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11 April, 2002There is a clear link between stress and other workplace issues such as working time and payment systems. Therefore, it is a topic for trade union policy and should enter the field of collective bargaining.
BY ANNE-MARIE MUREAU
Everybody knows what stress is all about. It is a common feature of modern life. Most people are exposed to daily pressures both in the workplace and outside, and are used to coping with moderate amounts without suffering any major ill effects. Some people are even more productive and energetic when they work under stress. Indeed, there are good stressors that can promote wellness and stimulate creativity.
But if stress is intense and continuous, if pressures pile up, then it can cause physical illness and psychological disorders. Numerous surveys confirm that the problem has progressively escalated everywhere ¡V in developed but also developing countries.
Stress has become a major health and safety issue across all occupations and sizes of companies, in the public and private sectors. It can no longer be ignored or merely be tackled with remedial treatment.
DEATH FROM OVERWORK
According to the Third European Survey on Working Conditions carried out by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, work is the main cause of stress for over one-third of employees in Europe. In Japan, the proportion of workers suffering from serious anxieties or stress in their working life increased from 53 per cent in 1982 to 63 per cent in 1997, and karoshi ¡V or death from overwork ¡V continues to be a serious issue.
With firms adopting new personnel management policies on account of the recession or for the purpose of strengthening their competitiveness, this trend is bound to accelerate. In the United Kingdom, 54 per cent of the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation's safety representatives have identified stress as one of their top five health and safety concerns and fifty-five percent of the branch secretaries have singled it out as a top priority.
WHAT CAUSES STRESS?
Generally, stress results from a combination of factors which are difficult to separate. However, as research has shown, the high-pressure environment of the modern workplace accounts for most of the problems linked to stress and burnout. The globalisation of economies has prompted significant modifications in the nature and organisation of work and brought workers under ever-increasing pressure. The work/life balance has been disrupted by job insecurity and the related hire-and-fire culture, rising unemployment, heavier workloads, more intense demands, flexible working arrangements and more technology. Although trade unions in a number of countries have been quite successful in the struggle to reduce working time, this has often been accompanied by an increase in overtime ¡V unofficial and unpaid.
Restructuring, lean production, subcontracting and outsourcing reduce the number of jobs and put higher requirements on individual workers, in terms of both quality and quantity of production. Workers have to adjust continuously to new working methods and management techniques, they have to deliver faster and make better products and services at lower prices. They have to work at high speed and tight, often unrealistic, deadlines. The nature of work is also changing and more driven by customer demand. The client is king and determining the work rhythm. With their competitive requirements, companies today have become real stress-producing factories. It is no longer machines which break down. It is the workers themselves.
THE IT REVOLUTION FUELS STRESS
The incursion of information technology is not extraneous to this development. The pressure of mastering the IT revolution fuels workplace stress. Moreover, new technology and computer science are imposing their rhythm on daily life and make the borderline between work and private life more and more blurred. Working schedules are no longer what they were yesterday.
In many companies, for certain categories of employees, time is becoming less relevant. What matters is the carrying out of projects and achieving the predetermined goals. The notion of working time is vanishing and the employee's attitude is increasingly dictated by the need to attain these objectives. Many people are taking their work home and log in as teleworkers. Whether they have to work overtime to achieve these results is not management's concern.
"Do whatever you like but make sure that you are profitable" is the motto in many companies. The high-return requirements imposed by shareholders take precedence over workers' interests and exert excessive pressure on them. This pressure does not necessarily come from management alone but also from other colleagues. As expressed by the head of the IBM Works Council in Germany, "cruel mechanisms" may "take place between the co-workers. It is peer pressure aimed at those who do not go along and who do not contribute towards the survival of the business unit" (Wilfried Glissmann in the IMF Report on "Stress and Burnout"). These developments are undermining solidarity and cooperation among workers and thus contributing to tension in the workplace.
Control and autonomy are another important dimension to understand whether or not people develop stress. As research has shown, a situation of high demand combined with low worker control over the work process can lead to stress and related illnesses.
Stress is a topic that is discussed more and more in the media. In Sweden, for example, it has been given a high profile in the press and is the subject of numerous debates.
THE COST OF STRESS
Stress has a high cost ¡V a high human cost but also a high financial cost ¡V and it figures as one of the main causes of sick leave. A number of studies underline the fact that the costs of stress to society are increasing continuously.
High levels of stress have detrimental effects on workers' health and may lead to a variety of disorders and illness, including hypertension and also alter the immune system. In addition, the loss of capacity to cope with working and social situations can lead to less success at work, possibly unemployment. It can give rise to greater strain in family relationships and even result in depression or death.
For companies, the cost of stress is multifaceted. It can be reflected in absenteeism, higher medical costs and employee turnover, with the associated cost of recruiting and training new workers. It can also take the form of diminished productivity and efficiency.
This cost factor should already be a good reason for governments and employers to act and take effective steps to improve the situation.
Cost of work-related stress:
„h In the United Kingdom, it has been suggested that over 40 million working days are lost each year due to stress-related disorders. According to one estimate, stress costs British industry two or three per cent of gross domestic product a year.
„h In Australia, the federal assistant minister for industrial relations estimated the cost of occupational stress to be around A$30 million in 1994 (US$22 million). A$55 million were paid out on stress claims in 1998/99.
„h In the United States, over half of the 550 million working days lost each year due to absenteeism are stress-related.
„h In Switzerland, the direct costs of stress amounted to about CHF4.2 billion (US$ 2.6 billion) in 2000.
