Vulnerable Workers

Health, Safety and Well-being

Maria Giovannone, Malcolm Sargeant

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317000815
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Corporate Governance
• Index: Business

The leading academic authorities contributing to this book have been involved in major studies carried out for international organisations, individual governments, and national trades' union organisations; in Vulnerable Workers they consider the growth of job insecurity, the prevalence of flexible or temporary work, and the emergence of precarious forms of self-employment. They look at the new market economies of post-communist Eastern Europe and China, where economic development may occur at the expense of workers' lives and health; 'misclassification' by employers of workers as 'contractors', denying them access to rights; and the plight of migrant, transient and 'invisible' workers. The impact of supply chain business strategies on the most vulnerable workers; and on the complex relationships between levels of job security and the presence of different kinds of risks are similarly assessed. The contributors also propose responses to the challenges they highlight. The role of employee representatives is examined, together with the potential to enhance worker capability through organisational change. New legislative approaches, and changes to traditional compensation and social security systems are considered. Academics and researchers, policy makers, regulators, trades unionists and occupational health professionals - and wise employers - will all find a use for this book.

1
The Health, Safety and Well-being of Vulnerable Workers

Brenda Barrett and Malcolm Sargeant1

Introduction

Each of the contributions to this book addresses situations in which workers are exposed in the course of their employment to unnecessary risk as a result either of their personal circumstances or because of the circumstances in which their employer uses their services. This in turn may depend on the contractual agreement under which they are employed. This chapter is concerned with providing some contextual framework2 for the chapters that follow. It explains what is meant by the term ‘vulnerable worker’ and the associated term, ‘precarious work’. It then, by way of illustration, reviews the literature on one particular area, namely the vulnerability of domestic workers, and uses it as a case study of vulnerable working.

New Forms of Work Organisation

A report by Anneke Goudswaard published in 2002 by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work suggested that the new forms of work organisation that have emerged in the shift from an industrial mass production to a knowledge-intensive/service-based society are varied. There has been an increase in decentralisation in organisations with a low ‘human factor orientation’ such as in lean production. There has also been an increase in network-based organisations. Companies have retreated to their core competencies and outsourced other functions and formed chains of suppliers and subcontractors. These changing contractual relationships have resulted in an increase in subcontracting to individuals on the understanding that they are ‘self-employed’. There have also been increases in part-time employment and increases in temporary employment. In addition there has been an increase in the practice of working long hours, either with one employer or by dint of holding down two or more part-time contracts.

The speed of change has resulted in an increase in the feeling of job insecurity and an increase in the number of ‘non-standard’ contractual relationships. It is possible that individuals do not change employer more frequently than in the past, but nowadays they are more likely to have to seek alternative employment whereas in the past they may have chosen to do so to advance their careers. A number of authors have tried to analyse the relationship between different contractual relationships and occupational safety and health (OSH). Quinlan et al., in researching such studies, concluded in a paper delivered to a European Union Research Workshop in 2000 that:

1. The vast majority of studies (74) found a relationship between precarious employment and a negative indicator of OSH;

2. With regard to outsourcing and organisational restructuring/downsizing, well over 90 per cent of the studies found a negative association with OSH;

3. With regard to temporary workers, 14 of 24 studies found a negative association with OSH;

4. The evidence is less strong with regard to small businesses;

5. Findings of a small number of studies of part-time workers found no clear relationship between part-time work and negative OSH outcomes;

6. Five out of seven studies that considered gender issues concluded that women were especially vulnerable to adverse health effects.

PRECARIOUS WORK

An OSHA ‘expert forecast’ (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work 2007) on emerging psychosocial risks related to occupational safety and health stated that there was growing evidence that there are specific risks for health and safety in the workplace connected with the conditions that characterise these forms of work. Their report cited Rodgers and Rodgers (1989) as proposing four dimensions to precarious working:

• the low level of certainty over the continuity of employment;

• low individual and collective control over work (working conditions, income, working hours);

• low level of protection (social protection, protection against unemployment, or against discrimination);

• insufficient income or economic vulnerability.

Precariousness, according to the report, is caused by a combination of these elements rather than by one aspect only. Work bearing such characteristics is generally considered to increase the risk of illness and injury. Precarious work takes different forms on today’s job market. In the scientific literature it is often associated with non-standard forms of work such as temporary, part-time, on-call, day-hire or short-term positions and also with the increase in the prevalence of self-employment. Additionally, work at home and multiple jobs also contribute to the increasing significance of ‘non-standard’ forms when considering precarious work.

