Women Garment Workers Face Huge Inequities in Global Supply Chain Factories Made Worse by COVID-19.

Women make up the large majority of workers in global supply chains, especially factories in the apparel supply chain. These workers face significant inequalities in wages, workplace hazards, and a special burden of gender-based violence and harassment. These "normal" conditions have been compounded by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated long-standing structural inequities.

"Cooking the books"--behavior-based safety at the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Practitioners of Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) claim dramatic reductions in worker injuries and illnesses through modifying workers' "unsafe behaviors." This case study of a BBS program implemented by KFM, a giant construction consortium rebuilding the eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge in California, documents how BBS was used to suppress reporting of worker injuries and illnesses on site. The key elements of KFM's BBS "injury prevention" strategy included: 1) cash incentives to workers and supervisors who do not report injuries; 2) reprisals and threats of reprisals against those employees who do report injuries; 3) selection and use of employer friendly occupational health clinics and workers compensation insurance administrators; 4) strict limits on the activities of contract industrial hygiene consultants; and 5) a secretive management committee that decides whether reported injuries and illnesses are legitimate and recordable.

Lean manufacturing comes to China: a case study of its impact on workplace health and safety.

Lean manufacturing, which establishes small production "cells," or teams of workers, who complete an entire product from raw material processing through final assembly and shipment, increases health and safety hazards by mixing previously separated exposures to various chemicals (with possible additive and cumulative effects) and noise. The intensification of work leads to greater ergonomic and stress-related adverse health effects, as well as increased safety hazards. The standard industrial hygiene approach of anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and hazard control is applicable to lean operations.

Protecting workers' health and safety in the globalizing economy through international trade treaties.

An illustrated account describes the shortcomings of international trade agreements, particularly NAFTA, with respect to worker protection in Mexico, and outlines measures needed to correct them.

Experiments in transforming the global workplace: incentives for and impediments to improving workplace conditions in China.

This article highlights current economic conditions in China and analyzes existing obstacles to improving workplace conditions and labor practices. There are significant disincentives to strengthening workplace protections, and downward pressures are currently worsening conditions in a number of economic sectors. However, there are also potential strategies for motivating multinational corporations (MNCs) and Chinese government agencies to improve workplace conditions and to implement international and national laws and corporate codes of conduct.

Developing an action-based health and safety training project in southern China.

A project brought together international footwear manufacturers, labor rights groups, local contract factories, and occupational health professionals to strengthen factory health and safety programs in southern China. Steps involved in the two-year project, including needs assessment, interviews and focus groups with workers and supervisors; design and development of a participatory workshop; development of plant-wide health and safety committees in three footwear factories; and evaluation project impact, are discussed. The project significantly increased occupational safety and health knowledge, and hazards in the factories were identified and corrected.

China's factory floors: an industrial hygienist's view.

Determinants of workplace health and safety in China, including work organization, composition of the workforce, production regimens, lack of independent worker representation, and the status of government regulatory enforcement, are described and analyzed. The findings of reports of nongovernmental organizations and media articles are summarized. Key markers of working conditions in export-sector factories, i.