Documents measurement system 25 results

"Is worker participation becoming more prominent or less? Furthermore, what is the impact of worker participation on economic performance? This article introduces a tool designed by researchers at the ETUI to help answer these questions: the European Participation Index (EPI), a country-level summary measure of the strength of workers' voice in companies. The EPI is based on (i) union density and collective bargaining coverage, (ii) workplace representation and (iii) board-level representation. This multi-level index provides an alternative to existing cross-national measures by taking into consideration two levels at which worker participation can take place: the workplace and the board. The article shows first that worker participation has become less prevalent in the EU over the past decade; and second that the EPI is robust and has superior explanatory power in relation to income inequality compared with traditional measures of collective bargaining."

"The article assesses recent attempts to measure the level and changes in world inequality. It compares results based on country averages, population-weighted inter-country Gini coefficients, and combinations of inter-country and intra-country distribution figures. Most measures agree that inequality grew up to 1980; some suggest that it stabilized or declined slightly after that date, but that conclusion is not definitive. The article argues against reliance on single indicators to measure world inequality as opposed to looking at various measures, including inequality between regions and the ratios of incomes of the poor and the rich. According to several of these measures, inequality has continued to grow. The addition of variables other than income (life expectancy and education) appear to reduce inequality, but this is largely an illusion."

"Workstyle or the behavioral, cognitive, and physiological response that can occur in some individuals to increases in work demands has been proposed to help explain the link between ergonomic and psychosocial factors in the exacerbation of work-related upper extremity symptoms. Currently, there is no measure of this construct, hindering research on its potential link to work related upper extremity problems in the workplace. The present study describes the development and psychometric properties of a measure of workstyle. Questionnaire items reflecting dimensions of workstyle as per the original conceptualization were generated primarily through focus groups with office workers and separate groups held with occupational physicians, physical therapists, occupational health psychologists, and experts in ergonomics, behavioral science, and human factors. Items created through this process were then administered to 282 symptomatic and asymptomatic office workers. Measures of job stress, ergonomic risk, upper extremity symptoms, and functional limitations were also obtained. The workstyle questionnaire was divided into two broad dimensions: Characteristic responses to work and Response to increased work demands. The scale development process as indicated by factor analysis yielded subscales that are theoretically consistent with the workstyle construct. ..."

"The primary objective of this study is to intervene in the debate on methods to measure and compare legally mandated employment conditions by applying a recently devised numerical instrument to Federal labour standards in Australia in two points in time. In order to achieve this aim, non-parametric absolute indexes are generated for 1979 and 2000 to measure the strength of labour standards and associated changes over time. The numerical results suggest that two of the 10 standards measured, workers? compensation and collective bargaining, diminished while the indexes for equal employment opportunity/employment equity, unjust discharge, occupational health and safety and large-scale layoffs increased. The central tenet of the paper is that although the numerical data provide useful information, they should be interpreted in light of broader regulatory and policy developments that substantially reshaped the features of the Australian employment protection regime during the period considered. This is necessary because the method utilised is highly sensitive to the nature of the regulatory sources that are adopted to construct the statistical indexes."