The Changing Structure of Work in the United States: Implications for Health and Welfare, Part 2

The Social Construction of Occupational Health and Safety: Barriers to Environmental-Labor Health Coalitions

“…This power inequity necessitates larger political reforms and the formation of social movements that address corporate power [94]. Kuhn and Wooding [8] argued that improving work, health, and environment require larger normative and systemic changes such as national health programs, labor law reform, income inequality reduction, as well as corporate governance reforms that would increase public control over investment decisions and reduce capital flight [81]. The call for broader political organizing of marginalized groups is considered infeasible in the United States [8,94].…”

“…Movements for the precautionary principle [31] and Canada's "rebuttal presumption," where the burden of proof is on employers to show that substances and processes are safe [38], help to deconstruct risk transfer logics. The switch from perchloroethylene to water-based solvents by dry cleaners reduces worker and community exposure to carcinogens, volatile organic compounds in indoor and outdoor air, and employee ergonomic risk factors 8 [37]. The precautionary principle was framed by the AHT in terms of "preventing harms, not progress," and was key in building bridges between environmental groups and labor.…”

“…However, managerial rhetoric that pitted jobs versus the environment soon sabotaged the potential of these alliances to develop a progressive public health movement. Since then, the toll on labor wrought by outsourcing, downsizing, and economic globalization in the form of wage losses and job insecurity has exacerbated problems in occupational health and safety and made workers more vulnerable to job threats [8][9][10]. Several labor-community coalitions in the 1980s and 1990s achieved some significant successes in environmental health such as the New Jersey Work-Environment Council and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition's efforts in achieving right-to-know legislation [11] but such examples remain rare.…”

Ein- und Durchschlafstörungen in Abhängigkeit von atypischen Beschäftigungsformen – Geschlechterunterschiede in der lidA-Studie

“…Hierbei arbeiten Frauen häufiger in zeitlich befristeten Arbeitsverhältnissen als Männer [2]. Im Zusammenhang mit atypischen Beschäftigungsverhältnissen werden eine subjektive Unsicherheit des Arbeitsverhältnisses, eine geringere Vergütung, verringerte Karrieremöglichkeiten sowie beeinträchtigende Arbeitsbedingungen berichtet [3]. Des Weiteren können atypische Beschäftigungsformen, wie zeitliche Befristung oder auch Teilzeitarbeit, langfristig Gesundheitsbeeinträchtigungen nach sich ziehen, die sich in gesteigertem Stressempfinden, einem ungesunden Lebensstil, gestörter physischer und psychischer Gesundheit und schließlich einer erhöhten Mortalität äußern [4][5][6].…”

Commentary

“…However, today's boundary between many types of flexible employment and unemployment is becoming even more blurred, and workers are experiencing a variety of nonstandard employment forms, ranging on a continuum from unemployment through underemployment to satisfactory employment. The "standard", full-time permanent employment with benefits, is being replaced with home-based work, temporary work, informal work, and other arrangements characterized by reduced job security, lower compensation, and impaired work conditions (4). Since new forms of work organization and flexible employment are likely to share some of the unfavorable characteristics of unemployment, it seems probable that they may have adverse health effects (5,6).…”