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The purpose of this work is to examine the psychological impact of adequate compensation, which is one of the dimensions of Decent Work Scale (DWS) evaluated within the psychology of work theory (PWT), on other dimensions of DWS in teachers working in public and private schools in Turkey.

In this study, DWS developed by Duffy et al. was used. In total, 175 private school teachers and 216 public school teachers participated in the study. The data were analyzed with LISREL 8.7 and SPSS 23.0 package programs.

Considering the structural equation model formed by the sub-dimensions of the DWS and the path diagrams related to the model, it was seen that the “adequate compensation” dimension made a significant difference in “access to health services” on both public and private school teachers. In private school teachers, there is a significant relationship between the dimension of adequate compensation and “access to healthcare”, “physically and interpersonally safe working conditions”, “free time and rest” and “organizational values that complement family and social values”. However, a significant relationship was not found between the variables other than “access to healthcare” in public school teachers. According to the results of the “Independent Sample T-Test”, there is a significant mean difference between the perceptions of teachers working in public and private schools. When this difference is examined, it was seen that teachers working in public schools have a higher level of good job perception than teachers working in private schools.

DWS is a newly developed scale and has been used in a limited number of studies. It is a scale open to be developed and used with different sample groups.

Application of DWS to teachers working in Turkey is one of the fundamental features that distinguish this study from other studies in this area. In addition, the evaluation of the psychological effects of the adequate compensation dimension, which is an important study factor, on the other dimensions of DWS adds originality to the study. It is predicted that this research will fill the deficiency in the relevant literature.

The question of health and safety at work is a central issue for trade unions. In Britain it is an area of concern where there were important legislative initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, although surprisingly this has received relatively little attention in the debates about trade unionism. This neglect results in an aspect of union activity about which little is known. Explores through a detailed longitudinal study of a middle‐range engineering firm, from the late 1970s into the 1990s, the ways in which trade unions organize and act on health and safety questions. Argues that it is almost “routine” that workers face dangers and hazards at work, a central feature of the work and employment experience of most workers. However, this is often difficult to deal with as individual issues, or as matters which are subject to collective consideration. On the one hand, workers often appear to accept the dangers and hazards they face. On the other hand, managements are preoccupied with questions relating to production and finance, rather than the day‐to‐day problems faced by workers. This tension suggests that the future wellbeing of workers in unionized workplaces lies not so much with legislative provisions and rights at work, but in education and the organizing ability of workplace unions, raising and addressing what often seem like individualistic problems in collective ways.

Health and safety in small construction firms is often neglected by owners leading to poor health and safety performance and unacceptably high fatality and injury rates. A body of knowledge has established significant links between the motivational behaviours of operatives towards health and safety. Motivation is also considered as a key tool for improving operative productivity as when operatives experience safe worksites, they can carry out their work in a more productive manner. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework to examine the motivational factors that affect operative health and safety in small construction firms.

A critical review and synthesis of the body of knowledge incorporating motivational theory, health and safety literature and the factors which characterise small firms, is used to develop the framework.

Key components of the framework include the presence of intrinsic and extrinsic components, appropriate health and safety policies and procedures, the type of work environment, the operatives (i.e. attitude, experience and training) as well as the presence of appropriate management and supervision. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated due to the absence of training, management commitment, policies and the wider working environment

Failure of motivational support can result in increased danger and risk in exposing operatives to injury in the small firm environment. In this context, the damage caused to operative's health and safety in small construction firms is dependent mainly on the extrinsic factors.

The framework provides a basis for improving our understanding of how to motivate operatives to act safely and will help to improve the health and safety performance of small firms. It is therefore vital to emphasise enhancement efforts on these extrinsic strategies in the small firms' environment especially in the initial stages of the project (or activity), so that the health and safety of operatives in small firms can be improved.

This study proposes a contribution in developing an understanding of the motivational factors and their influence on the health and safety of operatives in small construction firms. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated and have only intrinsically motivated elements in their workplace. The study proposes an indirect link between the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that affect motivation.

The study aims to investigate the impact of “decent work” dimensions on faculty members’ work engagement levels in the higher education institutions in India.

Data were obtained from 293 faculty members working in higher education institutes in India. The proposed study hypotheses were tested by deploying the statistical technique of multiple regression analysis using statistical package for social sciences Version-24.

Results demonstrated that of the five dimensions of “decent work,” only “access to health care” and “complementary values” were significant predictors of work engagement. “Adequate compensation,” “free time and rest” and “safe interpersonal working conditions” as dimensions of “decent work” were not found to be significantly related to work engagement.

Findings encourage education policymakers to implement a “decent work” policy for faculty members with greater emphasis on ensuring workplace-fit and provision of adequate health-care facilities to keep the workforce engaged.

It is one of the few studies conducted in the South-Asian context that highlight “decent work” as a crucial job resource, useful in enhancing the work engagement of faculty members in higher education institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue volume on vulnerable work and strategies for inclusion. Definitions, measurement, analysis and policy responses to vulnerable work and strategies for inclusion are addressed before the key aspects of the nine papers included in the special issue are summarised.

The topic of vulnerability at work is explored, before the distinguishing features of jobs that generate vulnerable conditions and the characteristics of vulnerable workers are identified.

Vulnerable work is insecure and irregular with few protections accorded to the vulnerable workers who are often characterised by their age, ethnic status, gender and skill profiles. The consequences include: poor job quality, low and irregular incomes and personal/family hardship. Vulnerability is widespread across the workforce, with workers subject to work intensification, employment insecurity and poor work-life balance.