The analysis shows that precarious employment is to be found throughout the European Union, though it is more common in some member states than in others. It cites Eurostat data to show that temporary contracts are especially prevalent in Spain (33 per cent of all employees had this kind of contract in 2005), and quite popular in Portugal (19 per cent), Finland (16.5 per cent) and Sweden (16 per cent), whereas they are rather rare in the United Kingdom (6 per cent), Luxembourg (5.3 per cent) and Ireland (4 per cent). Eurostat data showed that in 2005, taking the average in the EU-25 countries, 15 per cent of women and 14 per cent of men had a temporary job.

Additionally, the employees who seem to be at a special risk of precarious employment are migrant workers. The analysis cites the national data presented in the report written by Ambrosini and Barone in 2007 and published by the Dublin Foundation showing that in many countries temporary contracts are more prevalent among migrant workers than among national employees.

Quinlan et al., in their report, identified three sets of factors which appear to explain why precarious employment was linked to inferior OSH outcomes. First, economic and reward systems result in greater economic pressure in terms of competition for jobs as well as pressure to retain a job and earn a liveable income. A significant group is engaged on piecework or task-based payment systems. As a result there may be ‘corner cutting’ on safety with pressure to take on high-risk activities that have been offloaded by a larger organisation or refused by permanent workers. Secondly, workers are liable to be less experienced and performing unfamiliar tasks. They are likely to be less familiar with OSH rules. As a result it may be more difficult to coordinate decisions and anticipate dangers. These workers are also less likely to belong to unions or to have bargaining power and also there may be multi-employer work-sites with more complicated lines of management control and more fragmented work processed. Thirdly, there is an increased likelihood of regulatory failure. OSH regulatory regimes are designed to address full-time and secure workers in large workplaces. In a large number of industrialised countries most of the self-employed subcontractors and home-based workers fall outside this regulatory protection.

Benach et al. (2002) describe three impacts of new types of employment on health. First, there is strong evidence that unemployment is associated with ‘mortality and morbidity, harmful lifestyles and reduced quality of life’. They suggest that new forms of work organisation and flexibility of employment will share some of these characteristics, in relation to insecure jobs. They cite one study Dooley et al. (1996), for example, which showed that perceived job security was the single most important indicator of a number of psychological symptoms such as mild depression. Downsizing also has been shown to be a risk to some employees. Secondly, the working conditions of non-permanent workers are worse than those of permanent workers, so those in flexible employment are exposed to more hazardous and dangerous work. Temporary workers, when compared to permanent ones, are also more likely to have poor working conditions such as vibration, loud noise, hazardous products or repetitive tasks. Thirdly, some studies have suggested that different types of flexible employment have worse health impacts than more standard types of employment.

TUC COMMISSION

The Trades Union Congress in the UK (TUC) set up a Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE), discussed by Barrett and Sargeant (2008), as a result of concern that unsafe, low-paid, insecure work is causing misery for millions of workers in the UK. It took the view that the well-being of any single employee and that employee’s family is too important to be left unprotected. The TUC’s final report is entitled Hard work hidden lives (Trades Union Congress 2008). The TUC devoted the first chapter of the report to providing its own definition of vulnerable working. The report first defines vulnerable employment as ‘precarious work that places people at risk of continuous poverty and injustices resulting in an imbalance of power in the employer–worker relationship’. The Report finds (at p.13) that:

Vulnerable work is insecure and low paid, placing workers at high risk of employment rights abuse. It offers very little chance of progression and few opportunities of collective action to improve conditions. Those already facing the greatest disadvantage are more likely to be in such jobs and less likely to be able to move out of them. Vulnerable employment also places workers at greater risk of experiencing problems and mistreatment at work, though fear of dismissal by those in low-paid sectors with high levels of temporary work means they are often unable to challenge it.

The Commission believed that vulnerable employment is the product of existing social and economic inequalities and is the UK’s approach to labour market regulation. Citing Opportunities for All (Department for Work and Pensions 1999) it noted that in the ten years immediately prior to the report, employment rates had risen so that 75 per cent of those of employable age were in employment, but there was a 14 per cent gap between overall employability and employment of minority ethnic groups and a 27 per cent gap for people with disabilities and employment rates for the low skilled were only a little above 50 per cent.

The Commissioners believe that much exploitation of workers occurs because the law is not strong enough to prevent it. Some employers find gaps in the law but others break the law. It found that in certain low-paid sectors, including care, cleaning, hospitality, security and construction there was evidence that the law was regularly broken. It believed that enforcement agencies did not have enough resources to guarantee employment rights.

Domestic Work

Relying on published research and other literature the following account uses domestic work as an example of vulnerable work, demonstrating that the problem is not isolated to one nation, but is closely, though not exclusively associated with migrant labour. Domestic work is here defined as ‘home working’3 but focusing on those workers employed to undertake ‘domestic work’ related to the home such as providing care to or performing housework for those living in domestic premises. According to the International Labour Organisation’s Encyclopaedia of Health and Safety (1998), ‘Domestic work is characterized by labour for another family within their home.’

