Welfare brokers and European Union migrants' access to social protection

In spite of the existence of an extensive national and supranational legal framework, European Union (EU) citizens who exercise their right to freedom of movement to work in another Member State face numerous hurdles in accessing social protection. While recent scholarship on street-level bureaucracy and on migration and welfare has shed light on the role of discretion and stereotypes in access to rights, little is known about the processes through which such hurdles are overcome. In this article, we focus on a specific strategy which is the recourse to what we call “welfare brokers”. These actors offer assistance to EU migrants to overcome specific cross-border administrative challenges in the area of social protection that derive from their use of the right to freedom of movement. Relying on qualitative data collected with brokers and Romanian migrants working in Germany, the article also demonstrates that welfare brokers attempt to transform the norms, bureaucratic practices and representations that condition access to these entitlements. The article concludes by underlining how the existence of a brokerage industry is a sign of existing inequalities in the exercise of freedom of movement within the EU.     

Alcoholism: The quest for transcendence and meaning

A vigorous and long standing argument continues in an effort to define the etiology of alcoholism and prescribe its treatment. Each sideaadvances its cause by challenging the other's efficacy. However, none of the prevalling responses to alcoholism is very effective. Fighting on the ideological battlefield of western science results in a sterile understanding of alcoholism and provides social workers little information to help them understand the experience of alcoholism and the complexities of recovery. The experience of alcoholism is profound. More than a bad habit or a disease, alcoholism is an attempt to give life meaning, to assuage existential dilemmas. Effective recovery from alcoholism occurs when clients learn to disengage from their relationship with alcohol and give their lives a new sense of meaning. Sources of knowledge outside empirical science offer important principles to help workers facilitate recovery.     

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services:

This article analyzes the constitutional significance of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989). The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has two prominent features. First, the Court upheld the restrictions on the right of women to abort by devaluing the provisions of the challenged Missouri law. It is suggested that these provisions are far more significant than the Court majority acknowledged, and that their significance became apparent soon after the Court's resolution of the case. Second, the Court's approach to resolving Webster suggests a reconceptualizing of fundamental rights questions wherein state action jurisprudence has been turned upside down and compelling state interest analysis has been eschewed. While Roe v. Wade (1973) was not overruled in Webster, it appears that the contemporary Court's approach to operationalizing the right of choice is unlikely to restrict the power of the states to regulate in this area.     

Review essay — administrative delay at the NLRB: Some modest proposals

V. Conclusion The latest edition of Miller’s Appraisal provides an updated glimpse into the inner workings of the NLRB. Miller’s observations are knowledgeable and understandable, and his book is an important contribution for academics, the labor bar, and the Board itself. We hope it spurs further study of the Board’s administration of the Act and exploration of ways to improve it. Miller’s pessimism about potential reforms, short of his proposed abolition of the five-member Board in favor of a new labor and employment division of the federal district courts, goes too far. We have suggested a few changes that would make the Board more efficient without affecting the Board’s substantive mission. Hopefully, with further efforts like Miller’s in the future, the Board will effect a consistent improvement upon its somewhat spotty record of efficiency and will keep the NLRA vibrant well into this new century. We especially thank former NLRB Regional Director Daniel Silverman for his invaluable contributions to this article.     

