Shaping Judicial Law in the Post-World War II Period: When Is Labor's Legal Mobilization Successful?1

We examine the circumstances in which labor is successful in the federal appellate courts when it has filed unfair labor practice charges against employers. We specifically focus on legal disputes concerning union organizing. Few studies have examined the role of class dynamics in shaping judicial law, even when labor law is studied. We find evidence that two strategies used by class actors influence judicial lawmaking. The greater the degree to which workers mobilize the law, the more likely they are to win union organizing cases in the federal courts. However, the greater the degree to which employers are organizationally mobilized, the less likely it is that judicial outcomes will favor labor. We also find that legal precedent matters in judicial decision making. We conclude that class dynamics are important in judicial lawmaking. However, we also conclude that, to a degree, judicial decisions also remain autonomous from class dynamics.     

Annual reports: Earning surprising respect from institutional investors

This study provides an analysis of the corporate annual report as a vehicle of information and usefulness to the institutional investor. Considerable research and literature exist on the “how-to's” of annual reports, but little is known about the annual's information value to those who many consider to be the paramount audience for the publication-the institutional fund/ portfolio managers.Considering the significant impact institutions have on share price and cost of capital, there is value in examining corporate America's financial communication with this influential audience, particularly in respect to the role of the annual report, the most expensive and controversial element.This study is a condensed version of a thesis submitted to the University of Houston's School of Communication. Mr. Hutchins is Secretary of the Shell Oil Company Foundation in Houston.     

Voices From the Field: Social Workers Define and Apply Social Justice

Social justice is embraced as a central mission of social work, yet how the profession defines it lacks clear and common understanding. This qualitative study explored the concept of social justice as perceived and applied by social workers in diverse practice settings. Focus-group participants were asked five primary open-ended questions. Key phrases and terms were identified and grouped into four themes: variation in meaning of social justice, confronting injustices, practice reality, and professional responsibility. The findings suggest that social justice as understood and practiced in the field is compatible with theoretical conceptions in the literature, but a predominant understanding remains lacking.     

U.S. Latinas' Knowledge and Attitudes toward Mammography: Meta-synthesis

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Latinas in the United States. The primary purpose of this meta-synthesis was to integrate findings on qualitative studies related to Latinas' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions regarding breast cancer and its prevention through mammography. After applying inclusion criteria, eleven studies were located. Results were organized around four areas of inquiry that cross-cut primary studies: 1) Latina participants' knowledge of breast cancer and its prevention; 2) barriers for regular mammography; 3) facilitators that encouraged such screening; and 4) recommendations on how to provide screening for Latina women.     

Factors That Differentiate Distressed and Nondistressed Marriages in Army Soldiers

Data from U.S. Army soldiers (N = 697) were analyzed to determine the factors that differentiate distressed from nondistressed relationships. Results show that most soldiers had relationship satisfaction scores that categorized them as nondistressed. In addition, soldiers in dual-military marriages had relationship satisfaction scores similar to those of soldiers in military-civilian marriages. Finally, several variables including rank, relocation status, relationship length, and relationship status differentiated distressed from nondistressed relationships. Implications for intervention programming and future research directions are discussed.     

Relationships between use of dietary supplements,caffeine and sensation seeking among college students

Abstract

Objective: Caffeine and dietary supplement (DS) use by college students is not well-documented. Given reported associations between energy drink consumption and sensation seeking, we used the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS-V) to assess relationships between sensation-seeking, caffeine, and DS use. Participants: Data from 1,248 college students from five US institutions were collected from 2009 to 2011. Methods: Linear regression was used to examine relationships between scores on the SSS-V and caffeine and DS use, demographic, and lifestyle characteristics. Results: Male sex, nonHispanic race-ethnicity, higher family income, tobacco use, consuming caffeinated beverages, more than 400?mg caffeine per day, and energy drinks with alcohol at least 50% of the time, were significantly associated with higher total SSS-V scores (P?<?0.001). Those using protein DSs had higher total, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility SSS-V scores (Ps?<?0.001). Conclusions: Results demonstrate a positive correlation between sensation-seeking attitudes and habitual caffeine, energy drink, and DS consumption.     

Family Well-Being Concerns of Grandparents in Skipped Generation Families

This study examined the family well-being concerns of grandparents in skipped-generation families. Co-resident grandparents who are responsible for raising their grandchildren completed surveys, focus groups, or individual interviews. Service providers to skipped-generation families also participated in individual interviews to provide an additional perspective to grandparents' concerns. Results indicated 5 levels of concerns: intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational or institutional, policy, and societal. Concerns at different levels were interrelated and pointed to the need for multilevel interventions to help these families. Implications of the findings for future interventions with skipped-generation families are discussed.     

