Cabin crew collectivism: labour process and the roots of mobilization

The protracted dispute (2009–11) between British Airways and BASSA (British Airways Stewards and Stewardesses Association) was notable for the strength of collective action by cabin crew. In-depth interviews reveal collectivism rooted in the labour process and highlight the key agency of BASSA in effectively articulating worker interests. This data emphasizes crews’ relative autonomy, sustained by unionate on-board Cabin Service Directors who have defended the frontier of control against managerial incursions. Periodic attempts to re-configure the labour process, driven by cost cutting imperatives in an increasingly competitive airline industry, eroded crews’ organizational loyalties. When BA imposed radical changes to contracts and working arrangements, BASSA successfully mobilized its membership. The article contributes to labour process analysis by emphasizing the collective dimensions to emotional labour, restoring the ‘missing subject’, but also articulating the interconnections between labour process and mobilization and the role unions can play in providing the organizational and ideological resources to legitimate worker interest

Safeguarding public health at UK airports: an examination of current health security practices

This conference paper was presented at the 42nd Annual UTSG Conference: www.utsg.net/In response to the H1N1 influenza outbreak and the role of air travel in facilitating the virus’s rapid spread around the world, this paper contributes to debates concerning the governance of infectious disease by examining the role of the Port Health Regulations and associated health security practices that are enacted at UK airports. While airports have been at the forefront of measures to prevent the importation of ‘foreign’ infectious diseases since the early 1930s, the present scale of international aeromobility combined with heightened awareness of the role air travel plays in the global spread of human pathogens, the epidemiological obsolescence of many early aeronautical sanitary regulations, and a dearth of academic studies on health security at airports, provide compelling reasons to examine the development, content, and implications of the existing Port Health Regulations and associated health security practices that are performed at UK airports. Drawing on extensive archival research and fieldwork interviews with key stakeholders in the aviation and health care sectors (including airport managers, ‘front line’ customer-facing airline personnel, and medical practitioners), we chart the development of sanitary regulations at UK airports and explore the current practices of health security that are performed at individual sites. We then identify the main challenges involved in safeguarding global public health against the dissemination of ‘foreign’ infectious diseases by air through UK airports and conclude by offering recommendations for improved practice

Mind the gap between policy imperatives and service provision: a qualitative study of the process of respiratory service development in England and Wales

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Service Delivery and Organisation Programme. SDO/99/2005.Background: Healthcare systems globally are reconfiguring to address the needs of people with long-term conditions such as respiratory disease. Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) in England and Wales are charged with the task of developing cost-effective patient-centred local models of care. We aimed to investigate how PCOs in England and Wales are reconfiguring their workforce to develop respiratory services, and the background factors influencing service redesign. Methods: Semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews with the person(s) responsible for driving respiratory service reconfiguration in a purposive sample of 30 PCOs. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and thematically analysed. Results: We interviewed representatives of 30 PCOs with diverse demographic profiles planning a range of models of care. Although the primary driver was consistently identified as the need to respond to a central policy to shift the delivery of care for people with long-term conditions into the community whilst achieving financial balance, the design and implementation of services were subject to a broad range of local, and at times serendipitous, influences. The focus was almost exclusively on the complex needs of patients at the top of the long-term conditions (LTC) pyramid, with the aim of reducing admissions. Whilst some PCOs seemed able to develop innovative care despite uncertainty and financial restrictions, most highlighted many barriers to progress, describing initiatives suddenly shelved for lack of money, progress impeded by reluctant clinicians, plans thwarted by conflicting policies and a PCO workforce demoralised by job insecurity. Conclusion: For many of our interviewees there was a large gap between central policy rhetoric driving workforce change, and the practical reality of implementing change within PCOs when faced with the challenges of limited resources, diverse professional attitudes and an uncertain organisational context. Research should concentrate on understanding these complex dynamics in order to inform the policymakers, commissioners, health service managers and professionals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe