Title: Featured Articles by Ellen Rosskam of the ILO
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
Update on International Work – Two Special Articles by Ellen Rosskam of the International Labour Organization
Ellen Rosskam, PhD, MPH
Senior Work Security Specialist
InFocus Programme on Socio-Economic Security
International Labour Office
4, Route des Morillons,
CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. Direct: +41-22-799-8815
Fax: +41-22-799-7123
E-mail: <Rosskam@ilo.org>
Web sites:
<http://www.ilo.org/ses>
<http://www.ilo.org>
Airport Check-In Work: Consequences for Worker Health and Management Practices
Introduction
We investigated work-related hazards among airport check-in workers, demonstrating that exposures can be damaging to workers and detrimental to employers. The study has implications for organizational change, and for generating improvements for workers. The impact of check-in work on workers can vary, depending on the design of the check-in counter and baggage handling systems. Fully computerized processing of passenger tickets with work performed in a fixed sitting or standing posture involves health hazards similar to other jobs with fixed postures. Work-related factors presenting musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk among check-in workers involve: fixed and constrained postures; repetitive and sometimes forceful hand movements; an externally imposed pace of work; and a high work pace. Where check-in workers manually lift and carry every piece of baggage checked in, the workload and risk for MSD is similar to industrial workplaces involving heavy manual lifting. Fully mechanized baggage handling systems are meant to eliminate manual lifting. But frequent bending, twisting, squatting, and other awkward and full-body motions cause fatigue and create injury risk. Check-in workers receive no training in OSH, prevention, safe lifting technique, or workstation design options, nor are they hierarchically structured to be able to discuss options easily with management.
Results
The frequency of violence experienced by check-in workers at three airports in two countries is significant and consistent with the risk of violence in other service sector jobs. Violence from disruptive passengers exists as verbal abuse, threats and/or physical assault. One in 20 check-in workers in our study population (5.3 percent) was physically assaulted on the job by aggressive passengers, 80 percent (8 out of 10 workers) were exposed to verbal abuse from passengers, and nearly half of the workers reported violence as a substantial risk factor at their jobs. Check-in work is characterized as low status, high demand/low control, involving repetitive tasks, yet with scope for enlarging workers’ roles. Objective working conditions are not alone in contributing to adverse outcomes in worker populations, particularly in the case of stress-induced health effects.
MSDs are prevalent and severe among airport check-in workers, and may lead to temporary or permanent disability. Over half the workers experienced neck pain and shoulder pain, one out of two workers lives with lower back pain, nearly 16 percent lost work time due to neck pain, and nearly 20 percent lost work time due to lower back pain. Check-in workers perform their job functions despite significant neck, shoulder and/or back pain. Nearly three-fourths experienced neck pain that interfered with the ability to work, over half had lower back pain that interfered with sleep, and over 70 percent had neck pain that interfered with sleep. Tagging, lifting, carrying, or generally handling baggage appears to be sufficient to cause injury and MSD-related pain. MSDs are more prevalent and severe among check-in workers than revealed in employers’ official work-related injury records. Seventy-seven percent of respondents live with pain from MSDs in up to eight different sites on their bodies. Costs to employers from sickness absence and decreased productivity are direct and measurable. Indirect costs to workers and employers are more difficult to measure, but MSDs are shown to cause disruption to non-work related activities. Worker participation, effective use of worker voice, participatory ergonomics, or establishing changes in working conditions through participatory approaches involving both workers and managers, are demonstrated as reducing MSDs and improving overall workplace health and safety.
Conclusions
Managers are generally unaware of workers’ adaptive abilities, responding to changing demands in the workplace and finding solutions to problems as they arise. We tried to show that management practices excluding workers from decision-making lead to MSDs, among other health problems, by creating stress, and by leaving human ego needs unsatisfied. Involving workers in decision-making brings long-term benefits to organizations, through continuous work environment improvements. Benefits to employers and workers could be generated through the involvement of check-in workers in organizational decision-making. This study has put forth detailed solutions and recommendations for management, workers and trade unions to improve check-in workers’ jobs and to prevent stress and violence facing check-in workers.
A published report of the study “The Insecurities of Service: Airport Check-in Workers” is available in PDF format at <www.ilo.org/ses>.
References
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2) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1994. Participatory ergonomic interventions in meatpacking plants, NIOSH, US Department of Health and Human Services, NIOSH Publication No. 94-124.
3) Jensen, P. 1997. Can participatory ergonomics become the way we do things in this firm - The Scandinavian approach to participatory ergonomics. Ergonomics, 40(10), 1078-1087.
4) National Academy of Sciences, 1998. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders: A review of the evidence, Washington, DC.
