 |
| MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
AND LAW SECTION 4: GLOBALISATION AND ITS IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SAFETY: 3: The Impact Of Globalisation On Occupational Health And Safety. |
|
| MODULE 7: SOCIOLOGY OF WORK, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
AND LAW SECTION 4: GLOBALISATION AND ITS IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SAFETY: 3: The Impact Of Globalisation On Occupational Health And Safety. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Substantial impacts on employment, conditions of work and working life have resulted from the globalisation process particularly as a consequence of increased competition, deregulation, privatisation, corporate restructuring and transfer of old and introduction of new technologies and hazards. Prevention of occupational injury and disease and promotion of worker health are increasingly seen as a cost, as has been the case traditionally, and also as barriers to trade in the global economy. For example, free trade zones have typically been characterized by the suspension of occupational health and safety regulations as incentives to investors. In another example, Canada opposed the process of instituting an European ban on trade in asbestos by taking the issue to the World Trade Organisation. It claimed that its right to do business was being compromised in terms of World Trade Organisation rules and sought to have the ban overturned on grounds of freedom of trade with no reference to health and safety considerations. It could be argued that under globalisation there is an accelerated and systematic externalization of the real costs of occupational injury and illness. The implications for work in the agricultural sector are legion and include for example increased trade in pesticides that are banned in DCs but marketed to less developed countries. (excerpt from Myers, 2003).
As discussed above, the impact of globalisation has been both, positive and negative. Similarly, in occupational health and safety, globalisation has resulted in improvement of working conditions, but simultaneously created new hazardous working environments.
The positive impacts are examined more closely in Subsection 2.4, when examining the WHO's "Global Strategy for Occupational Health for All".
Globalisation, and its resultant impact on the changing nature of work, organisation of work and exportation of technology have meant that in some parts of the world (particularly the developed countries), the traditional occupational hazards have given rise to new. However, in other parts of the world, the new hazards have simply been added to traditional occupational hazards. Additionally, the negative impacts of globalisation on the lives of workers have extended beyond just the workplace, but increasingly impacts on the communities in which they live, through elevated levels of environmental pollution.
Psychological and sociological hazards in the workplace have become more evident in the last few decades. With globalisation, and the increasing division of the production process among different centres, nationally and internationally, major industries are "outsourcing" many aspects of the production process. For example in the motor industry, a smaller company may provide the foam for car seats, to be upholstered by another company, with a third being responsible for the components of the interior trimmings, another for the exterior trimmings, and so on. This results in small companies, employing fewer workers, with less resources to provide for occupational health and safety measures. Because of size, these companies are difficult to organise, workers are at greater risk for job loss, and may be forced to work longer hours. Such working conditions result in greater considerably lower job control resulting in psychological stress.
Increasing role of technology has similar psychological stress effects, with the greater automation of processes, workers become video display terminal (VDT) watchers, rather than become integrated into producing a useful consumer item. This devaluation of the role of the worker, the loss of job control, with an expectation of increasing production, provides the key ingredients for workplace stress (see section on Work and Stress).
Although the above psychosocial hazards are also found in developing countries, the traditional occupational hazards, such as pneumoconiosis, trauma, skin disorders, which have reduced prevalence in advanced economies, are still present, and sometimes with increasing prevalence in developing countries. However, in addition to these, globalisation presents with a range of new occupational health problems or conditions in these countries. These include increasing role of women in hazardous work, migrant workers, use of child labour, problems associated with "Export Processing Zones" (EPZ's) and the creation of national policy environments and regulatory frameworks that are less stringent than the developed countries in order to allow investment.
Workers follow the scent of increasing industrialisation and stability, just as much as multinational corporations follow the path of least worker organisation and cheapest labour. Transnational migrant workers, though resented by locals, are generally attracted to the more developed countries within a particular region (e.g a more economically stable South Africa continually attracts thousands of migrants from other sub-Saharan countries). These workers often are employed at lower wages, not registered with the authorities and are always at risk of losing their jobs. Should they become sick or injured, they are forced to return to the homelands, without proper access to medical attention and without being able to access the compensation system. Recent studies in South Africa have demonstrated the size of this problem of uncompensated migrant workers.
