Book review: Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, and Social Integration: The European Experience

Economic Crisis, Quality of Work, and Social Integration is a timely reminder to policy-makers in Europe that more must be done to strengthen democracy by stemming the effects of economic crisis through social integration of employees and quality work. The book explores ways that quality of work has been affected and the implications of this for social integration and inclusion across 19 European countries. Drawing on the 2004 and 2008 iterations of the European Social Survey, it provides a comparative view of developments across nation states and examines why declining job quality may threaten democracy in the Eurozone. The analysis spans the period before the great recession of 2008-2009 through to 2010 when key countries emerged from recession

'You have to pick': Cotton and state-organized forced labour in Uzbekistan

This article explores state-organized forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry, the labour management practices applied in the sector and the experience of labour exploitation associated with Uzbek cotton. To theorise this, we bring together Crane’s (2013) slavery as a management practice theory with Sen’s (1999) capabilities approach, offering an alternative to theories focusing on lead firm-supplier relations or Global Value Chains when investigating violations of working conditions. Based on analysis of monitoring data and reporting on Uzbekistan’s cotton sector, we explore the characteristics and capabilities enabling forced labour and as well as the exploitation and insulation of human capabilities that follows

'I'll do it step by step': care, cover and quiet campaigning

This article explores a frontline account of care work and trade union organizing from the perspective of Maria Lozada, a care support worker and Filipino trade union organizer. Her testimony offers insight into life as a worker and organizer in the UK and highlights how migrants from outside the EU reflect upon immigration restriction and what it means for the quality of their employment relations and abilities to organize. The political and economic policy context within which the narrative is set is a move away from a demand-led UK immigration regime to further restriction for low-skilled work and immigration. Maria speaks about her role from a position of shelter, cover and anonymity, but is candid in her assessment of employers, policy changes and policymakers

'You have to pick' : Cotton and state-organized forced labour in Uzbekistan

This article explores state-organized forced labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry, the labour management practices applied in the sector and the experience of labour exploitation associated with Uzbek cotton. To theorise this, we bring together Crane's (2013) slavery as a management practice theory with Sen's (1999) capabilities approach, offering an alternative to theories focusing on lead firm-supplier relations or Global Value Chains when investigating violations of working conditions. Based on analysis of monitoring data and reporting on Uzbekistan's cotton sector, we explore the characteristics and capabilities enabling forced labour and as well as the exploitation and insulation of human capabilities that follows

Quality Work and the Moral Economy of European Employment Policy

Following a decade of radical economic and workplace restructuring, it is important to understand how state employment policies support or deny human flourishing. This article utilizes a realist document analysis approach and reviews European employment policy through a moral economy lens. It fuses different moral economy approaches, drawing together the work of Karl Polanyi and Andrew Sayer a multi-layered conceptual lens is offered that explores the tensions between a commodification of labour and human needs. A dominant market ideology is revealed, highlighting how quality work has been subsumed by the flexicurity agenda in the E

A neglected pool of labour? Frontline service work and hotel recruitment in Glasgow

The article presented considers soft skills in the hospitality sector and explores how managers in four hotels in Glasgow, Scotland enact recruitment and selection processes. Empirically, the analysis is based on a rich cross case comparison including interviews, observations, attendance at training events and analysis of hotels' recruitment and selection policies. Conceptually, the analysis draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Andrew Sayer, portraying an understanding of social class as a social, economic, and cultural category and people's agency as shaped by their habitus and lay normativity. Crucially, the paper reveals the pivotal role individual managers play in enabling and constraining opportunities for employment in the enactment of hotel recruitment policy and engagement with job applicants and new recruits. Overall, the analysis suggests that, despite many deterministic analyses of class, an organisation's recruitment, learning and development strategies, plus management's commitment to make a difference, can positively impact on those who might otherwise be part of a neglected pool of labour

The Information Dissemination Project : Final evaluation | July 2022

Recent years have seen significant research interest in supporting refugee integration and participation in society (Hynie et al., 2018; Guo et al., 2020; Alencar, 2020). Indeed, the 2021 events in Afghanistan and 2022 events in Ukraine remind us of the global humanitarian importance of supporting refugees

Age at diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus and associations with cardiovascular and mortality risks findings from the Swedish National Diabetes Registry

Background: Risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality for patients with versus without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) appears to vary by the age at T2DM diagnosis, but few population studies have analyzed mortality and CVD outcomes associations across the full age range. Methods: With use of the Swedish National Diabetes Registry, everyone with T2DM registered in the Registry between 1998 and 2012 was included. Controls were randomly selected from the general population matched for age, sex, and county. The analysis cohort comprised 318083 patients with T2DM matched with just <1.6 million controls. Participants were followed from 1998 to 2013 for CVD outcomes and to 2014 for mortality. Outcomes of interest were total mortality, cardiovascular mortality, noncardiovascular mortality, coronary heart disease, acute myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation. We also examined life expectancy by age at diagnosis. We conducted the primary analyses using Cox proportional hazards models in those with no previous CVD and repeated the work in the entire cohort. Results: Over a median follow-up period of 5.63 years, patients with T2DM diagnosed at ≤40 years had the highest excess risk for most outcomes relative to controls with adjusted hazard ratio (95% CI) of 2.05 (1.81–2.33) for total mortality, 2.72 (2.13–3.48) for cardiovascularrelated mortality, 1.95 (1.68–2.25) for noncardiovascular mortality, 4.77 (3.86–5.89) for heart failure, and 4.33 (3.82–4.91) for coronary heart disease. All risks attenuated progressively with each increasing decade at diagnostic age; by the time T2DM was diagnosed at >80 years, the adjusted hazard ratios for CVD and non-CVD mortality were <1, with excess risks for other CVD outcomes substantially attenuated. Moreover, survival in those diagnosed beyond 80 was the same as controls, whereas it was more than a decade less when T2DM was diagnosed in adolescence. Finally, hazard ratios for most outcomes were numerically greater in younger women with T2DM. Conclusions: Age at diagnosis of T2DM is prognostically important for survival and cardiovascular risks, with implications for determining the timing and intensity of risk factor interventions for clinical decision making and for guideline-directed care. These observations amplify support for preventing/delaying T2DM onset in younger individuals