What are the facilitators,inhibitors, and implications of birth positioning? A review of the literature

BackgroundFrom the historical literature it is apparent that birthing in an upright position was once common practice while today it appears that the majority of women within Western cultures give birth in a semi-recumbent position.AimTo undertake a review of the literature reporting the impact of birth positions on maternal and perinatal wellbeing, and the factors that facilitate or inhibit women adopting various birth positions throughout the first and second stages of labour.MethodsA search strategy was designed to identify the relevant literature, and the following databases were searched: CINAHL, CIAP, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Medline, Biomed Central, OVID and Google Scholar. The search was limited to the last 15 years as current literature was sought. Over 40 papers were identified as relevant and included in this literature review.ResultsThe literature reports both the physical and psychological benefits for women when they are able to adopt physiological positions in labour, and birth in an upright position of their choice. Women who utilise upright positions during labour, have a shorter duration of the first and second stage of labour, experience less intervention, and report less severe pain and increased satisfaction with their childbirth experience than women in a semi recumbent or supine/lithotomy position. Increased blood loss during third stage is the only disadvantage identified but this may be due to increased perineal oedema associated with upright positions. There is a lack of research into factors and/or practices within the current health system that facilitate or inhibit women to adopt various positions during labour and birth. Upright birth positioning appears to occur more often within certain models of care, and birth settings, compared to others. The preferences for positions, and the philosophies of health professionals, are also reported to impact upon the position that women adopt during birth.ConclusionUnderstanding the facilitators and inhibitors of physiological birth positioning, the impact of birth settings and how midwives and women perceive physiological birth positions, and how beliefs are translated into practice needs to be researched.     

National variation in the context of struggle: postwar class conflict and market distribution in the capitalist democracies

Comment et pourqui la dynamique des classes varie-t-elle d'un pays capitaliste démocratique à l'autre, alors que I'on s'attendrait à découvrir un scénario commun? On ne trouve que peu d'évaluations d'ensemble de cette question qui soient d'inspiration marxiste. Ce manque a pour effet d'invalider diverses conceptions marxistes de l'organisation de classe et de la lutte de classe, en leur donnant souvent une allure exagérément mécaniste. Les approches utilisées jusqu'à maintenant pour étudier la variabilité nationale de ces processus souffrent de graves handicaps, dont le caractère a-historique de modèles trans-nationaux quantitatifs et l'incapacitéà généraliser qui accompagne les analyses historiques comparatives traditionnelles d'un petit nombre d'Etat-nations. A partir d'un point-de-vue marxiste ‘genéral’ sur l'établissement des taux de croissance de la syndicalisation et des salaires, nous estimons un ensemble de séries chronologiques pour 18 démocracies capitalistes avancées et stables; ces modèles reflètent bien l'histoire entre 1959 et 1980 de certains de ces pays, mais pas celle de certains autres. Nous suggérons alors que ces relations historiques infra-nationales sont elles-mêmes fonction d'autres differences trans-nationales, temporellement invariantes, qui différencient les pays capitalistes les uns des autres. D'une démocracie capitaliste à l'autre, les degrés différents de contrôle du gouvernement qu'ont eu les sociaux-démocrates semblent partiellement responsables de la variabilité des relations historiques entre prolétarianisation, syndicalisation, niveau de grèves et croissance des salaires. Les mouvements syndicaux de nations dont la représentation social-démocrate a été soutenue ou cumulative, semblent connaître plus de succès dans la conversion de travailleurs/euses indépendants/es en syndicalistes que les mouvements d'autres pays; ils sont moins capables, par ailleurs, d'obtenir des hausses de salaire au moyen de la grève. Nous débattons quatre implications théoriques et méthodologiques de cette recherche, dont les effets contradictoires de la social-démocracie sur la dynamique des classes. Comprehensive assessments of how and why theoretically ‘general’ class dynamics differ across the capitalist democracies are infrequent in research inspired by the Marxist problematic. This has tended to vitiate the potential explanatory power of Marxist conceptualizations of class organization and class struggle, often giving them an overly mechanistic flavor. Existing research approaches to the study of national variability in these processes suffer from several severe limitations, including the ahistoricism of static quantitative cross-national designs and the lack of generality accompanying traditional comparative/historical analyses of a small number of nation-states. Using ‘general’ Marxist understandings of the determination of unionization and wage growth, we estimate a series of time-series models for 18 advanced, stable capitalist democracies, finding that our expectations are consistent with the 1959-80 histories of some of these nations and not of others. We then posit that these within-nation historical relationships are themselves a function of other temporally invariant, cross-national differences distinguishing one capitalist country from another. Differences in social democratic control of government across the capitalist democracies, in particular, appear partially responsible for some important country-to-country differences in the historical relationships among proletarianization, unionization, strike activity, and wage growth. Labor movements in nations with sustained or cumulative social democratic representation appear more successful in converting dependent workers into trade unionists than do other countries, but are less successful in using strikes to extract wage gains. We discuss four theoretical and methodological implications of this research, including the contradictory effects of social democracy on class dynamics.