Employmentweb_low

employment relations and health inequalities: a conceptual and empirical overvieW
survey. the slaughterhouse employs 170 people (60% women; 90% manual workers; 6% administrative; and 4% managers
and supervisors, all of whom are men) and constitutes a typical example of taylorist work organisation, with strong job
segregation according to planning/execution and gender. most employees there work in low-content, repetitive tasks, under
high psychological demands, low control, uncomfortable ergonomic and physical conditions (working posture, repetitive
movements, high humidity and low temperature), and are exposed to safety hazards related to the use of cutting machines
and tools. cross-sectional data shows that the best self-perceived health rises among workers as age increases for both
the men and the women of the slaughterhouse, showing a "survival effect". this is the opposite of what we might expect and
is observed in the case of the control population. that is, only healthier people "survive" to old ages in this company because
people who become ill are pushed away from their jobs at younger ages. confirmation that this was the most likely
explanation was obtained by interviewing worker representatives and managers in the context of a health-risk assessment
procedure forced by the union workers.
more than a century ago, upton sinclair's novel The Jungle strikingly illustrated the brutal working conditions of
physical danger, insecurity, fear, exploitation, and filth in the chicago meatpacking industry, helping to force the long-stalled
pure Food and drug act and the meat inspection act, which became laws in the us in June 1906. in the beginning of the
21st century, this spanish slaughterhouse case study exemplifies the need to implement and enforce new laws to drastically
transform the widespread, very unhealthy taylorist model of work organisation.
Table. self-perceived general health (%) of the slaughterhouse workers and the employed control
population in tertiles by sex and age.
SElF-PErCEIVED GEnEral HEalTH (Percentage of workers by tertiles)
SlaUGHTErHOUSE
EMPlOyED COnTrOl POPUlaTIOn
Worst Medium Best Worst Medium Best
MEn
£ 35 28.3 10.0 53.3 25.4 29.6 45.0
36-45 25.9 0.0 59.3 39.3 29.5 31.1
> 45 5.7 17.0 67.0 51.4 22.0 26.6
WOMEn
£ 35 17.3 21.6 56.2 24.4 22.6 53.0
36-45 16.4 6.6 59.0 35.4 26.3 38.4
> 45 13.5 5.4 78.4 36.2 27.6 36.2
Source: the authors
Case study 32. Occupational health inequalities in the United States: The workforce changes, but patterns persist. - dana loomis
throughout its history, the economy of the united states has depended on the labour of workers from ethnic and racial minority
groups and new immigrants. in the early years, these workers helped build the nation; the system of plantation agriculture that was
established in the south during the colonial period was sustained by the work of africans brought to the new World as slaves. as
the nation expanded and industrialised in the nineteenth century, new immigrants from europe toiled in the factories of the north,
and chinese labourers built the railroads and worked the mines in the west. today, a rapidly-growing population of migrants from
latin america fills the demand for labour in construction, cleaning, landscaping, food service, and other essential but low-paying
occupations. the american economy's historical dependence on minority and immigrant labour is linked to pervasive patterns of
discrimination that have resulted in inequalities in both exposure to occupational hazards and health outcomes. african-americans
have endured a particularly long history of discriminatory placement in dirty and dangerous jobs. a notable example of these
practices in the modern era was documented in an epidemiological study of workers in the u.s. steel industry (lloyd, 1971): excess
lung cancer in this large cohort was almost entirely attributable to a tenfold increase in lung cancer mortality among workers on
the top side of the coke ovens (a hot location with heavy exposure to fumes), of whom 80 per cent were african-american. recent
research suggests that discriminatory work assignment also occurs with respect to injury hazards, and that it continued to operate
in the last decades of the twentieth century. data from the state of north carolina for 1977-1991 show divergent patterns of
employment by race and higher rates of fatal occupational injury among african-americans compared to white workers, which
persisted even after adjustment for employment structure (loomis & richardson, 1998). these findings suggest differences in risk
between african- and european-american workers supposedly performing the same job. the ethnic and gender profile of the u.s.
workforce is continuing to evolve, as it has throughout the nation's history, but although the groups affected may change,
occupational health disparities based on ethnicity and race persist. our research with national data suggests that as hispanic
workers began to move into the u.s. labour force in large numbers in the 1990s, they began to replace african-americans as the
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