Job quality,industrial relations and the crisis in Europe

This paper reports results from recent Eurofound research on the impact of the crisis on industrial relations and working conditions in Europe, based on the output of Eurofound's European Working Conditions Observatory and European Industrial Relations Observatory and data from the European Working Conditions Survey. Overall, the crisis – even if it is sometimes difficult to separate the effect of the crisis from megatrends in working conditions and industrial relations – seems to have had an impact on both domains. With reference to industrial relations, the impact of the crisis has influenced actors, processes, and outcomes. Regarding working conditions, the results appear to be in line with the literature on the topic, which relates the crisis to an increase in job insecurity, a decrease in work intensity, in working hours, and in anti-social working time arrangements, and a general improvement in terms of health risks and related outcomes.     

Female Sex Trade Workers,Condoms, and the Public-Private Divide

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the ways in which social relations within the public (work) as opposed to the private (home) contexts shape variable condom use among female sex trade workers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 68 female sex workers working in various settings in an urban center in Eastern Canada. The findings suggest that work-related social relations, and the meanings associated with condoms at work, create a strong confidence in condom use. Within the private setting, such confidence was also evident but most women reported either not using condoms or only using “sometimes.” Nevertheless, many women do engage in risk management within the private setting, and take active steps to decrease their risks of Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV)/Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).     

Enforcement is the Name of the Game: An Essay on the Immigration Inspector at Work

Abstract

This article concerns the work of immigration inspectors who inspect parties entering the country to determine if they merit entry according to law. Focusing on aspects of their working environment, this paper discusses ways inspectors have sought to organize daily activities. Faced with an uncertain decision-making process, lacking adequate preparation to deal with an unpredictable public, and working within a decentralized administrative structure, inspectors are nonetheless confronted by strong bureaucratic pressures for uniformity and consistency in their actions. Attempting to reconcile these conflicting demands, personnel have utilized various strategies for reducing overall risks associated with their work. This analysis casts doubt on the applicability of such theoretical constructs as “formal” or “informal” organizational processes when examined through an action perspective.     

The sugarcane-biofuel expansion and dairy farmers' responses in Brazil

The expansion of sugarcane for biofuels is a highly contentious issue. The growth of sugarcane area has occurred simultaneously with a reduction of dairy production in São Paulo state, the primary production region for sugar and ethanol in Brazil. This paper analyses different dairy farm rationales to continue dairy production in the context of a dramatically expanding sugarcane economy. Combining different data sets – semi-structured interviews with 34 farmers and baseline data from all members of a dairy farm co-operative – makes it possible to recognize different farm types. This heuristic tool is used to identify the various strategies regarding shifting to biofuel production or investing in dairy farming. The paper identifies labour availability, household resilience and technology introduction as key factors in the context of complex, multiple interactions between the biofuel sector and dairy production. We will argue that biofuel-sugarcane expansion not always pushes aside dairy farming. Those farmers that shift to sugarcane are not simply spurred by better prices, but mainly change as result of perceptions of labour constraints, risks and the opportunities offered by diversification. For farmers who totally quit dairy production the shift to sugarcane may pass the point of no return.     

Sugar, Technology, and Colonial Encounters: Refashioning the Industry in the Netherlands Indies, 1800–1942

The argument begins with the widely accepted proposition that science and technology had a crucial part to play in the legitimisation of Western colonialisms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then sets out to examine the implications of this in terms of the interaction of science, technology and the commodity production of cane sugar in Asia's largest and best-known sugar colony — the Netherlands Indies (Indonesian) island of Java. It demonstrates that cane sugar in Java was indeed the site of technological revolution and of a scientific approach to production which Western contemporaries saw as asserting their superiority over, and justifying their domination of, the East. From a broadly postcolonial perspective, the colonial binaries inherent in discourse of this kind were a good deal more ambiguous than its contemporary practitioners were inclined to allow. Indeed, a discourse which seems otherwise to have been Manichaean in the severity of its social distinctions, was significantly subverted by the collateral existence of fissures within the apparent monolith of an industrial structure based on Western technology and science. That structure was not self-sustaining, and although it was possible to marginalise the once-dominant Asian element in the industry, Java sugar nonetheless had to accommodate within its managerial and technical structure large numbers of people of part-European, part-Asian ethnic background. It did this by accepting a colonial construction of the European which was particular to Java, and which embraced large numbers of Eurasians as well as Dutch expatriates. The language of difference, inherent in the notion of a Manichaean divide, rested, in short, on a kind of discursive counterfeit, which was an indispensable condition for the persistence of scientific and technological production.     

