A historical look at labor conditions 200 years ago focuses on the employment practices utilized by the colonialists to meet their labor needs. These practices included bound labor and slavery. (EC)

Contracts reflected worker concern over inflation and unemployment, and collective bargaining during the year was heavy, as labor-management negotiations occurred in such key industries as trucking, automobiles, electrical equipment, rubber, and meatpacking. (Editor/TA)

The first three years of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been developmental years. Significant advances have been made toward on objective--assuring safe and healthful workplaces for all Americans. (Author/MW)

Explores compositional shifts in the labor force, concluding that the workweek would be more than half a day shorter than it is had historical patterns continued into the postwar period; suggests that childbearing costs may be the root cause of longer schedules. (Editor/TA)

Reviews the resolutions and recommendations issuing from the 1980 conference of the International Labour Organisation. New standards were proposed in the areas of age and employment discrimination, workplace safety and health, collective bargaining, and safeguards for workers with family responsibilities. (SK)

A primary shortcoming of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is that it provides the employer with too many phases of postponement of responsibility. However, positive administrative action has included organized labor's entry into all levels of job safety and health activities. (MW)

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is attempting to develop total programs of occupational safety and health protection. It has established research criteria and a priority system for evaluating the order of investigating suspect substances or agents based upon the expected gain of the health benefit. (Author/MW)

The paternalistic industrial system is not likely to be discarded soon; in today's fast-moving economy, it affords cost flexibility and employment security. (Editor)

Productivity increased in 1981 in the United States, Japan, and European countries studied. Gains ranged from 2 to 4 percent in the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, to 6 percent in England and Denmark, and more than 7 percent in Belgium. In Canada and Sweden, productivity remained essentially unchanged. (SSH)