporting functioning and its determinants in terms of impairments and contextual factors and could facilitate transparent and standardized documentation of medical evaluations of work capacity. However, the comprehensiveness of the ICF taxonomy in this particular context has not been empirically examined. In this study, we wanted to identify potential context-specific additions to the ICF for its application in medical evaluations of work capacity involving chronic widespread pain (CWP) and low back pain (LBP).METHODS: A retrospective content analysis of Swiss medical reports was conducted by using the ICF for data coding. Concepts not appropriately classifiable with ICF categories were labeled as specification categories (i.e. context-specific additions) and were assigned to predefined specification areas (i.e. precision, coverage, personal factors, and broad concepts). Relevant specification categories for medical evaluations of work capacity involving CWP and LBP were determined by calculating their relative frequency across reports and setting a relevance threshold.RESULTS: Forty-three specification categories for CWP and fifty-two for LBP reports passed the threshold. In both groups of reports, precision was the most frequent specification area, followed by personal factors.CONCLUSIONS: The ICF taxonomy represents a universally applicable standard for reporting health and functioning information. However, when applying the ICF for comprehensive and transparent reporting in medical evaluations of work capacity involving CWP and LBP context-specific additions are needed. This is particularly true for the documentation of specific pain-related issues, work activities and personal factors. To ensure the practicability of the multidisciplinary evaluation process, the large number of ICF categories and context-specific additions necessary for comprehensive documentation could be specifically allocated to the disciplines in charge of their assessment.<br/

Regulating factory safety in the Bangladeshi garment industry

This paper examines how far the workplace inspection programme established under the 2013 Accord on Fire and Building Safety has served to improve safety in Bangladesh garment factories, and the extent to which its operation has been influenced by the factors that the literature suggests are important in shaping the outcomes of private regulatory initiatives. Its findings suggest that such regulation can generate positive outcomes, even in the absence of strong public regulatory support. They also caution against discounting the role of compliance-based enforcement strategies, while highlighting the importance of their adequate resourcing and transparency. Some support is also offered for the argument that such regulatory initiatives could directly influence the market dynamics that shape supplier working conditions

South Korea's automotive labour regime, Hyundai Motors’ global production network and trade‐based integration with the European Union

This article explores the interrelationship between global production networks(GPNs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) in the South Korean auto industry and its employment relations. It focuses on the production network of the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) — the third biggest automobile manufacturer in the world — and the FTA between the EU and South Korea. This was the first of the EU’s ‘new generation’ FTAs, which among other things contained provisions designed to protect and promote labour standards. The article’s argument is twofold. First, that HMG’s production network and Korea’s political economy (of which HMG is a crucial part) limited the possibilities for the FTA’s labour provisions to take effect. Second, that the commercial provisions in this same FTA simultaneously eroded HMG’s domestic market and corporate profitability, leading to adverse consequences for auto workers in the more insecure and low-paid jobs. In making this argument, the article advances a multiscalar conceptualization of the labour regime as an analytical intermediary between GPNs and FTAs. It also provides one of the first empirical studies of the EU–South Korea FTA in terms of employment relations, drawing on 105 interviews with trade unions, employer associations, automobile companies and state officials across both parties

Protecting labor rights in preferential trade agreements: the role of trade unions, left governments, and skilled labor

This paper investigates variation in the design of labor provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) by focusing on the power of trade unions, the role of government partisanship, and the relative strength of skilled labor. We expect strong trade unions and left-leaning governments to be associated with more, and more far-reaching labor provisions in PTAs. We also expect the strength of skilled workers relative to the strength of unskilled workers to negatively correlate with the depth of labor provisions in PTAs. In addition, the effect of trade unions should be conditional on both the presence of left government and democracy. We test these hypotheses relying on an original dataset of labor provisions included in 483 PTAs signed between 1990 and 2016. This dataset covers 140 different labor provisions that relate to six overarching dimensions. The quantitative analysis finds support for the expectations concerning the influence of trade unions and the role of a country’s skill profile

When workplace unionism in global value chains does not function well : exploring the impediments

Improving working conditions at the bottom of global value chains has become a central issue in our global economy. In this battle, trade unionism has been presented as a way for workers to make their voices heard. Therefore, it is strongly promoted by most social standards. However, establishing a well-functioning trade union is not as obvious as it may seem. Using a comparative case study approach, we examine impediments to farm-level unionism in the cut flower industry in Ethiopia. For this purpose, we propose an integrated framework combining two lenses, namely a vertical one (governance and structure of global value chains) and a horizontal one (socio-economic context). We identify 10 impediments that point to three major dimensions contributing to unionisation. These three dimensions include awareness of and interest from workers, legitimacy of trade unions, and capacity of trade unions to act. Furthermore, our results suggest that private social standards may, in certain cases, be counterproductive for the efficient functioning of trade unions. Although we argue that there is no ‘quick fix’ solution to weak workplace unionism at the bottom of global value chains, we stress the importance of considering the dynamics of, and interactions between, the impediments when designing potential support measures that mitigate negative impacts

Labour in Global Production: Reflections on Coxian Insights in a World of Global Value Chains

This essay reflects on Robert W. Cox’s work on global production, labour and labour governance, and considers how his insights might illuminate the present conjuncture for labour in production. I work with an understanding of that conjuncture as involving the rise to pre-eminence of global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs) as the contemporary expression of the ongoing globalization of production. The primary tasks of the essay are two-fold: first, to explore the dynamics of labour and power in the GVC-based global economy, with a particular emphasis on labour exploitation; and second, to link these questions to those of the governance of the global economy, focusing on the shift towards transnational private governance as the dominant mode of contemporary governance, and on the evolving strategies of organized labour and the International Labour Organization in that context