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Barefoot Research: Improving Working Conditions And Workers’ Security In Developing Countries
Introduction
Involving workers in identifying and solving problems in the workplace, as a philosophical base for research, was explored in the educational pedagogy of Paulo Freire. Validating and making use of adults’ knowledge and experience can be transformative and empowering to a point where collective problem-solving is initiated. These principles apply to research on workplace problems, which are part of a complex system of organizational, economic, political, sociological and psychological contributing factors, to which workers can bring significant benefits. The Barefoot Research approach emphasizes translating research into means for improving people’s lives. The approach recognizes that adults learn best through images and concepts that relate to their everyday reality. They know best what their problems are and, collectively, can generate solutions applicable to their life situations. In the workplace, workers know how the job affects them, although their knowledge and experience may have to be brought out and validated. Workers are an important source of information, and they are more likely to “buy into” solutions when involved in the process. For lasting change to take place, workers’ involvement in identifying and solving problems is key.
Involving workers in identifying design problems and solutions can benefit enterprises. Use of workers’ voice, participatory ergonomics, and establishing changes in working conditions with the involvement of both workers and employers is key to reducing musculoskeletal disorders, improving overall workplace health and safety, improving productivity, and decreasing costs associated with ill health and accidents.
Barefoot Research to Improve Working Conditions and Workers’ Security
Barefoot Research techniques are simple tools for workers to use at the workplace to collect information about problems experienced by workers, and to translate the findings into action for change. Workers act as researchers, without the need for sophisticated equipment or trained experts. Conducting Barefoot Research gives dignity and respect to life, by using simple methods to protect workers’ lives and improve working conditions, which protects families, neighborhoods, villages and communities.
Information collected through Barefoot Research is used in identifying problems, developing a collective consciousness among workers, providing solutions, and bargaining with employers to improve conditions in the workplace. Barefoot Research can generate information that is difficult for employers, inspectors or enforcement representatives to ignore, providing some protection against reprisal, empowering and building confidence in workers, building trade union strength for bargaining through collective action by workers, publicizing results, and organizing workers around their health where a collective body does not exist.
Barefoot Research Tools
Finding out is the first stage, and making change the second. Barefoot Research tools involve looking at the workplace, listening to workers, and placing value on workers’ opinions. Techniques include inspections by workers, surveys of workers, small group discussions with workers, mapping techniques (body mapping, hazard mapping, “Your World” mapping), interviewing workers, and observation of work tasks.
Translating Research into Action
Taking action with the findings of Barefoot Research can be done verbally, with pictures, with maps, by written report, by prioritizing actions with workers, using the law, using collective strength, negotiating with management, using health and safety committees, by collective agreements, using grievance/dispute procedures, working with government inspectors, using the media, and by working with worker friendly networks.
Barefoot Research is a means to use workers’ voices to communicate experience, the limitations of protective measures, the impact those limitations have upon workers’ lives, and the changes needed to protect health. With tools to organize, workers can tackle income and employment issues, improve working conditions, and increase voice representation. Workers around the world have repeatedly shown that Barefoot Research is a powerful mechanism for learning, understanding, organizing and change.
1) Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed, Continuum Press, New York.
2) Freire, P. 1973. Education for critical consciousness, Continuum Press, New York.
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4) Hecker, S. (ed.). 1998. Management and policy: introduction and overview to education and training. In Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety – 4th Edition, International Labour Office, Geneva, vol. 1, ch. 18, 2-4.
5) Kogi, K. and Sen, R. N. 1987. Third world ergonomics. International Reviews of Ergonomics, vol. 1, 77-118.
6) Messing, K. 1998. One-eyed science: occupational health and women workers, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
7) Rosskam, E. 2000. Women moving mountains: Women workers in occupational safety and health. Women & Environment International Journal, no. 48/49, University of Toronto.
8) Wallerstein, N. and Weinger, M. 1992. Health and safety education for worker empowerment. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 22, 619-635.
9) Deutsch, S. 1989. Worker learning in the context of changing technology and work environment. In Leymann, H. and Kornbluh, H. (eds.), Learning at work: A new approach to the learning process in the workplace and society, Gower
10) Abrams, H. 1983. The worker as teacher. Commentary in American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 4, 759-768.
11) Smith, M. 1997. Psychosocial aspects of working with video displays terminals (VDTs) and employee physical and mental health. Ergonomics, 40(10), 1002-1015.
12) Jensen, P. 1997. Can participatory ergonomics become the way we do things in this firm - The Scandinavian approach to participatory ergonomics. Ergonomics, 40(10), 1078-1087.
13) National Academy of Sciences. 1998. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders: A review of the evidence, Washington, DC.
14) Briefing document by the MSD ad hoc group drafting group of the tripartite EU Advisory Committee on safety, hygiene and health at work (‘the Luxemburg Committee’). 2001, Luxemburg.
15) Keith, M., Brophy, J., Kirby, P., and Rosskam, E. 2002. Barefoot Research: A workers’ manual for organising on work security. International Labour Office, Geneva.
"BAREFOOT Research: A Worker’s Manual for Organizing on Work Security" is available, free of charge, in hard copy and CD ROM, and in PDF format on the website from the International Labour Office, Socio-Economic Security Programme, email: <ses@ilo.org>; tel.41.22.799. 8893; fax: 41.22.799.7123; Web: <www.ilo.org/ses>. The manual exists in English and Turkish. Numerous other translations are planned for 2004.