Occupational Health and Safety Act

From 3arf

How does precarious employment undermine occupational health and safety regulation and the capacity of workers to exercise their rights? This paper seeks to understand the negative impact that precarious employment has on worker health and safety and the capacity of workers to maintain safe and healthy working conditions.

Introduction

This is an essay to explore the topic of how precarious employment undermines occupational health and safety regulation and the capacity of workers to exercise their rights? What are the factors that contribute or create this precarious employment conditions, and in what ways does it affect worker health and safety and worker rights?

This essay will address the definition of precarious employment, its scope and causes. It will then look at how it leads to adverse effects on the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1978 and the workers right. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 1978 provide:

-          All workplaces covered under single Act, administered by Ontario MOL

-          Employer, supervisor and worker duties and responsibilities defined

-          Toxic substances controls

-          Expanded Regulations

-          Expanded inspection and enforcement powers

-          Worker participation rights

-          IRS policy/philosophy

And a worker’s right includes: The right to participate, the right to know about danger, the right to refuse and the right to safe work. This essay will show how all these are being infringed on and eroded by precarious employment, and how it is making it difficult to regulate and enforce. This essay will also make recommendations on how this can be stopped and what necessary reforms would be required to correct the growing unease in the labour market, due to increasing precarious employment.

Precarious employment

Despite precarious employment becoming an increasingly prominent feature of contemporary labour markets, there exists no commonly accepted definition of the term in current literature (Werner Nienhüser, 2005), but for the purpose of this paper precarious employment will be defined as by Rodgers and Rodgers (1989) and Cano (2000) define precarious employment as low-quality jobs, which are bad for the well-being and health of employees (David E. Guest, 2010 ). With this definition precarious employment can include:

Temporal – this refers to the degree of stability or certainty of a worker continuing at a job

Organizational – this refers to the degree of control over the working conditions, pace of work, income etc.

Economic – this refers to the term of low income and vulnerability

Law – this refers to laws on union power and effectiveness or social protection in the form of social security

With this definition precarious employment can occur in both standard and non-standard work. The concept of precarious work goes beyond the form of employment to look at the range of factors that contribute to whether a particular form of employment exposes the worker to employment instability, a lack of legal and union protection, and social and economic vulnerability (Rodgers, 1989). These factors are flexibility of employment, neoliberal reforms and regulations, globalization, segregation in the labour market and decrease in union influence. The blurring of boundaries between employment (which implies a status) and work, and between employment and self-employment, are also crucial issues that account for precarious employment. Its growth appears linked to labour market deregulation, the encroachment of commercial law on labour law, and the spread of practices such as outsourcing and contracting-out.  Precarious employment has increased over the last two decades in most countries, while the standard employment relationship itself, even though it continues to be by far the predominant form of employment in empirical terms, has been eroded on account of the combined effects upon it of weakened employment protection legislation and institutions, the regular occurrence of lay-offs, and the very existence of significant proportions of precarious employment and unemployment (Frade, 2004). More and more workers are embroiled in precarious employment as employment norms shift away from the standard employment relationship (Rogers, 2001).

Precarious employment is a highly gendered and racialized phenomenon. Large numbers of women, immigrants, refugees and people of colour work under precarious conditions in Canada (Vosko, 2006). Mostly non-unionized workers who are on low paying and menial job are vulnerable to precarious employment conditions, and a large percentage of those are women and immigrants. Approximately 40% of working women, in comparison with less than 30% men, are in part-time, contract, or other non-standard work arrangements. As of October 2007, 21.2% of Canadian women worked part-time compared to 6.4% of men. Women are almost twice as likely as men to be part-time temporary workers (Projects, 2007). These percentage of immigrant men (25 percent) and immigrant women (14 percent) have much higher rates of self-employment, part-time, contract or non-standard work arrangements than Canadian-born men (10 percent) and women (8 percent) do (Employment Standards, 2008). Due to the large volume of precarious employment in the Canadian labour market, its effects cannot be ignored, because with its growth it brings equal growth in unease amongst workers in the labour market. This leads to devastating consequences to workers in such precarious working conditions.