Effective assessment: a key knowledge and skill for a sustainable profession

Assessment is an essential element of social work practice. However, by trying to realize the so-called triple-mandate of social work, professionals and students on qualifying training sometimes struggle to consider simultaneously client and organizational aspects, and to embrace both outcome-orientation and process-orientation. Societal requirements focus on outcomes and standardized procedures whereas client’s needs require individualized and situationally appropriate consideration. The tensions are more acute with demands for rigorous professional decision making based on evidence, with increased attention to risks. Multiprofessional working has many benefits for clients, but places new demands on social work assessment. Current models are limited in embracing these tensions, and more integrated models are required. Established frameworks together with practice and teaching experience are applied in this paper to extend the traditional Taylor and Devine model to address these contemporary challenges. Elements of a new model (ALOHA) have been trialled on professionals as well as students on qualifying social work training. Such robust assessment models synthesized from theory, research, and best practice are essential to meet contemporary practice challenges, maintain public credibility, and sustain social work internationally.     

“Embodying” dirty work: A review of the literature

This article reviews the growing literature on dirty work, i.e., work that is seen as disgusting or degrading and argues for a more “embodied” understanding of such work. It points to a tendency in the literature to focus on the nature of the task or role and on social and moral dimensions of the work at the expense of its material and embodied aspects. The latter are discussed through three, interrelated themes: “embodied suitability” whereby forms of dirty work are seen as suitable for some “working bodies” and not for others; “staining” which is presented as both a material and a symbolic process; and the role of work practices in both supporting and undermining ideological constructions around the work. The article concludes by arguing for a more comprehensive approach which includes both the material and the symbolic into accounts of such work.     

Betriebliche Gesundheitsförderung und Neue Arbeitsformen — Aktuelle Tendenzen in Forschung und Praxis

The psycho-social aspects of the consequences of new working forms concerning health and well-being are discussed. Central question is how organizational conditions influence the prospects and possible psycho-social risks to employees resulting from increased temporal and spatial flexibility of the working process. Keywords are intensification of work and privacy, Work-Life Balance, increasing emotional stressors and pressure from responsibility. Studies on work in call centers and teleworking show that high decision and action latitude and flexible time handling are important resources that need to be maintained and promoted in the context of new working forms. Consequences for workplace health promotion are presented and exemplified by a new concept of intervention     

Socially Engaged Art and Social Work: Reflecting on an Interdisciplinary Course Development Journey

This article shares key questions guiding our process of building interdisciplinary bridges between social work and art to contribute to social justice-oriented education. Through a focus on socially engaged art, we discuss the purpose and forms that these practices take and the role of the audience/participants when working for social change with communities. We then present a proposed course outline that brings social work and socially engaged art together. Our hope is that this discussion will guide others interested in working through interdisciplinary collaborations, as can be seen by the growing interest in the mix of art and social work in practice and education.     

Neue Arbeitswelt,Führung und organisationaler WandelNew Economy,Leadership and Organizational Change.

This article of the journal “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation.” analyzes and discusses current changes in the working environment with regard to the associated opportunities and risks. Due to the growing dynamism of the markets, digitization, the demographic change and the change of values the importance of flexibility and changeability as central prerequisites for organizational survival is rising constantly. At the same time organizations and employees make higher demands on each other. This shift in the “psychological contract” between employees and organization is discussed in the light of the characteristics of “generation Y”. The article concludes by summarizing consequences of these developments for work in organizations, leadership, change processes and consulting.     

