Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union Before the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

The American Civil Liberties Union supports the use of alternate dispute resolution in employment if it is voluntary and meets reasonable standards of fairness. Because of the narrowness of legal bases for relief and economic barriers to litigation, many people with legitimate disputes with their employers are unable to obtain relief in the civil courts. ADR holds the promise of increasing the number of people who are able to obtain justice in workplace disputes. ADR, however, contains the potential for enormous abuse. Absent external constraints, the employer has the ability and the incentive to shape its private justice system in a manner that will allow it to prevail in most cases. Very few individual employees have sufficient bargaining power to resist such abuses. It is imperative that the law prevent employers from requiring a de facto surrender of civil rights as a condition of employment. ADR should be permitted, but only when it is voluntary and contains reasonable due process protections. There are significant problems achieving such a system, especially in providing a truly neutral arbitrator in the absence of a union. These problems, however, are soluble, and need not destroy the cost effectiveness of ADR. While ADR has much to offer, it does not relieve the government of its obligation to provide a civil justice system which the average person can afford

Capability in the digital: institutional media management and its dis/contents

This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilized and negotiated by the British Military in relation to the Ministry of Defence’s concerns and conceptualizations of risk. It draws on data from the DUN Project to investigate the content and form of social media about defence through the lens of ‘capability’, a term that captures and describes the meaning behind multiple representations of the military institution. But ‘capability’ is also a term that we hijack and extend here, not only in relation to the dominant presence of ‘capability’ as a representational trope and the extent to which it is revealing of a particular management of social media spaces, but also in relation to what our research reveals for the wider digital media landscape and ‘capable’ digital methods. What emerges from our analysis is the existence of powerful, successful and critically long-standing media and reputation management strategies occurring within the techno-economic online structures where the exercising of ‘control’ over the individual – as opposed to the technology – is highly effective. These findings raise critical questions regarding the extent to which ‘control’ and management of social media – both within and beyond the defence sector – may be determined as much by cultural, social, institutional and political influence and infrastructure as the technological economies. At a key moment in social media analysis, then, when attention is turning to the affordances, criticisms and possibilities of data, our research is a pertinent reminder that we should not forget the active management of content that is being similarly, if not equally, effective

Climate warming shifts riverine macroinvertebrate communities to be more sensitive to chemical pollutants

Freshwaters are highly threatened ecosystems that are vulnerable to chemical pollution and climate change. Freshwater taxa vary in their sensitivity to chemicals and changes in species composition can potentially affect the sensitivity of assemblages to chemical exposure. Here we explore the potential consequences of future climate change on the composition and sensitivity of freshwater macroinvertebrate assemblages to chemical stressors using the UK as a case study. Macroinvertebrate assemblages under end of century (2080–2100) and baseline (1980–2000) climate conditions were predicted for 608 UK sites for four climate scenarios corresponding to mean temperature changes of 1.28 to 3.78°C. Freshwater macroinvertebrate toxicity data were collated for 19 chemicals and the hierarchical species sensitivity distribution model was used to predict the sensitivity of untested taxa using relatedness within a Bayesian approach. All four future climate scenarios shifted assemblage compositions, increasing the prevalence of Mollusca, Crustacea and Oligochaeta species, and the insect taxa of Odonata, Chironomidae, and Baetidae species. Contrastingly, decreases were projected for Plecoptera, Ephemeroptera (except for Baetidae) and Coleoptera species. Shifts in taxonomic composition were associated with changes in the percentage of species at risk from chemical exposure. For the 3.78°C climate scenario, 76% of all assemblages became more sensitive to chemicals and for 18 of the 19 chemicals, the percentage of species at risk increased. Climate warming‐induced increases in sensitivity were greatest for assemblages exposed to metals and were dependent on baseline assemblage composition, which varied spatially. Climate warming is predicted to result in changes in the use, environmental exposure and toxicity of chemicals. Here we show that, even in the absence of these climate‐chemical interactions, shifts in species composition due to climate warming will increase chemical risk and that the impact of chemical pollution on freshwater macroinvertebrate biodiversity may double or quadruple by the end of the 21st century

