Documents Delaurier, Gregory F. 6 results

"Labor unions can and should make strong allies in tobacco control efforts. Through much of the 1980s and 1990s, however, the organized labor and tobacco control communities rarely formed coalitions to achieve mutual gains. Recently, labor unions and tobacco control organizations have begun to work together on smoking cessation programs, smoke-free worksite policies, and increased insurance coverage for cessation treatments. This paper explores the historic and present-day intersections among organized labor and tobacco control advocates. We summarize research in this area and report on our recent programmatic efforts to promote collaboration between the labor and tobacco control communities. We discuss lessons learned with the aims of promoting deeper understanding among tobacco control and labor advocates of how each views tobacco control issues, and most importantly, stimulating further collaboration toward mutual gains in protecting workers' health."

"We hear more and more about the necessity of "sustainable regional development" as an alternative to and defense against globalization. While we certainly agree with this notion, we ask what might prevent it from becoming yet another "top-down" development scheme with good intentions but dubious results. We would argue that no road to development is sustainable if it is not deeply democratic and reliant on an informed, concerned public; the expressed needs of the public must be an essential aspect of regional development. Our focus here is on the university, the main supplier of the experts and technologies utilized by the undemocratic processes of globalization, but it might also be a partner in a democratic process of regional sustainable development. To do this, however, experts in academia must resist the temptation to assume they know what is best and work in concert with community forces to define and create sustainable development. To put it simply, if experts and planners in the university want to know what a region wants and needs, they have to ask. What follows is a report on the experience of one university's attempt to do just that."

"The role of the private sector in funding academic research is increasing and the well-developed guidelines for government-sponsored research do not apply to the academic-industry arena. Good Practice Guidelines for privately funded occupational health research are necessary. Industry sponsors and academic researchers belong to differing systems with differing goals and means to achieve and evaluate them. As a result, problems are inherent in the relationship. Guidelines would benefit industry by providing criteria against which industry-funded research could be judged and evaluated. Guidelines would help university researchers assure their work is examined and critized on its merits. Such protection would foster quality research over the long term. "

"Alyona works as a bookseller on the third floor of a large bookstore located at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusets. She often works at night (until as late as 10 or 11 p.m.), and she often works alone. At night, the third floor is usually deserted. Many transient and homeless people hang about the Square; most of them are benign, some are not. One late night, Alyona approached a man who seemed to be a customer searching for a book on the shelves. As she approached him, he turned, grabbed her by the throat, and threw her to the ground. He then ran off and out of the store. Though not physically injured, Alyona was, of course, terrified, and the outcome of this incident could have been much worse ..."

"In 1984 the Tobacco Institute and the Bakery, Confectionary and Tobacco Workers Union formed a Labor Management Committee. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, this LMC worked to elicit labor support in New York by framing issues in terms that made them salient to unions: tobacco excise taxes as regressive taxation, workplace smoking restrictions as an intrusion into collective bargaining. By the late 1990s, however, most of labor in New York had shifted to support for anti-tobacco policies. The reasons for this shift include the growing size and influence of public-sector unions, and their generally favorable stances on tobacco control issues; the policy-making autonomy of the unions; the growing body of scientific knowledge concerning the dangers of tobacco use; and the rise in public awareness of such dangers. Nevertheless, for two decades, the LMC contributed to mutual suspicion between labor and tobacco control advocates that prevented collaboration between them. "

"In June 1978, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor promulgated a cotton dust standard (43 FR 27351) to protect cotton textile workers from the respiratory disease byssinosis (or "brown lung"). At that time, OSHA suggested that at least 35,000 workers suffered from the disease and another 100,000 were at risk due to exposure to cotton dust. The Centers for Disease Control conservatively estimates that 183 workers died from byssinosis between 1979-1992. These figures, of course, do not include the generations that fell victim to brown lung before 1978.
The Cotton Dust Papers is the story of the 50-year struggle for recognition in the U.S. of this pernicious occupational disease. The authors contend that byssinosis could have and should have been recognized much sooner, as a great deal was known about the disease as early as the 1930s. Using mostly primary sources, the authors explore three instances from the 1930s to the 1960s in which evidence suggested the existence of brown lung in the mills, yet nothing was done. What the story of byssinosis makes clear is that the economic and political power of private owners and managers can hinder and shape the work of health investigators. Yet this story also shows how a progressive coalition of labor and other forces can cause an industry to break ranks and finally acknowledge the existence of an occupational disease. The Cotton Dust Papers is thus a cautionary tale of how social arrangements can either perpetuate or help to overcome human suffering. A fascinating and accessible piece of historical detective work, The Cotton Dust Papers offers lessons about the pursuit of occupational health that remain relevant and important today. "