Ports of Mucuripe and Pecém, Ceará, Brazil: restructuring process and its impact on workers' health

This paper presents a comparative study of working conditions and health hazards of two ports in the state of Ceará: Mucuripe and Pecém, focusing workers in the various categories involved in the operational activities of the two ports. The aim is to investigate changes implemented by the restructuring process of ports arising from the Port Modernization Act. In the case of Ceará, the organization and control of work at the mentioned ports occur differently: Mucuripe, the oldest port, had to adapt to the changes enforced by the Modernization Act and Pecém, called Port Terminal, inaugurated in 2001, "was born modern". To achieve our objective, we carried out field work, using Ergonomic Work Analysis. Systematic observations were made of the various activities carried out by workers, as well as interviews with managers, workers and trade unionists. Container operations and other activities of the two ports were recorded in film and presented to groups of workers (focus groups) in order to better understand work organization and the main differences in tasks carried out in the two ports. Each reality presents different characteristics regarding port operations, type of work and labor control. Results indicate that due to the technological innovations, the restructuring process reduced some risks, but brought new occupational hazards and intensification of work.     

Methodological proposal for occupational health and safety actions in research laboratories with nanotechnologies activities

Nanotechnologies is a multidisciplinary set of techniques to manipulate matter on nanoscale level, more precisely particles below 100 nm whose characteristic due to small size is essentially different from those found in macro form materials. Regarding to these new properties of the materials there are knowledge gaps about the effects of these particles on human organism and the environment. Although it still being considered emerging technology it is growing increasingly fast as well as the number of products using nanotechnologies in some production level and so the number of researchers involved with the subject. Given this scenario and based on literature related, a comprehensive methodology for health and safety at work for researching laboratories with activities in nanotechnologies was developed, based on ILO structure guidelines for safety and health at work system on which a number of nanospecific recommendations were added to. The work intends to offer food for thought on controlling risks associated to nanotechnologies.     

Information Technology, Gender Segmentation and the Relocation of Back Office Employment: The Growth of the Teleservices Sector in Ireland

The movement of routine back office activities from the central business districts of metropolitan regions in advanced economies to remote locations is leading to a distinctive global division of labour in office employment. While facilitated by the development of information and communication technologies, this process of relocation is primarily driven by the desire to reduce operating costs, mainly by moving to sources of cheap female workers. This reflects a classic gender segmentation process in patriarchal societies whereby back office work is mainly done by women and, accordingly, involves relatively low levels of remuneration. This provides direct parallels with the offshoring of routine manufacturing work associated with the new international division of labour. Ireland has been to the forefront in acting as a host for internationally-mobile routine office work, initially involving mainly data processing and, more recently, teleservices. As elsewhere, teleservices employment in Ireland is characterized by a combination of female predominance, low pay, difficult working conditions and high turnover rates. However, the Irish teleservices sector is unusual in its foreign language requirement, the high education levels of workers and its concentration in a prosperous metropolitan location. The resultant labour shortages, combined with growing use of Internet-based business-to-consumer transactions, are likely to place the sustainability of the sector under increasing pressure. Plans to upgrade the types of back office functions being located in Ireland may pose further challenges for women workers due to male dominance of the higher-level jobs involved.     

Precarious work among young Danish employees - a permanent or transitory condition?

There is broad agreement that precarious work is a growing problem, and that it is highly prevalent among young employees. The financial crisis in 2008 has reinforced the need for knowledge about how precarious work affects young employees. This paper explores how the concept of precarious work may apply differentially to different groups of young people at work and whether this challenges the term ‘transition’, which until now has been one of the core elements within contemporary youth research. We examine discursive representations of precarious work, vulnerability and risks among young Danish employees aged 18–24 in the healthcare sector, the metal industry and retail trade captured in 46 interviews involving 74 participants. Results are discussed taking into consideration the Nordic welfare model with an active labour marked policy. We conclude that precarious work is not, in fact, simply a characteristic of young employees’ work as such, but rather it is related to their position in the labour market and the type of jobs in which they are employed. While some are in transition, others are at risk of being trapped in precarious and risky working conditions.     