Canadian immigration policy: state strategies and the quest for legitimacy

Selon les auteurs de cette communication, les données tirées d'entrevues avec les décideurs et de l'observation participante au processus d'élaboration des politiques militent en faveur d'une interprétation de la politique canadienne de l'immigration qui s'articule autour du rǒle de l'État. Pour eux, l'État est une entitéà double visage, à la fois puissante et vulnérable, et c'est ce caractère double qui conditionne les tendances actuelles en matière de politique de l'immigration. En élaborant sa politique, l'État cherche activement à accroǐtre sa propre légitimité en adoptant des mesures susceptibles de protéger une économie en difficulté, d'éviter les critiques sur la place publique et d'atténuer les conflits sociaux. L'état vise à assurer son hégémonie, en partie grǎce à un dialogue proactif destiné d'une part à recueillir de l'information et à mesurer les appuis et les oppositions, et d'autre part à contrǒler les divers groupes d'intérět. Ainsi, l'État est maǐtre du champ de l'élaboration des politiques, mais c'est un maǐtre qui se méfie des forces politiques qui pourraient miner sa légitimité. D'après les recherches des auteurs, les nouveaux intervenants, dont les groupes ethniques, les organisations humanitaires et les provinces, jouent un rǒle de plus en plus important dans un domaine dominé par 1'État fédéral. Deux intervenants traditionnels, le mouvement ouvrier et le patronat, en sont Venus à des positions considérablement moins polarisées. Le terrain politique est donc mouvant et plutǒt instable en cette époque où les principaux intervenants, y compris l'État, tentent de se réorienter dans un contexte international en pleine mutation. Data from interviews with policy actors and from participant observation of recent policy process support a particular state-centred interpretation of Canadian immigration policy. The state has a Janus-faced character - both powerful and vulnerable - and it is this ‘both-and’ feature which underlies current trends in immigration policy. Findings in this paper indicate that, in developing immigration policy, the state actively seeks to garner support for its own legitimacy by pursuing measures which will shore up the economy, avoid public criticism and mediate social conflict. The state is engaged in a hegemonic project involving a pro-active dialogue to gather information, to monitor support and opposition, and to attempt to control diverse interest groups. In sum, the state is both in control of the policy field and yet wary of political forces which potentially threaten its legitimacy. Our research shows that new social actors -ethnic groups, humanitarian organizations, the provinces - have come to play a more prominent role, within a field dominated by the federal state. Two traditional actors, labour and capital, have moved to less polarized views. The policy arena is shifting and prone to be unstable, as the key actors involved, including the state, struggle to come to terms with a changing global context.     

The quest for a universal social work: some issues and implications

What debates and issues are involved in moves to generalise about social work across the globe? This paper attempts to examine some of these major debates and, in so doing, to suggest some directions for a flexible approach. Crucial to these debates are several tensions around the issues of Westernisation, localisation and indigenisation in social work. It is also important to seek clarity around the complexities of international social work. The political implications involved in these movements are discussed and possible approaches to finding a flexible framework which allows for differences yet provides for accountability, responsiveness and connectivity are suggested.     

A quest for form: the tacit dimension of social work practice

This paper presents the findings of a small-scale study of social workers’ tacit understandings. Tacit is conceptualised as, difficult to describe knowledge, taken for granted knowledge or tacitly presupposed and silenced knowledge. The sample comprised 10 social workers employed in a statutory child protection context who participated in three stages of data collection. The research strategy encompassed six techniques: in-depth interviewing, observation, think-aloud, unstructured interviewing, reflective recall, and knowledge mapping. The tacit domain appears to be a rich site for practice understandings, as what practitioners explicitly offer is not a complete account of their knowing in practice. Interpretations suggest that practice may be guided by understandings of which practitioners are frequently unaware. When knowledge remains implicit, its content, level of influence, impact and use remain unconsidered as well. It is crucial, in attempting to gain clarity on any practice activity, that this realm be explored as it contributes to a fuller account of the realities of practice behaviour.     

The World Social Forum: the paradoxical quest for strength in plurality

ABSTRACT

In this reflexive essay, I explore how the present and the future of the World Social Forum are intimately related to the ability of its actors to acknowledge and actively address the inherent tensions of open spaces. The former must compose themselves articulating seemingly opposites: ideals shared within the World Social Forum vs. some practices not in accordance with its principles (enhanced in contexts of urgency); claimed horizontality vs. dynamic power relations; internal plurality vs. the need to act in unity to achieve systemic global change, amongst others. I will propose perspectives on how the strength of the WSF can be seen as its capacity to continue building radical hope for a positive shift of paradigm within progressive civil society: from divergences to resilient complementarities.     

Different roles in the quest for system resilience

Into dangerous and complex systems with high degree of interactivity between its components, the variability is present at all time, demanding a high degree of control of its operation. Maintaining or recovering the normality, when the system is under some stress (instability) is a function of Resilience. To cope with prevention, forecast, recovery and with memory of experiences from learned lessons requires some features from the companies. This paper purposes a structure that enables the Total Resilience of a system production that defines the assignments for Workers, Designers and Management Team, according to its features and possibilities. During one year and a half developing studies on ergonomics area of a Brazilian Oil Refinery, several situations were observed and studied using Work Ergonomic Analysis. These situations show actions and strategies that workers use to maintain the system stability. Furthermore, they revealed the importance that these actions are stored in a database of learned lessons from the Company. The research resulted in a broad scheme. It places each of these groups in the process of Total Resilience. It also shows the human like a center of actions that ensure the continuity of the system, main element at Resilience (Anthropocentric View).