ABSTRACT
As Europe begins to emerge from the Covid‐19 pandemic, two trends are clear: one, labour market reform is urgently needed, to cope with new economic and technological realities;and two, big government is back. The recent decision of the Irish Supreme Court in Náisiúnta Leichtreach Contraitheoir Éireann v Labour Court illuminates the relationship between collective bargaining and the regulatory state. In potentially one of the most important decisions in Irish labour law in decades, the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to legislation aimed at empowering social partners to regulate economic sectors through collective bargaining. This article situates that decision within recent scholarship on the ‘labour constitution' model of labour law, under which the social partners should participate in economic governance. It also highlights the relevance of the decision for the ‘Social Europe' agenda and the political economy of both national constitutional law and the EU internal market.
ABSTRACT
During the early wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) designated a "black out" period between March 12, 2020, and June 12, 2020, for transplant outcomes reporting. We discuss the implications and potential bias it has introduced as it may selectively favor the outcomes for certain regions and harm other regions due to varied effects of different waves of COVID-19 infections across the United States.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Organ Transplantation , Tissue and Organ Procurement , Transplants , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Pandemics , Registries , Transplant Recipients , United States/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Transplant centers seeking to increase coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine coverage may consider requiring vaccination for healthcare workers or for candidates. The authors summarize current data to inform an ethical analysis of the harms, benefits, and individual and societal impact of mandatory vaccination, concluding that vaccine requirements for healthcare workers and transplant candidates are ethically justified by beneficence, net utility, and fiduciary duty to patients and public health. Implementation strategies should mitigate concerns about respect for autonomy and transparency for both groups. We clarify how the same arguments might be applied to related questions of caregiver vaccination, allocation of other healthcare resources, and mandates for non-COVID-19 vaccines. Finally, we call for effort to achieve global equity in vaccination as soon as possible.