Gendered,Invisible Work in Non‐profit Social Service Organizations: Implications for Worker Health and Safety

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an important role in the provision of health and social services. In Canada the nonprofit sector includes 7.5 million volunteers and employs over 1.6 million paid workers. The sector is overwhelmingly female‐dominated — women make up over 80 per cent of workers in these nonprofit services. Work performed by women has traditionally been undervalued and invisible. It has often been considered safe by researchers, employers, policymakers and sometimes even workers themselves. Although there is some indication that jobs in the restructuring social services sector can be characterized by constant demand, high stress and violence, research into the working conditions and health hazards of these types of jobs has not been a priority. Using data from a qualitative study examining work in NPOs, we trace the ways that work performed in these workplaces is both gendered and invisible. We identify three types of invisible labour. ‘Background work’ facilitates and supports more visible and recognized organizational activities. Certain organizational language obscures the full spectrum of work that takes place in the organizations and the risks it may involve. ‘Empathy work’ includes the relationship building, counselling and crisis intervention that comprise key components of social service delivery. ‘Emotional labour’ involves the management of client emotions and workers' own emotions in the process of working with clients and delivering care under conditions of scarcity and contraction. The invisibility of these activities means that much of the day‐to‐day work done in the organizations, while particularly important in the context of social service restructuring, is taken‐for‐granted and undervalued by organizational outsiders. As a result, many of the hazards present in the jobs are hidden from view and workers' health may be compromised. We argue that the invisibility and taken‐for‐grantedness of certain types of work in NPOs is reflected in, and constitutive of, particular exclusions and shortcomings of current occupational health and safety systems designed to protect the health of workers.     

Analysis of working conditions focusing on biological risk: firefighters in Campo Grande, MS, Brazil

Firefighters are exposed to a wide range of risks, among them, biological risk. The objective was to analyze working conditions of firefighters in the city of Campo Grande, MS, Brazil, focusing on risk conditions of exposure to biological material. Three hundred and seven (307) firefighters were interviewed for data collection and observed for ergonomic job analysis (AET). Results: 63.5% of the firefighters suffered some kind of job related accident with blood or body fluids. Statistically significant association was found between having suffered accidents at work and incomplete use of personal protective equipment (PPE). About AET regarding the biological risks, 57.1% of all patients had blood or secretions, which corresponds in average to 16.0% of the total work time, based on a working day of 24 h. Besides biological risks, other stressing factors were identified: emergency and complexity of decision, high responsibility regarding patients and environment, and conflicts. Health promotion and accident prevention actions must be emphasized as measures to minimize these risks.     

Ergonomic risks in mining companies: a study in Paraiba/Brazil

The growing concern for the welfare of workers in the work environment, the importance of widespread use of ergonomics in the different sectors of industry. Yet most corporate practices that work with rudimentary or great need for human handling of materials is not fully in line with the ergonomic aspects. Given this, this article aims to identify ergonomic hazards in mining to later propose improvements in the process. After a series conducted plant visits, found that workers are exposed to various ergonomic risks, which entails the need for new healthy practices in the workplace. Finally, a series of proposals are submitted in order to avoid possible occupational diseases.     

Working Poor

The study compares relative risks of working poor in the US and Germany. The risk of working poor is assumed to be a consequence of both the macro-structural change towards post-industrial service societies and the micro-structural change of private households. From this twofold perspective, the guiding hypotheses are developed and then tested with the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The risk of working poor has increased both in Germany and the United States. Both commonalities and marked differences appear: Whereas high numbers of children dominate risks in the US, the German risk-set is determined by the hurdle between part-time and fulltime households, which disadvantages young and lone parents particularly. A common development is the successive devaluation of fulltime employment by sector risks which are growing into the fulltime labour market even in Germany.     

From rural plantations to urban slums: The economic status and problems of East Indians in Kingston,Jamaica, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

East Indian labourers imported into Jamaica in the post‐emancipation period were located primarily on sugar‐cane and banana plantations in the rural areas of the island. Indeed, the majority remained rural dwellers even after the expiration of their restrictive indentured contracts. The search for higher rewards for labour in terms of real wages and general well‐being, however, impelled a small proportion of time‐expired Indians to the urban section of the plantation economy. There they faced a multiplicity of problems as they struggled to achieve upward social mobility through greater capital accumulation.     

COVID‐19 and the gender gap in work hours

School and day care closures due to the COVID‐19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers’ and fathers’ work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States and through its first peak. Using person‐level fixed effects models, we find that mothers with young children have reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. Consequently, the gender gap in work hours has grown by 20–50 per cent. These findings indicate yet another negative consequence of the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting the challenges it poses to women’s work hours and employment.