Peering inside the ‘black box’: The impact of management-side representatives on the industrial relations climate of organizations

The labor climate of an organization can have a great impact on productivity and efficiency. Managing this climate is often left to union stewards and management-side labor relations representatives. While there is a large literature on the role of union stewards, little is written about the role that management-side labor relations representatives play in establishing or maintaining positive labor-management relations. Building from a series of interviews with labor relations representatives in Canada and a nationwide pilot study of frontline industrial relations workers, we model the role of the labor relations representatives and their specific job actions in the established model of labor climate. Considering personal, structural, and attitudinal antecedents and measures of individual effectiveness, the study reveals that flexibility and informality matter more than formal education in industrial relations for creating positive labor climate. The study results indicate that labor relations representatives have the potential to play an important role in maintaining positive labor climate, if given more opportunity to take a proactive approach

If a tree falls in the forest... reproducing organization through text: a hermeneutic analysis of curricula vitae and the Atlantic Schools of Business conference

This study analyzed the curricula vitae of scholars who presented papers at the Atlantic Schools of Business conference and whose papers appeared in the conference proceedings. The curriculum vitae can be viewed as a personal story (Miller & Morgan 1993) and is also an academic life history of the scholar’s career. The document serves many purposes (Dietz & Bozeman 2005; Metcalfe 1992), however, the goal of this research is to illustrate the relationship between this personal device and the conference as a socially reproduced organization. The research examines the CV as a potentially powerful tool for recreating the conference and the reproductive power of the public presentation of CVs on the World Wide Web

Continental drift in the legal profession : the struggle for collective bargaining by Nova Scotia's Crown prosecutors

ix, 357 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.Includes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 328-345).This dissertation explores the apparent contradiction between the independence and autonomy of an elite profession and the pursuit of collective bargaining. Crown prosecutors employed in the Canadian public service bureaucracy are full members of the legal profession and also form a clearly recognized group of subordinated employees. Their need for prosecutorial independence clashes with management control in the context of dependent employment. This study examines the implications of a changing workplace and a changing profession for professional workers' choices of collective action. A case study of the Nova Scotia Crown Attorneys' Association experience and its members' struggle for collective bargaining rights forms the basis of this research. The study probes the question of how prosecutors move between two distinct strategies of labour process control and examines the implications of collective bargaining for professionalization. The research findings identify the existence of an occupational community within the broader legal profession. The occupational community reflects the marginalization of Crown prosecutors within their profession. Using narrative analysis of prosecutors' own stories of their career and labour struggles, the research reveals how this occupational community reflects the specialization and fragmentation of the profession and supports a unique work ethic and sense of professionalism among Crown prosecutors. Mobilization of prosecutors to demand bargaining rights, otherwise forbidden by law, is achieved with the use of specific language around fairness. This language has meaning and power in both a professional context as well as in the world of dependent employment, organization policy, and management decision making. An ethos of fairness enables Crown prosecutors to reconcile two competing logics of collective action, and to reclaim the benefits of professionalization eroded through dependent employment

An examination of the continued applicability of commitment models in a unionized professional workplace

Increasing professionalization of the workplace coupled with rising rates of unionization of professionals invites a reexamination of the notions of organization, union and professional commitment. A study of Canadian licensed practical nurses extends the discussion of dual commitment to relationships between profession and union and identifies a need to further examine affective commitment in the context of craft versus industrial unionism

Myosin VI contributes to synaptic transmission and development at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction

Abstract Background Myosin VI, encoded by jaguar (jar) in Drosophila melanogaster, is a unique member of the myosin superfamily of actin-based motor proteins. Myosin VI is the only myosin known to move towards the minus or pointed ends of actin filaments. Although Myosin VI has been implicated in numerous cellular processes as both an anchor and a transporter, little is known about the role of Myosin VI in the nervous system. We previously recovered jar in a screen for genes that modify neuromuscular junction (NMJ) development and here we report on the genetic analysis of Myosin VI in synaptic development and function using loss of function jar alleles. Results Our experiments on Drosophila third instar larvae revealed decreased locomotor activity, a decrease in NMJ length, a reduction in synaptic bouton number, and altered synaptic vesicle localization in jar mutants. Furthermore, our studies of synaptic transmission revealed alterations in both basal synaptic transmission and short-term plasticity at the jar mutant neuromuscular synapse. Conclusions Altogether these findings indicate that Myosin VI is important for proper synaptic function and morphology. Myosin VI may be functioning as an anchor to tether vesicles to the bouton periphery and, thereby, participating in the regulation of synaptic vesicle mobilization during synaptic transmission