Effects of precarious employment

Precarious employment is an increasingly common term used to highlight labour market insecurity. In Canada, precarious employment normally involves those forms of work involving atypical employment contracts, limited social benefits and statutory entitlements, job insecurity, low job tenure, low wages and high risks of ill health (F.Vosko, 2003). With these kinds of jobs comes a health risk to the worker. Due to the prevalence of precarious employments and in conjunction with high rate of unemployment, workers find themselves in positions where they do not have the employment and financial security to make decisions for the best of their health and safety. Employer’s see this and take advantage of the unease in the labour market to get workers to sign-on on work contracts that promise less than standard working conditions and safety. Employers’ resort to non-standard forms of employment, such as part-time and contract work, self-employment, and work arrangements such as shift work and home-based work, is tied to labour market deregulation. With the growing insecurity brought on by precarious employment and the government implementing neo-liberal policies to maintain high rates of unemployment, cutbacks in unemployment benefits and the erosion of statutory entitlements such as employment insurance. Workers are finding themselves unable to exercise their right to refuse dangerous task or oppose unsafe and substandard working environment, as they know that employers are willing to move the company or outsource the job at a cheaper rate, leaving the worker on the losing end. In these kinds of situations, workers are quick to waive their rights and employers are quick to take advantage and cut costs in the area of employee safety. Since the worker was the one who waived their rights and will not willingly complain to the proper authorities, if things are sub-standard, if any accidents occur in such conditions the employer cannot be held liable, thereby absolving them of all obligation to provide for the employees compensation. All these contribute to the undermining of the occupational health and safety regulation and the capacity of workers to exercise their rights, making a mockery of these laws and legislations put in place during the Keynesian welfare state era to protect the rights and health of workers as fellow human beings.

Given the amount of people who labour day-in and day-out under precarious conditions, the government ought to take up the slack of enforcing the policies put in place to protect workers in such situations and prosecute to the full extent of the law those found not in compliance. More reforms should be made to the effect of the 2010 Bill 168 which states that a workers right to refuse extended to risk of violence; harassment and violence policies. Reforms to the effect of providing workers with the social, legal and economic support to enable them exercise their rights without fear of repercussions or financial and social doom. Also the government should provide training and access to information – more detailed and precise and regular training requirements which are audited for quality; Additional requirements for new workers. Include worker controlled and delivered training.

Therefore the onus is on the government to provide and enforce laws that would protect the workers in its labour market, so that its labour market would be world-ready to compete on a global stage. This will lead to growth in the economy in the long run, as standard of living would improve. Thereby achieve the goals of the neo-liberal government through Keynesian methods, moving for a well-balanced work and life ratio in its workforce.

These much needed changes are also needed fast; to stop the downward spiral of the working conditions afforded the Canadian labour market, which would undo all the progress and achievements of the last two centuries.

References

Projects. (2007, December). Retrieved November 25, 2010, from ACTEW: Keeping Women Current: http://www.actew.org/projects/pwpsite/snapshots/canadian_women.html

Employment Standards. (2008, march 11). Retrieved November 25, 2010, from Human resources and skill developement Canada: http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/labour/employment_standards/fls/submissions/formal_briefs/brief12/page03.shtml

David E. Guest, K. I. ( 2010 ). Employment Contracts, Psychological Contracts, and Worker Well-Being:. In An International Study (p. 249). Oxford University Press,.

F.Vosko, L. (2003, September). PRECARIOUS EMPLOYMENT IN CANADA: TAKING STOCK, TAKING ACTION. Retrieved November 25, 2010, from Just Labour: http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca/volume3/vosko_justlabour.PDF

Frade, C. (2004). Precarious employment in Europe: Final Report. Barcelona: EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

Rodgers, G. (1989). Precarious work in western Europe: The state of the debate. In G. R. Rodgers, Precarious jobs in labour market regulation: The growth of atypical employmentin western Europe (p. 1). Geneva.

Rogers, D. J. (2001). Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship. Canadian Journal of Sociology Online , http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/reviews/tempwork.html.

Vosko, L. F. (2006). Precarious employment: understanding labour market insecurity in Canada. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP.

Werner Nienhüser. (2005). Flexible work - atypical work - precarious work? Rainer Hampp Verlag.

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