Research in Work & Health

Researchers at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations conduct work on a variety of topics related to the intersection of work and health.

These topics include:

• Work organization;
• Human resource management and labor relations in healthcare organizations;
• The impact of the aforementioned on organizational performance;
• Workforce development for the health care sector;
• Public policy concerning health insurance and access to healthcare (including health insurance as an employment-based benefit); and
• The impact of work on workers’ physical and mental health.

Nurse Unionization Data Tool

The Nurse Unionization Data Tool allows the user to explore trends in union membership and union contract coverage for registered nurses in the United States. 

The tool can be used to generate trend plots and maps showing how these quantities change over time, filtered and/or grouped according to a variety of demographics.

Publications

Labor-Management Partnership in Health Care: Responding to The Evolving Health Care Landscape

As the health care landscape continues to transform as a result of new quality requirements and changes in reimbursement, labor-management partnerships increasingly play a role in identifying and developing new systems of care. These changes require staff to work together in different ways.
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Finding a Healthy Balance: A Study of Gender Equity in New Jersey's Healthcare Workforce

This report is intended to identify barriers to the recruitment of men in nursing, to suggest strategies to increase the recruitment of men and retention of all nurses, and, finally, to point to other avenues of research that will help direct future healthcare and labor policies with regard to the nursing shortage. This report and its policy suggestions are developed as an extension of the New Jersey State Employment and Training Commission's A Unified State Plan for New Jersey’s Workforce Readiness System.
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A Health Impact Assessment of Paid Sick Days

The Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of the Healthy Families Act of 2009 is a proposed federal legislation that would guarantee that workers have the right to earn paid sick days.  This review researches the health impact of paid sick days in the state of New Jersey. 
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Improving Direct Care Work: Integrating, Research and Practice

This paper seeks to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to issues of recruitment and retention of direct care workers in long-term care. Key sources include the large and growing body of applied work published in the medical gerontology literature, as well as research grounded in broader theories of work organization, work design and workforce policy. 
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It's Catching

Public Opinion toward Paid Sick Days in New Jersey.  Rutgers Center for Women and Work asks questions and researches the favorability and access towards paid sick days in the state of New Jersey. 
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Negotiating in Partnership: A Case Study of the 2005 National Negotiations at Kaiser Permanente

From February to August of 2005, Kaiser Permanente (KP) and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (CKPU) negotiated a new national contract using a collective bargaining model of Interest-Based Negotiations. The resulting five-year contract, which covers 86,000 union members nationwide, is a significant feat for the Labor Management Partnership that began at Kaiser Permanente in 1997 and a testament to the commitment and skill of the more than 500 people involved in all stages of the prebargaining and bargaining process. 

This report summarizes our analysis of these negotiations, drawing on our direct observations and participation in the process, interviews with participants in negotiations and leaders of KP and the CKPU, a survey of participants in the Bargaining Task Groups (BTGs), and a post negotiation survey of participants in national and local/regional negotiations.
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A Study of High-Performing Unit-Based Teams at Kaiser Permanente

The 2005 National Agreement between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (CKPU) committed Kaiser Permanente to introduce labor-management unitbased teams (UBTs) in all natural work units by 2010. This Agreement, which deepened and strengthened in multiple ways the Labor Management Partnership first initiated in 1997, described UBTs as the “operating strategy” of Kaiser Permanente and the way it would achieve the goals of the Partnership. 
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Collaboration Improves Care

A nursing home learning initiative boosts staff satisfaction while improving resident care and quality of life. 
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