Awareness of greater numbers of ecosystem services affects preferences for floodplain management

People's preferences for different habitat management scenarios determine the way that floodplain habitats are managed, and the ecosystem services that they provide. Making people aware of a greater number of ecosystem services may encourage them to design habitat management that better balances the provision of conflicting services. To investigate the impacts of ecosystem service information on people's preferences for floodplain habitat management options, we manipulated the number of ecosystem services that participants knew about, and the level of detail of the information they were provided with. The preferences of participants differed depending on the number of services that were described. Providing people with ecosystem service information had a quantifiable effect on their preferences among different habitat management options, and increased the variability in preferences between people. These findings are consistent with the theory that ecosystem service information should encourage people to consider a wider range of benefits that nature provides, and this in turn may enable habitat management that better balances trade-offs between different services. Simply describing more ecosystem services to people had no effect on their preferences for management options, suggesting that detailed, empirical data on ecosystem services are required to affect decision making

Impacts of hydrological restoration on lowland river floodplain plant communities

Many lowland floodplain habitats have been disconnected from their rivers by flood defence banks. Removing or lowering these banks can reinstate regular flooding and thus restore these important wetland plant communities. In this study we analyse changes in wetland hydrology and plant community composition following the lowering of flood defence banks at a floodplain of the River Don in the United Kingdom (UK). The aim of the restoration project was to improve the quality of “floodplain grazing marsh” habitat, which is a group of wetland communities that are of conservation interest in the UK. We analyse changes in species richness and community composition over a period of 6 years, and compare the presence of indicator species from the target floodplain grazing marsh plant communities. The lowering of the flood banks increased the frequency of flood events, from an estimated average of 1.7 floods per year to 571 floods per year. The increased flooding significantly increased the proportion of time that the wetland was submerged, and the heterogeneity in hydrological conditions within the floodplain. There were significant differences in composition between the pre-restoration and restored plant communities. Plants with traits for moisture tolerance became more abundant, although the communities did not contain significantly more ‘target’ floodplain grazing marsh species at the end of the study period than prior to restoration. Colonisation by floodplain grazing marsh species may have been limited because environmental conditions were not yet suitable, or because of a shortage of colonising propagules. While the desired target plant community has not been achieved after 5 years, it is encouraging that the community has changed dynamically as a result of hydrological changes, and that moisture-tolerant species have increased in occurrence. Over the next few decades, the restored flood regime may cause further environmental change or colonisation events, thus helping increase the occurrence of desired floodplain grazing marsh indicator species

OC /EFSA /SCER /2014/02‐Lot 1 “Specialised training courses on certain aspects of food safety risk assessment for members of EFSA 's Scientific Committee/Panels and their working groups, open to EFSA staff” –final report

This final report evaluates the training courses delivered under the contract OC/EFSA/SCER/2014/02- Lot 1. Two types of specialised training courses were delivered: a training course addressing uncertainty in EFSA’s scientific assessments and a training course on Environmental Risk Assessment. Both trainings were evaluated as very good by the participants. In addition to its primary aim of supporting the understanding and practical implementation of best risk assessment practices, the uncertainty training was used to obtain feedback on the draft guidance document. Therefore, only invited participants could follow the training and selection ensured that each unit was represented in the training. The training course now has to be updated in line with the final version of the guidance document. One of the objectives of the training was to strengthen the dissemination of ERA guidance and modelling practises and to ensure the uptake of guidance on cross-cutting risk assessment approaches amongst members of EFSA’s Scientific Committee/Panels, their working groups and EFSA staff. This aim is partly achieved as participants of different backgrounds joined the trainings. It was noted however, that only a few panel member participated and participants with a background in pesticide risk assessment were over-represented as compared to the other work fields of EFSA