NALCN Dysfunction as a Cause of Disordered Respiratory Rhythm With Central Apnea

The sodium leak channel nonselective protein (NALCN) is a regulator of the pacemaker neurons that are responsible for rhythmic behavior (including respiration), maintaining the resting membrane potential, and are required for action potential production. NALCN-null mice show early death associated with disrupted respiratory rhythms, characterized by frequent and profound apneas. We report 3 children (2 siblings) with compound heterozygous mutations in NALCN associated with developmental impairment, hypotonia, and central sleep-disordered breathing causing apneas. Supplemental oxygen normalized the respiratory rhythm. NALCN mutations have been previously reported to cause severe hypotonia, speech impairment, and cognitive delay as well as infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy and facial dysmorphism. Nonsynonymous changes in the 2 affected extracellular loops may be responsible for the deleterious effect on the stability of the respiratory rhythm. Although oxygen is known to be a stabilizer of respiratory rhythm in central apnea in children, its role in NALCN dysfunction requires further investigation.</jats:p

Mutations in the PP2A regulatory subunit B family genes PPP2R5B, PPP2R5C and PPP2R5D cause human overgrowth

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Lymphomas driven by Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA1) are dependant upon Mdm2

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated Burkitt's lymphoma is characterised by the deregulation of c-Myc expression and a restricted viral gene expression pattern in which the EBV nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA1) is the only viral protein to be consistently expressed. EBNA1 is required for viral genome propagation and segregation during latency. However, it has been much debated whether the protein plays a role in viral-associated tumourigenesis. We show that the lymphomas which arise in EµEBNA1 transgenic mice are unequivocally linked to EBNA1 expression and that both C-Myc and Mdm2 deregulation are central to this process. Tumour cell survival is supported by IL-2 and there is a skew towards CD8-positive T cells in the tumour environment, while the immune check-point protein PD-L1 is upregulated in the tumours. Additionally, several isoforms of Mdm2 are upregulated in the EµEBNA1 tumours, with increased phosphorylation at ser166, an expression pattern not seen in Eµc-Myc transgenic tumours. Concomitantly, E2F1, Xiap, Mta1, C-Fos and Stat1 are upregulated in the tumours. Using four independent inhibitors of Mdm2 we demonstrate that the EµEBNA1 tumour cells are dependant upon Mdm2 for survival (as they are upon c-Myc) and that Mdm2 inhibition is not accompanied by upregulation of p53, instead cell death is linked to loss of E2F1 expression, providing new insight into the underlying tumourigenic mechanism. This opens a new path to combat EBV-associated disease

Condensin II mutation causes T cell lymphoma through tissue-specific genome instability

Chromosomal instability is a hallmark of cancer, but mitotic regulators are rarely mutated in tumors. Mutations in the condensin complexes, which restructure chromosomes to facilitate segregation during mitosis, are significantly enriched in cancer genomes, but experimental evidence implicating condensin dysfunction in tumorigenesis is lacking. We report that mice inheriting missense mutations in a condensin II subunit (Caph2nes) develop T-cell lymphoma. Before tumors develop, we found that the same Caph2 mutation impairs ploidy maintenance to a different extent in different hematopoietic cell types, with ploidy most severely perturbed at the CD4+CD8+ T-cell stage from which tumors initiate. Premalignant CD4+CD8+ T cells show persistent catenations during chromosome segregation, triggering DNA damage in diploid daughter cells and elevated ploidy. Genome sequencing revealed that Caph2 single-mutant tumors are near diploid but carry deletions spanning tumor suppressor genes, whereas P53 inactivation allowed Caph2 mutant cells with whole-chromosome gains and structural rearrangements to form highly aggressive disease. Together, our data challenge the view that mitotic chromosome formation is an invariant process during development and provide evidence that defective mitotic chromosome structure can promote tumorigenesis