Temporary Workforce Under Pressure. Poor Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) as a Dimension of Precarity?

Karina Becker and Thomas Engel

management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, 2018, vol. 29, issue 1, 32-54

Abstract: The article focuses on concrete occurrences of work-related psychological stress and the strains of temporary workers. Because of their higher sickness rates and incapacity to work, our research question investigates the specific characteristics of temporary work employees compared to all other employees. We carried out a secondary cross-sectional data analysis of employee surveys from 2006 and 2012 to estimate the risks of poor working conditions and OSH deficiencies for temporary and non-temporary workers. We identify different working conditions and standards of occupational safety and health (OSH) in relation to the employment status and interpret them as a symptom of increasing labour precarity. Along with the decrease in collegiality, management segregation of the workday thus exerts discipline on workers in particular ways. Poor resources of gratification and collegiality together with difficult work-time arrangements, e. g. shift work, become characteristic features of the temporary workforce. These are connected with psychological health restrictions which leads more often to the phenomenon of attending work while ill (so called presenteeism) than its opposite - sickness absenteeism.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.5771/0935-9915-2018-1-32

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