The Empirical Case for Streamlining the NLRB Certification Process: The Role of Date of Unfair Labor Practice Occurrence

[Excerpt] One of the long held performance objectives of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been to reduce the time period between the filing of the petition and union certification elections. This year the NLRB\u27s 2010 Performance Accountability Report claimed that 86.3 percent of all NLRB elections were held within 100 days of the petition being filed and 95.1 percent of all initial elections were held within 56 days of the petitions being filed. Our analysis of Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) data from 1999-2009 found that in the last two years there has been a slight increase in the number of representation elections being held between 21-30 days after the petition. But throughout the decade there have been virtually no election dates in the first 20 days after the petition is filed (see Figure 1). Thus, while the NLRB has made some progress in meeting their performance objectives, as former NLRB General Counsel Fred Feinstein explains, the problem has been that a party in any election case has the ability to undermine the expression of employee free choice by manipulating the Board procedures to create delay”. These data on the timing of petition and election dates matter because the number of days between the petition and the election may make a great deal of difference as to whether or not a group of workers get union representation or a first contract. The time between the petition and the election also may make a difference as to whether an individual worker gets fired or gets his or her wages or benefits cut in retaliation for union activity, or ends up leaving a job, with or without a settlement, because of the coercion, threats, and/or harassment suffered throughout the employer\u27s campaign. Over the last three decades there has been a wealth of scholarly research that has documented the gauntlet of threats, fear, retaliation, misinformation, and harassment workers have to endure in order to exercise their right to union representation and collective bargaining. However, none of the recent NLRB certification election research has examined the relationship between employer opposition and the timing of the election. This is because for the few researchers who have done the hard work of connecting election to unfair labor practice (ULP) data, the only timing variable they had to use for employer behavior was the date ULPs were filed. But since ULP charges can be filed as much as six months after the allegation occurred, date filed grossly underestimates when employer opposition begins. It is for this reason we were asked to follow up on our 2009 study on employer opposition and the breakdown of the unfair labor practice process (see No Hold Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing) to examine the relationship between the petition date, election date, and when the most serious employer opposition occurs during representation campaigns. Upon completion of this analysis we would be able to determine whether our data provide empirical support for significantly reducing the number of days between petition and election in NLRB certification elections

Race, Gender, and the Rebirth of Trade Unionism

[Excerpt] Diversity is not the enemy of solidarity. We contend that solidarity can, and must, be built among an ever-diversifying labor movement, nation, and world. The labor movement\u27s very survival depends on it

Neutrinos from type Ia supernovae: the deflagration-to-detonation transition scenario

It has long been recognized that the neutrinos detected from the next core-collapse supernova in the Galaxy have the potential to reveal important information about the dynamics of the explosion and the nucleosynthesis conditions as well as allowing us to probe the properties of the neutrino itself. The neutrinos emitted from thermonuclear - type Ia - supernovae also possess the same potential, although these supernovae are dimmer neutrino sources. For the first time, we calculate the time, energy, line of sight, and neutrino-flavor-dependent features of the neutrino signal expected from a three-dimensional delayed-detonation explosion simulation, where a deflagration-to-detonation transition triggers the complete disruption of a near-Chandrasekhar mass carbon-oxygen white dwarf. We also calculate the neutrino flavor evolution along eight lines of sight through the simulation as a function of time and energy using an exact three-flavor transformation code. We identify a characteristic spectral peak at $\sim 10$ MeV as a signature of electron captures on copper. This peak is a potentially distinguishing feature of explosion models since it reflects the nucleosynthesis conditions early in the explosion. We simulate the event rates in the Super-K, Hyper-K, JUNO, and DUNE neutrino detectors with the SNOwGLoBES event rate calculation software and also compute the IceCube signal. Hyper-K will be able to detect neutrinos from our model out to a distance of $\sim 10$ kpc. At 1 kpc, JUNO, Super-K, and DUNE would register a few events while IceCube and Hyper-K would register several tens of events.Comment: 44 pages, 29 figures & 2 tables. Updated to match Phys. Rev. D version, including a new event channel discussion and improved IceCube result

Anachronistic Histories: Eugenia Lim's Yellow Peril

A review of contemporary art exhibition 'Yellow Peril' by Eugenia Lilm. The exhibition was analysed in the context of a special issue about the state of play of Asian Art Research in Australia and New Zealand