Vulnerable work and workers constitute a growing and global phenomenon. Consequently, governments and employers need to work together on programmes, such as the ILO’s decent work agenda, to ensure that basic human rights at work are widely recognised and provision to ongoing employment, safe working conditions and regular hours are offered across a variety of industries/sectors.

This volume examines the conceptual, empirical and policy aspects of vulnerability in employment. It documents the international dimensions of vulnerability, the different forms it takes, those groups that are at risk of vulnerable employment and the underlying factors that generate and support vulnerability.

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads globally, the economic and health consequences are disproportionately affecting marginalized workers. However, countries' existing labor and social security laws often exclude the most vulnerable workers from coverage, exacerbating existing inequalities. Guaranteeing the rights to adequate income even when ill, decent working conditions and nondiscrimination in constitutions may provide a foundation for protecting rights universally, safeguarding against counterproductive austerity measures, and providing a normative foundation for equality and inclusion as economies recover. The purpose of this article is to examine the prevalence of these rights globally and assess some of their early impacts amid the pandemic.

The authors created and analyzed a database of constitutional rights for all 193 United Nations member states. All constitutions were double coded by an international multidisciplinary, multilingual team of researchers.

This study finds that 54% of countries take some approach to guaranteeing income security in their constitutions, including 23% that guarantee income security during illness. Thirty-one percent guarantee the right to safe working conditions. Only 36% of constitutions explicitly guarantee at least some aspect of nondiscrimination at work. With respect to equal rights broadly, constitutional protections are most common on the basis of sex (85%), followed by religion (78%), race/ethnicity (76%), socioeconomic status (59%), disability (27%), citizenship (22%), sexual orientation (5%) and gender identity (3%). Across almost all areas, protections for rights are far more common in constitutions adopted more recently.

This is the first study to systematically examine protections for income security and decent work, together with nondiscrimination, in the constitutions of all 193 UN member states.

This study aims to investigate the associations among decent work (DW), capabilities and the flourishing of employees in a South African context.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a convenience sample (N = 436) of early childhood development practitioners from two South African provinces. A demographic questionnaire, the Decent Work Scale, the Capability Set for Work Questionnaire and the Flourishing-at-Work Scale were administered.

Latent class analysis showed four capability sets: robust, relational, knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. Employees with a robust capability set were more inclined to report DW than those with knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. Employees with a weak capability set were significantly less inclined to report organisational values that complement family and social values than the other three capability sets. Employees with a robust capability set reported significantly higher emotional well-being (EWB), psychological well-being (PWB) and social well-being (SWB) levels than those with relational, knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. DW was significantly related to EWB, PWB and SWB.

This study contributes to the literature regarding DW, capabilities and flourishing of employees in a non-western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic and non-POSH context. The study highlights the need for well-being policies that focus on DW and the capabilities of people in disadvantaged positions. These together would strengthen their agency for converting capabilities into well-being.

This paper aims to depict the pivotal role played by Rose Schneiderman and Frances Perkins in early twentieth-century labor and safety reform in the USA. The paper also examines the contributions made by these notable women through the lens of stakeholder theory and the feminist ethic of care.

The review process commenced with a comprehensive search for women in history who advocated labor and safety reform and campaigned for safer organizational practices in the workplace. History books, academic journals and newspaper articles, including writings from Schneiderman and Perkins, were the main sources used for this research endeavor.

Schneiderman and Perkins were both instrumental in playing a major role in fighting for labor and safety reform in the early twentieth century, albeit in different ways. Through their work, there was a heightened understanding of organizations’ duties and obligations to their stakeholders and, in particular, to their employees. They also embodied the feminist ethic of care by being attentive to the needs of others, accepting responsibility and demonstrating competence, while being responsive to their needs.

The influential women in management history are often given scant recognition or not recognized at all. This article highlights the contributions of two women who greatly impacted labor and safety through their struggle for the improvement of working conditions in the USA. The originality of this manuscript also lies in the ethical perspective in which it is grounded.

The study integrates organizational demography theory into person-environment fit theories to question the assumption that all employees can afford to strive for person-environment fit. The ethnic/racial diversity in organizations is investigated as a boundary condition in order to develop implications to mitigate the challenges of employees with precarious jobs, especially persons of color (POCs), in the society.

Publicly accessible and objective data from organizations in the S&P 1500 index were collected through Compustat, ExecuComp, the Bloomberg Terminal and the websites of Fortune, the United States Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor. A path analysis of time-lagged data was performed to support causal relationships between the examined constructs while controlling for alternative explanations.

Unsafe working conditions moderate the U-shaped relationship between ethnic/racial diversity and turnover and turn it into an inverted U-shaped relationship because employees in precarious jobs, especially POCs, cannot afford to leave unsafe working conditions. Organizations with unsafe working conditions are more likely to invest in sustainability initiatives. However, organizations' financial performance does not benefit from this investment.

The circumstance that not all employees can afford person-environment fit and its organizational outcomes are identified and empirically tested. Scholars can integrate this boundary condition in future research. Implications for practice and policy are also derived.

Building on the emerging literature on the psychology of working theory, this study aims to examine the impact of decent work on employees’ mental health as well as the association between the dimensions of decent work on employees’ mental health.

Quantitative data were collected from 260 employees working in the Ghanaian mining industry.

Data analysis showed a positive significant relationship between decent work and employee mental health. Furthermore, access to health care, adequate compensation and hours that allow for free time and rest related positively and significantly with employee mental health. However, the relationships between physical and interpersonal safe working conditions, organizational values that complement family and social values and employee mental health were not significant.

The findings extend the emerging literature relative to the influence of decent work on mental health in developing country context, specifically, sub-Saharan Africa where concerns for decent work have become extremely relevant because of the experience of extreme poverty and unemployment that characterize the region.