Past Events

Jean Whelan, Ph.D., RN, from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing, described and discussed the role played by professional nurse organizations and other groups in developing the structure and conventions of nurses' work in the early twentieth century. 

The evolution of the global economy has entered a new phase. As national boundaries have become more permeable and businesses’ local moorings loosened, increasingly transnational competition has challenged labor market institutions, triggered political realignments and shifted firm-level tasks worldwide. Which strategies have they used to engage with shifting ideas, interests and institutions? What kind of innovations in the governance of work have their efforts engendered?

Diane Burns, Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield, UK, discussed the mistreatment of vulnerable people while in hospital or living in residential care. She examined the forces that inhibit staff and residents from "speaking out" about poor care.

Dr. Jeannette Rogowski, professor of health economics at Rutgers, discussed her examination of staffing and practice environments in a broad sample of NICUs in the U.S. and Italy, based on primary data collection. The implications for patient outcomes for infants with very low birth weights was explored

Susan Dentzer, senior health policy adviser for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former on-air health correspondent for the PBS News Hour, was the keynote speaker at the Employment Relations in Healthcare Conference held on March 14-15, 2014. Dentzer spoke about work and employment relations in the U.S. health care system. She stressed the need for better health care at lower costs, nurses who are willing to work in hospitals, and the reduction of premature deaths before age 50.

SMLR's annual Labor and Management Conference was centered on discussions about the health and well-being status of workers and this relationship to work. Conference speakers addressed several issues negatively affecting workers, many of whom are overworked and overstressed.