Hard-working heroes or curious students?:Au pair positioning, organizing and negotiation

The precarious position and poor working conditions of au pairs in the Nordic and other western labor markets are well documented. Furthermore, research on au pairs and migrant domestic workers emphasizes many obstacles to their organizing (e.g., in trade unions) and negotiation to improve their working conditions. Using an ethnographic study of Filipino au pairs in Denmark as an illustrative case, we supplement this previous research by presenting an analytical approach inspired by governmentality studies. This approach highlights the complex transnational interplay of migration policies and practices affecting Filipino au pairs’ positioning in the Danish labor market and contributes to exploring how this positioning relates to their prospects for negotiating and organizing. We suggest that with a close examination of the often contradictory and multifaceted positioning of migrant workers in transnational policy fields, not only obstacles but also possibilities for negotiation and organizing to improve working conditions will become visibl

Self-managing teams in home care: – a road to a more attractive job?

These years self-managing teams are being implemented in home care with visions of creating more continuity for the citizens and more attractive workplaces for the employees. In this paper, I examine how self-management of worklists unfolds in practice and how it interweaves with both human and non-human actors. The article is based on multi-sited ethnographic studies, and it takes inspiration from theoretical discussions of organizations as sociomaterial assemblages where concepts of responsibility, norms, affective work, and moral work are put into play. The article shows that the employees are generally happy to work in self-managing teams and find that it gives them more freedom and job satisfaction. The article also shows how the employees in self-managing teams become collectively responsible for making the daily worklists workable. This happens in interwoven practices where large screens make the individual worklists visible and common. In this space, practices are also influenced by current norms in the team and at the same time it requires that the employees do both invisible affective and moral work to create worklists that everyone is satisfied with. Self-managing teams cannot thus be regarded as unequivocally good but come with potential tensions in relation to creating more attractive workplaces.Selvstyrende teams implementeres i disse år i hjemmeplejen med visioner om at skabe mere kontinuitet for borgerne og mere attraktive arbejdspladser for medarbejderne. I denne artikel undersøger jeg, hvordan selvstyring af kørelister udfolder sig i praksis og hvordan det sammmenvæver sig med både humane og non-humane aktører. Artiklen er baseret på multi-sited etnografiske undersøgelser og tager udgangspunkt i en forståelse af arbejdet i hjemmeplejen som et sociomaterielt assemblage, hvor begreber om ansvar, normer, affektivt arbejde og moralsk arbejde sættes i spil. Artiklen viser, at medarbejderne overordnet er glade for at arbejde i selvstyrende teams og oplever, at det giver dem mere frihed og arbejdsglæde. Artiklen viser også, hvordan medarbejderne i selvstyrende teams bliver kollektivt ansvarlige for at få de daglige kørelister til at gå op. Dette sker i sammenvævede praksisser, hvor store skærme synliggør og fællesgør de individuelle kørelister. I dette rum påvirkes praksisser også af gældende normer i teamet, og samtidig kræver det, at medarbejderne både laver et usynligt affektivt og moralsk arbejde for at skabe kørelister, alle er tilfredse med. Selvstyrende teams kan således ikke betragtes som entydigt godt, men kommer med potentielle spændinger i forhold til at skabe mere attraktive arbejdspladser

Vidensproduktion, positionering og magt i historieværksteder

Historieværksteder har gennem de senere år vundet udbredelse som forskningsmetode inden for arbejdslivsforskningen i Danmark. Historieværksteder har til formål at frembringe en fælles deltagerdrevet fortælling om en arbejdsplads' historie og har karakter af at være forhandlende og konsensussøgende. Artiklen præsenterer en analyse af de særlige præmisser der opstilles for vidensproduktion i værkstederne og disses implikationer for forhandling af gyldig viden og legitime subjektpositioner blandt deltagerne i værkstederne. Der argumenteres for at analyser af den konkrete interaktion i værkstederne kan generere nye indsigter i tillæg til indholdsmæssige analyser af de producerede fortællinger. Endvidere peges der på en række opmærksomhedspunkter til både analyse- og faciliteringsarbejdet