The term domestic workers should not be confused with homemakers and housewives, who work in their own home, or housekeepers, who work in institutions such as a hospital or school. The position of employment within a home is a unique and often isolated work environment. The position of domestic worker is almost always considered menial or inferior to the family for which they are employed. Indeed in the past, domestic work was sometimes done by slaves or indentured or bonded servants. Some of the job titles today for domestic workers include: servant, maid, housekeeper, au pair and nanny. While domestic workers can be either female or male, female workers are both much more commonly employed and most often paid less than males. Domestic workers are customarily immigrants or members of ethnic, national or religious minorities of the country of employment.

One should also, according to the Encyclopaedia, which cites Anderson (2001), distinguish between domestic workers who are employed as live-in servants from those who live in their own home and commute to their place of work. Live-in workers are often isolated both from their own family and their own country of nationality. Because of the worker’s disenfranchisement, work contracts and health and other benefits are negligible. This situation is particularly critical for the overseas worker. Sometimes, infractions concerning agreed-upon salary, sick leave, working hours, vacation pay and regulation of hours and duties cannot even be addressed because the worker is not fluent in the language, and lacks an advocate, union, work contract or money with which to exit a dangerous situation. Domestic workers usually have no workers’ compensation, nowhere to report a violation, and are often unable to quit their employment.

Again, according to Anderson, places where major employers of domestic workers are found include the UK, the Persian Gulf and Arab States, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Nigeria, Singapore and the United States. These workers are from various countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.

According to work done for the ILO by Ramirez-Machado (2003), typical occupations of domestic workers are housekeepers, gardeners, watchpersons or drivers. The particular human characteristics are that:

• most domestic workers are housekeepers and women;

• more and more immigrants, national and international, are looking for employment in the sector; and

• domestic service draws an important number of child workers.

Domestic work is often exploitative. Major problems include long hours of work and heavy workloads; inadequate accommodation and inadequate food; lack of privacy and interference in personal matters; being vulnerable workers subject to abuse; arbitrary changes to work contracts, pay cuts or non-payment; low pay; lack of working benefits; and violence at the workplace.

DOMESTIC WORK AND EXPLOITATION

According to Blackett (1998) the overwhelming majority of domestic workers are women and, uniquely, their employers are also women – they provide a waged substitute for unwaged labour. Secondly, they are migrants from poorer to richer parts of the economy or world, so while often supporting large families in place of origin, they may not fully appreciate their pay is less than the minimum normally earned in the country where they are working. Thirdly, they work in a private home and live with their employer. Ironically, it is precisely because domestic workers are employed within the ‘private sphere’ that there is resistance to recognising the domestic work relationship, and appropriately regulating it. The cumulative result is that these workers experience a degree of vulnerability that is unparalleled to that of most other workers.

An ILO report to the International Labour Conference (92nd Session, 2004) states that migrant women domestic workers are among the world’s most vulnerable workers:

Most are women moving from poorer to richer countries for economic reasons, and most leave their children behind, often in the care of relatives or a hired local maid, creating global care chains. The availability of foreign maids, in turn, allows women with children in destination countries to work for wages, so that many of the world’s women between the ages of 15 and 64 years are able to pursue paid employment outside the home.

The ILO report is not just about the EU of course and it does state that the working conditions of domestic workers vary enormously. Some are treated as members of their employer’s ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1 The Health, Safety and Well-being of Vulnerable Workers
• Chapter 2 We’ve Been Down this Road Before: Vulnerable Work and Occupational Health in Historical Perspective
• Chapter 3 Supply Chains and the Protection of Vulnerable Workers
• Chapter 4 Precarious Work in Times of Crisis: Regulatory Discourses and Labour Standards in the New EU Member Baltic States
• Chapter 5 Work Organisation, New Forms of Employment and Good Practices for Occupational Health and Safety: Evidence from Italy within the European Context
• Chapter 6 Occupational Health and Safety of Migrant Workers: An International Concern
• Chapter 7 Occupational Health and Safety in Organisations: Applying Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Organisational Climate
• Chapter 8 The Health of Vulnerable Workers in Italy
• Chapter 9 Employees Without Protections: The Misclassification of Vulnerable Workers in New York
• Chapter 10 The Right to Occupational Health and Safety and its Legislation in China
• Chapter 11 Seeking Solutions to Precarious Working in the Growth of New Zealand Dairy Farming – A Research Agenda
• Chapter 12 Occupational Health and Safety of Contingent Migrant Labour in the Kuwait Construction Industry
• Index