Women workers, enduring greater disempowerment in the workplace, have their risks increased through the process of globalisation. Generally working in jobs with far greater insecurity than men, particularly in the informal sector, women dominated jobs are poorly regulated. With the increase in the size of the informal sector, increasing employment of women, has meant that women have taken on dual responsibilities, with household work still forming part of their daily workload. In addition, with the export of unsafe technologies, women of childbearing age are at greater risk of poor reproductive health outcomes. (Women at work is discussed in greater detail in Section 6) (Loewenson, 2000).
In order for developing economies to compete in the era of globalisation, irrespective of the progressive poicies of the national governments of such countries, some curtailment on workers' rights are considered to be necessary. This is usually achieved by the establishment of "export processing zones" (EPZ's), areas located in the poorer parts of the country, with high levels of unemployment. In these areas, trade union rights are curtailed, basic wage limits lower than the rest of the country, and labour legislation, including health and safety standards generally exempted. All of these measures are aimed at ensuring that production costs are kept to a minimum, such that these products can be sold on international markets at more competitive prices than products from developed countries. EPZ's have been associated with higher than normal levels of exposure to dusts, noise and chemicals, and experience higher rates of injuries (Loewenson, 2001).
Of particular importance to developing economies, is the impact of globalisation on agriculture, and of health and safety in this specific economic sector. For most developing countries, agriculture is the driving force of their economies. However, prices and productivity for traditional cash crops which characterized earlier phases of globalisation, and whose production is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa, have been static or declining. Declines in transport and storage costs have opening up new market potential for non-traditional exports, and some less developed countries have been able to take advantage of these advances of globalisation and to diversify their exports into new crops that are in increasing demand such as flowers, fruit and vegetables. However, poor infrastructure in rural areas in the less developed countries has meant that these countries have nevertheless been slow in adopting new technologies and in attracting foreign direct investment to their agricultural sectors Myers, 2004
Agricultural work constitutes one of the three most hazardous occupations along with the extractive industry and construction worldwide [International Labour Organisation, 1999]. This is the case even in the developed countries where the preventive infrastructure is much more developed. For example in the US the fatality rate for farmworkers is 5 times that of all other sectors. The main problems are occupational injuries (including fatalities) arising from machinery and transport equipment, and poisoning from agrichemicals. All the other generic occupational risks abound whether physical, biological, ergonomic or social-organisational. The WHO has estimated that between 3 and 4 million pesticide poisonings occur each year with tens of thousands of fatalities (Myers, 2003).
Other hazards experienced by the developing countries with increasing globalisation has been the transportation of hazardous material from countries of origin - usually the developed countries, to developing countries. This has been made easier by the opening of markets, ease of transportation across seaways, and the need of foreign capital by developing countries. In many instances, this has not just been the exportation of hazardous materials, but the exportation of hazardous plants themselves - the examples of Union Carbide (US) in Bhopal, India and much closer home, Thor Chemicals (UK) in Cato-Ridge, semi-rural Kwazulu-Natal. It has been argued that many of these multinational corporations (MNC's) have well established standards of health and safety in their base countries, generally after decades of investigating these hazards, and continually devoting human and financial resources to ensuring maintenance to both internal and developed country legislative standards. However, when replicating the same process in the developing countries, similar standards are generally ignored. In investigating the disaster, in 1984, comparisons between the Bhopal plant and a similar US plant operated by Union Carbide showed lower standards in plant design and operation, safety auditing, worker training, staffing of hazardous jobs, plant maintenance and management accountability (Castleman, 1985). Many other MNC's conducted similar "double standards", as concluded in the research reports of several international agency investigations (ILO, 1984 and UN Centre on Transnational Corporations, 1985).