Konstruktionen af det selvstyrende jobcenter

Forvaltningsstrukturen på beskæftigelsesområdet har over de seneste år gennemgået en række ændringer, hvor ansvaret for beskæftigelsesindsatsen bla. er blevet decentraliseret til kommunerne. Denne decentralisering er dog gået hånd i hånd med statslige ambitioner om stærk styring af området. For at få et indblik i disse styringsambitioner undersøger denne artikel via et dokumentstudie, hvordan styringsteknologier som eksempelvis jobindsatsdk bruges til at synliggøre jobcentrenes resultater og engagere dem i deres egen selvstyring. Artiklen belyser, hvordan nye styringsteknologier er med til at konstruere beskæftigelsesområdet som styringsfelt, og hvordan jobcentrene i den proces søges skabt som synlige, handlekraftige, og ansvarlige selvstyrende organisationer, der via udstukne mål ønskes styret på afstand i et afgrænset handlingsrum

Punishment or Payment? Economic Sanctions Towards Cash Benefit Recipients

This article is about economic sanctions towards cash benefit recipients in Denmark. The point of departure is a study of who gets sanctioned and how the municipalities perceive and use sanction as a tool. There has been a substantial rise in the number of economic sanctions towards cash benefit recipients. This is also the case for cash benefit recipients who have problems besides unemployment. In the article we analyse how municipalities administer the discretionary latitude of client availability. Especially when it comes to demands placed on clients with complex problems besides unemployment. Furthermore, we ask how municipalities, with a high sanction rate, manage to link legislation and political objectives to the concrete acts of sanctioning cash benefit recipients. The theoretical point of departure is Brunsson’s theory of justification and organisational hypocrisy. The conclusion points towards a discrepancy between talk and action when it comes to economic sanctions of cash benefit recipients. With an empirical starting point in two municipalities with a high sanction rate, we show how the municipalities justify the practice of sanctioning with a reference to legislation in which sanctions are understood as an involuntary element. Minimising professional discretion is justified through arguments of legal rights of the cash benefit recipient. At the same time we find signs of organisational hypocrisy. This takes the shape of emphasising the need for professional discretion in the individual case on the one hand while constructing a municipal organisation that supports automatic execution of sanctions to cash benefit recipients on the other.Denne artikel handler om økonomiske sanktioner over for kontanthjælpsmodtagere i jobcentrene. Der har i de seneste år været en markant vækst i antallet af sanktioner over for kontanthjælpsmodtagere. Det gælder også borgere, der er kategoriseret som havende problemer ud over ledighed. Med udgangspunkt i to relativt hyppigt sanktionerende kommuners praksis vises, hvordan kommunerne retfærdiggør deres sanktionspraksis gennem henvisning til, at der er tale om en ‘skal-lovgivning’. Minimering af det socialfaglige skøn retfærdiggøres gennem argumenter om borgerens retssikkerhed. Samtidig finder vi tegn på organisatorisk hykleri blandt andet i form af, at det socialfaglige individuelle skøn fremhæves som vigtigt samtidig med, at det overflødiggøres, idet den kommunale organisering understøtter en automatisering af udstedelsen af sanktioner over for den enkelte kontanthjælpsmodtager. Der bygges på Brunssons teori om organisatorisk adfærd

Restriction of Intravenous Fluid in ICU Patients with Septic Shock.

BACKGROUND Intravenous fluids are recommended for the treatment of patients who are in septic shock, but higher fluid volumes have been associated with harm in patients who are in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS In this international, randomized trial, we assigned patients with septic shock in the ICU who had received at least 1 liter of intravenous fluid to receive restricted intravenous fluid or standard intravenous fluid therapy; patients were included if the onset of shock had been within 12 hours before screening. The primary outcome was death from any cause within 90 days after randomization. RESULTS We enrolled 1554 patients; 770 were assigned to the restrictive-fluid group and 784 to the standard-fluid group. Primary outcome data were available for 1545 patients (99.4%). In the ICU, the restrictive-fluid group received a median of 1798 ml of intravenous fluid (interquartile range, 500 to 4366); the standard-fluid group received a median of 3811 ml (interquartile range, 1861 to 6762). At 90 days, death had occurred in 323 of 764 patients (42.3%) in the restrictive-fluid group, as compared with 329 of 781 patients (42.1%) in the standard-fluid group (adjusted absolute difference, 0.1 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.7 to 4.9; P = 0.96). In the ICU, serious adverse events occurred at least once in 221 of 751 patients (29.4%) in the restrictive-fluid group and in 238 of 772 patients (30.8%) in the standard-fluid group (adjusted absolute difference, -1.7 percentage points; 99% CI, -7.7 to 4.3). At 90 days after randomization, the numbers of days alive without life support and days alive and out of the hospital were similar in the two groups. CONCLUSIONS Among adult patients with septic shock in the ICU, intravenous fluid restriction did not result in fewer deaths at 90 days than standard intravenous fluid therapy. (Funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and others; CLASSIC ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03668236.)