Ronald C. Brown - Böcker

Continued economic prosperity in China and its international competitive advantage have been due in large part to the labor of workers in China, who for many years toiled in underregulated workplaces. More recently, labor law reforms have been praised for their progressive measures and, at the same time, blamed for placing too many economic burdens on companies, especially those operating on the margins, which in some cases have caused business failures. This, combined with the global downturn and the millions of displaced and unemployed Chinese migrant laborers, has created ongoing debate about the labor laws. Meanwhile, the Chinese Union has organized many of the Global Fortune 500 companies, and a form of collective bargaining is occurring. Workers are pursuing their legal labor rights in increasing numbers. This book provides a clear overview of the labor and employment law environment in China and its legal requirements, as well as practices under these laws used to deal with labor issues.

This book deals with international labor and employment law in the East Asia Region (EA), particularly dealing with China, South Korea and Japan. It explores and explains the effects of globalization and discusses the role played by international labor law as it affects lawyers, business, labor, labor unions and human resource management, and the labor issues that can arise in dealing in EA trade and investment. The text, and the readings (from area experts), are organized and written to provide the reader with, first, a broad understanding and insight into the global dimensions of the fast-emerging area of labor and employment issues (e.g., global legal standards and their interplay with domestic and foreign laws); and second, to show how these laws and approaches play out in specific EA countries (comparing global approaches with the specific laws of each country on four common agenda items: regulatory administration, workers' rights, trade unions and dispute resolution).

Continued economic prosperity in China and its international competitive advantage have been due in large part to the labor of workers in China, who for many years toiled in underregulated workplaces. More recently, labor law reforms have been praised for their progressive measures and, at the same time, blamed for placing too many economic burdens on companies, especially those operating on the margins, which in some cases have caused business failures. This, combined with the global downturn and the millions of displaced and unemployed Chinese migrant laborers, has created ongoing debate about the labor laws. Meanwhile, the Chinese Union has organized many of the Global Fortune 500 companies, and a form of collective bargaining is occurring. Workers are pursuing their legal labor rights in increasing numbers. This book provides a clear overview of the labor and employment law environment in China and its legal requirements, as well as practices under these laws used to deal with labor issues.

This book deals with international labor and employment law in the East Asia Region (EA), particularly dealing with China, South Korea and Japan. It explores and explains the effects of globalization and discusses the role played by international labor law as it affects lawyers, business, labor, labor unions and human resource management, and the labor issues that can arise in dealing in EA trade and investment. The text, and the readings (from area experts), are organized and written to provide the reader with, first, a broad understanding and insight into the global dimensions of the fast-emerging area of labor and employment issues (e.g., global legal standards and their interplay with domestic and foreign laws); and second, to show how these laws and approaches play out in specific EA countries (comparing global approaches with the specific laws of each country on four common agenda items: regulatory administration, workers' rights, trade unions and dispute resolution).

Co-Winner of the 2004 Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Publication PrizeFrom burying scurvy victims up to their necks in the earth to drinking kerosene mixed with sugar to treat influenza, mid-nineteenth century medicine in the mining communities of the West usually consisted of home remedies that were often remarkable for their inventiveness but tragically random in their effectiveness. Only as a desperate last resort would people turn to the medical community, which had developed a deplorable reputation for quackery and charlatanism because of its lack of licensing regulations and uniform educational standards. No One Ailing Except a Physician takes readers back to those free-wheeling days in the mining towns and the dark recesses of the mines themselves, a time when illness or injury was usually survived more due to sheer luck than the interventions of medicine.In this important new contribution to both mining and medical history, historians Duane A. Smith and Ronald C. Brown present a detailed analysis of the ailments that confronted the miners and the methods with which they and their doctors attempted to "cure" them. The occupational hazards of mining, with its strenuous labor and exposure to the elements, contributed to the miners' vulnerability to disease and injury, which was further worsened by the typical miner's refusal to heed prevailing medical wisdom and common sense, often leading to easily preventable diseases such as scurvy. And because medical science of the era had not progressed much beyond that of the ancient Greeks, such debilitating diseases such as cholera, influenza, dysentery, and malaria proved to be virtual death sentences, to say nothing of occupational accidents with fires and explosions, mine collapses, and safety cage mishaps.