Double Trouble: Parafictional Personas and Contemporary Art

Across the news and entertainment media there is a phenomenon that is increasingly prevalent: actors, performers and artists who play “versions of themselves”. This paper explores the entertaining and critical potentials of this strategy, which I term “parafictional personas”. I draw upon Carrie Lambert-Beatty’s theorisation of the parafictional as a critical mode that has developed out of (and in tension with) the “historiographic turn”. Parafictional personas are a specific iteration, characterised by two key components: they compulsively imbue every opportunity with layers of interconnections and self-reflexive moments; and they involve artists and performers appropriating their own “proper name”, constructing fictionalised doubles of themselves. While found widely across media, my central focus is contemporary visual art, analysing two key examples, Israeli–American artist Omer Fast and Lebanese artist Walid Raad. These artists are significant because their personas are not simply means of performing themselves as individuals; they are integrated into the ways the artists approach contentious, still unfolding events of contemporary history. Parafictional personas have the potential to thoroughly embed fictional constructs within reality, because of the difficulties in separating elements represented by the same proper name. Their critical potential lies in the ways that they make visible the difficulties of maintaining clear distinctions between historical and fictional, social and individual narratives. Parafictional personas confound cultural desires to order, categorise and “make sense” of historical narratives. They reveal how much we as viewers (and societies) search for ideas of truth and resolution, even if such truths are presented as incomplete, questionable or irresolvable

Chronic disease self-management: a pilot training program for people with chronic conditions

People suffering chronic conditions can be overwhelmed by their health problems. They may be discouraged that they will develop complications, or they may be struggling to cope with other personal and family issues. International research shows that when patients and their general practitioners (GPs) and other health care providers set goals together, and when patients gain management skills in a peer-led group, their knowledge and confidence increase, their health and quality of life improves, and they use fewer health services. This South Australian pilot replicated these findings, demonstrating that best practice in chronic condition management can succeed, even in rural areas with shortages of health professionals, busy GPs and smaller numbers of potential participants

Care Works: Come Home for Care

Essential to executing the mission and vision of an academic medical center (AMC) is attracting and retaining the highest quality employees. As demonstrated by VCU’s commitment to the Great Place Initiative, the University has recognized that employees in today’s highly competitive environment demand competitive salary and benefit packages. Research has shown that access to high quality, on-site healthcare services provides significant benefits to both employees and employers, such as increased productivity and reduced wellness costs[1]. Yet, a query of de-identified patient records indicated that only a small percentage of VCU employees (~18%) utilized the health services provided by VCU Health System in 2016. VCU’s peer-institutions, other distinguished AMCs, and industry employers have implemented a variety of programs such as concierge services, expedited appointments, on-campus clinics, and lower copays to remain competitive and responsive to their employees. In light of the depth of these programs, Team CareWorks completed a comparative review of health and wellness related employee-specific benefits to determine how VCU might enhance its benefits through initiatives such as on-site medical clinics, prioritized appointments, telehealth, and on-site pharmacies. Informed by the comparative analysis, Team CareWorks will provide recommendations that VCU can use to: capitalize on the integrated relationship with VCU Health to enrich the health and wellness of its outstanding assets (the employees); and provide enhanced benefits to employees by making VCU Health more easily accessible and more appealing as a Medical Home. [1]Berry, Leonard, Ann M. Mirabito, & William B. Baun. “What\u27s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs?” (2010). Harvard Business Review, December 2010.. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=206487

Planning for Change in the Boston Metropolitan Area (USA): Exploring the relationship between urban greening and socio-economic processes

Global population growth is increasingly concentrated in urban areas, degrading natural resources and threatening long-term sustainability of both human and biotic systems. Even in a developed nation like the United States, urban areas are expected to double in population and land area over the next fifty years (UNFPA, 2007). In order to plan for a more sustainable urban future, there is a need to understand the relationship between the socio-economic forces that are driving land use and land cover change, and the resulting impacts upon the ecosystem state and structure of the urban forest (Colding, 2007). In particular, this study will focus upon the role of urban greening projects in preserving urban open space, restoring ecological processes, and building stewardship of urban nature by local residents. Urban greening is a spatially distributed form of land use-land cover change with diverse drivers and potential outcomes. In this framework changes in ecosystem state and structure, including the delivery of ecosystem services and other benefits to human well-being, are recognized as the aggregate outcomes of many local acts (e.g. tree-planting, riparian restoration, and community gardening). Each can be treated as opportunistic experiments, with testable predictions regarding their consequences, (e.g., for biodiversity, air quality, and fluxes in water and nutrients). From this perspective urban greening can be placed in the context of broader scale processes of urban-associated land use/land cover change. In order to explore these issues, an interdisciplinary team was formed to develop a long-term research study for the Boston Metropolitan Area to provide a model for scientific investigation and to address the critical needs of urban communities