Employmentweb_low

introduction
ourselves with six specific kinds of employment relations, which we
call employment conditions. This term refers to the conditions or
circumstances in which a person carries out their job or occupation.
It frequently presupposes the existence of an agreement or
relationship between an owner who hires workers and an employee
who sells his or her labour (see Glossary in section 1 of the
Appendices). These conditions, with a global scope, include fulltime
permanent or standard employment, unemployment,
precarious employment, informal employment and informal jobs,
child labour, and slavery/bonded labour.
Focusing more directly upon the workers themselves, working
conditions involve exposures in the workplace and the way work is
organised. Working conditions can be divided into physical,
chemical, biological and social exposures. Simply put, material
working conditions involve the physical, chemical, biological, and
ergonomic work environments, while the organisation of work
involves psychosocial environment, management and control, the
tasks performed by workers, and the technology being used.
Working conditions also include workplace hierarchy and power
relations, worker participation in decision-making, and social and
occupational discrimination.
To distinguish between these concepts, it is necessary to point
out that two people can perform the same job in the same
enterprise, sharing the same working conditions, yet nevertheless
be labouring under different employment conditions. The first
worker may be a permanent and direct employee of the enterprise,
while the second is a temporary worker contracted by an external
employer. In this case, there are three potential differences in
employment conditions. First, the first worker has a permanent
contract while the second has either a short-term contract or none
at all. Second, the first worker may be covered by the social security
system while the second receives partial or zero coverage. Finally,
the first worker may be part of a trade union while the second is not
eligible.
The ways in which any society approaches inequalities in health
is a political issue. On the one hand the inequalities may be accepted
as the inevitable result of individual differences in genetic
determinants, individual behaviours, or the market. On the other
hand, they can be seen as a social product that needs to be
remedied. Underpinning these different approaches to health
inequalities are not only divergent views of what is scientifically or
economically possible but also differing political and ideological
beliefs about what is desirable (Bambra, Fox, & Scott-Samuel, 2005).
Female agricultural workers during the
harvest (nepal).
source: © ilo/J. Maillard (1985)
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