Reasonable Accommodation and Disparate Impact: Clean Shave Policy Discrimination in Today's Workplace.

This article examines Bey v. City of New York - a recent Second Circuit case where four Black firefights suffering from Pseudofolliculitis Barbae (a skin condition causing irritation when shaving which mostly affects Black men) challenged the New York City Fire Department's Clean Shave Policy - with an intersectional approach utilizing legal theories of racial, disability, and religious discrimination.

YET ANOTHER ATTACK ON WAGES AND CONDITIONS.

An unobjectionable-sounding title obscures the real intent of the latest in a series of Bills which the federal Coalition government is attempting to legislate in its ongoing attempts to undermine employee wages and conditions and attack unions.

Fatigue risk management by volunteer fire-fighters: Use of informal strategies to augment formal policy.

An increasing number and intensity of catastrophic fire events in Australia has led to increasing demands on a mainly volunteer fire-fighting workforce. Despite the increasing likelihood of fatigue in the emergency services environment, there is not yet a systematic, unified approach to fatigue management in fire agencies across Australia. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to identify informal strategies used in volunteer fire-fighting and examine how these strategies are transmitted across the workforce. Thirty experienced Australian volunteer fire-fighters were interviewed in August 2010. The study identified informal fatigue-management behaviours at the individual, team and brigade level that have evolved in fire-fighting environments and are regularly implemented. However, their purpose was not explicitly recognized as such. This apparent paradox - that fatigue proofing behaviours exist but that they are not openly understood as such - may well resolve a potential conflict between a culture of indefatigability in the emergency services sector and the frequent need to operate safely while fatigued. However, formal controls require fire-fighters and their organisations to acknowledge and accept their vulnerability. This suggests two important areas in which to improve formal fatigue risk management in the emergency services sector: (1) identifying and formalising tacit or informal fatigue coping strategies as legitimate elements of the fatigue risk management system; and (2) developing culturally appropriate techniques for systematically communicating fatigue levels to self and others.

[Management of chemical burns and inhalation poisonings in acute medical care procedures of the State Fire Service]. / Oparzenia chemiczne i zatrucia wziewne w procedurach ratowniczych z zakresu kwalifikowanej pierwszej pomocy Panstwowej Strazy Pozarnej.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) were founded by the government to perform tasks aimed at providing people with help in life-threatening conditions. The system comprises two constituent parts. The first one is public administrative bodies which are to organise, plan, coordinate and supervise the completion of the tasks. The other constituent is EMS units which keep people, resources and units in readiness. Supportive services, which include: the State Fire Service (SFS) and the National Firefighting and Rescue System (NFRS), are of great importance for EMS because they are eligible for providing acute medical care (professional first aid). Acute medical care covers actions performed by rescue workers to help people in life-threatening conditions. Rescue workers provide acute medical care in situations when EMS are not present on the spot and the injured party can be accessed only with the use of professional equipment by trained workers of NFRS. Whenever necessary, workers of supportive services can assist paramedics' actions. Cooperation of all units of EMS and NFRS is very important for rescue operations in the integrated rescue system. Time is a key aspect in delivering first aid to a person in life-threatening conditions. Fast and efficient first aid given by the accident's witness, as well as acute medical care performed by a rescue worker can prevent death and minimise negative effects of an injury or intoxication. It is essential that people delivering first aid and acute medical care should act according to acknowledged and standardised procedures because only in this way can the process of decision making be sped up and consequently, the number of possible complications following accidents decreased. The present paper presents an analysis of legal regulations concerning the management of chemical burn and inhalant intoxication in acute medical care procedures of the State Fire Service. It was observed that the procedures for rescue workers entitled to provide acute medical care should be correlated with the procedures for emergency medical teams.