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Superbugs Versus Outsourced Cleaners: Employment Arrangements And The Spread Of Health Care-Associated Infections, Adam Seth Litwin, Ariel C. Avgar, Edmund R. Becker
Superbugs Versus Outsourced Cleaners: Employment Arrangements And The Spread Of Health Care-Associated Infections, Adam Seth Litwin, Ariel C. Avgar, Edmund R. Becker
Adam Seth Litwin
On any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients in the United States has a health care–associated infection (HAI) that the patient contracts as a direct result of his or her treatment. Fortunately, the spread of most HAIs can be halted through proper disinfection of surfaces and equipment. Consequently, cleaners—“environmental services” (EVS) in hospital parlance—must take on the important task of defending hospital patients (as well as staff and the broader community) from the spread of HAIs. Despite the importance of this task, hospitals frequently outsource this function, increasing the likelihood that these workers are under-rewarded, undertrained, and detached …
Review Of Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing Is Hurting Workers And Endangering Patients, Adam Seth Litwin
Review Of Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing Is Hurting Workers And Endangering Patients, Adam Seth Litwin
Adam Seth Litwin
[Excerpt] Researchers sensitive to the plight of low-wage workers in advanced industrialized economies have long sought to convey the magnitude of the problem by retelling sorrowful tales of worker exploitation. Sadly, even their most sympathetic readers have numbed to these accounts. Author Dan Zuberi has found a clever way to transcend this apathy in his new monograph based on about 100 interviews plus behind-the- scenes observations of the impact of hospital support staff outsourcing on patients and workers. Through a well-developed understanding of the work process and changes in the employment relationship, he ties outsourcing and the resulting exploitation of …