Source: ILO, Safework and International Metalworkers' Federation. For Switzerland, figures from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
When the issue is raised, employers often point at personal problems of employees. They argue that stress is primarily a matter of individual differences and the level of work-related stress cannot be correctly measured. As a result, they do not bother to question the way work is organised or what the content of tasks is. Moreover, psychology and occupational doctors are claimed to cure people, and not so much the workplace or work organisation. They encourage them to cope with stress by prescribing tranquillisers and other drugs. Not only does this not tackle the underlying cause, but there are all reasons to believe that it could lead to long-term dependence and additional health problems.
Stress needs to be controlled at the source. Stress management techniques and complementary medicine may have some positive benefits in the short term and help relieve the strains caused by stress, but they cannot remove the source of stress itself. To be successful, any strategy should not focus on the individual in isolation, but look at the relationship between the worker, his/her job context and working conditions, and incorporate changes upstream at the workplace as well.
Job stress is the result of a "mismatch" between the worker and his/her job. There is a clear linkage between stress and other workplace issues such as, for example, enterprise restructuring and employment, working time, flexibility, skills development, payment systems, control and participation. It is a topic for trade union policy and should, therefore, enter the field of collective bargaining.
Stress should also be the subject of minimum international norms Most countries have standards for health and safety provisions at the workplace, but these standards tend to focus on the physical aspects and do not clearly include the psychological or mental health aspects of working conditions. Action should be taken within the ILO to set legally binding standards in this field and devise effective implementation mechanisms.
SOME TRADE UNION RESPONSES.
As indicated above, stress emanates to a large extent from the way work is organised. It can therefore only be prevented if workers seek to have the work reorganised, collectively through their unions. In this connection, some IMF affiliates have broken new ground and started working out innovative approaches. In the Netherlands, for instance, the FNV has developed an instrument called "the Quick Scan Stress" which consists of a questionnaire and an associated computer programme to analyse the results. It has enabled unions to identify the causes of stress and put the issue on the company agenda.
In Germany, IG Metall launched an initiative in 1999 under the motto "Arbeiten ohne Ende ¡V meine Zeit ist mein Leben" (Work without end ¡V my life is my time) and opened a debate on this issue in enterprises and throughout the union structure. This initiative met with a good response both on the shopfloor and amongst the general public and has generated a great deal of debate throughout the entire country. IG Metall will pursue this campaign, enhance cooperation with practitioners of occupational medicine and researchers, and expand existing networks.
In Sweden, the SIF has produced a CD-Rom with the name "Allt har sin tid" (There is a right time for everything) which describes the balance which must be struck between work/leisure/rest, and the repercussions if the proper balance is absent.
In Canada, the autoworkers' union CAW is carrying out a study in cooperation with medical staff and university researchers on the relationship between work organisation and blood pressure levels of autoworkers. In Japan, Denki Rengo (Japanese Electrical, Electronic & Information Union) established a "Heartful" Centre in 1999 as a concrete action policy towards providing mental health care. The Centre provides consultation to union members and their families over the telephone (toll-free dial) on matters of mental health. Services are provided by the Centre on a strictly confidential and anonymous basis.
In the United Kingdom, the issue of work-related stress has come to the fore over the past few years, and there are encouraging signs that stress will be put on a statutory footing. It would seem that the government has recognised the problem, and the trade unions are also pushing for legislation. At the moment, the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) is working with the Corus Group to develop an occupational health and safety training which deals with bullying, harassment and stress.
NEW ATTITUDES ARE NEEDED.
Addressing the negative consequences of changes in the nature of work has always been a key function of industrial relations. Constantly changing organisation of work and its corollary stress and burnout are challenges for organised workers and the trade unions. New attitudes and strategies are needed to tackle this new area of worker protection.
Raising awareness among the union membership is an important element in advocating stress prevention measures. Unions must promote understanding of the stress syndrome, its causes and the problems that result from it, and explain the need for early intervention. They should include awareness-building exercises in their activities to enable their members to demand that employers take the necessary measures upstream and that prevention prevails over cure.
But if stress is intense and continuous, if pressures pile up, then it can cause physical illness and psychological disorders. Numerous surveys confirm that the problem has progressively escalated everywhere ¡V in developed but also developing countries.
Stress has become a major health and safety issue across all occupations and sizes of companies, in the public and private sectors. It can no longer be ignored or merely be tackled with remedial treatment.
DEATH FROM OVERWORK
According to the Third European Survey on Working Conditions carried out by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, work is the main cause of stress for over one-third of employees in Europe. In Japan, the proportion of workers suffering from serious anxieties or stress in their working life increased from 53 per cent in 1982 to 63 per cent in 1997, and karoshi ¡V or death from overwork ¡V continues to be a serious issue.
With firms adopting new personnel management policies on account of the recession or for the purpose of strengthening their competitiveness, this trend is bound to accelerate. In the United Kingdom, 54 per cent of the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation's safety representatives have identified stress as one of their top five health and safety concerns and fifty-five percent of the branch secretaries have singled it out as a top priority.
WHAT CAUSES STRESS?
Generally, stress results from a combination of factors which are difficult to separate. However, as research has shown, the high-pressure environment of the modern workplace accounts for most of the problems linked to stress and burnout. The globalisation of economies has prompted significant modifications in the nature and organisation of work and brought workers under ever-increasing pressure. The work/life balance has been disrupted by job insecurity and the related hire-and-fire culture, rising unemployment, heavier workloads, more intense demands, flexible working arrangements and more technology. Although trade unions in a number of countries have been quite successful in the struggle to reduce working time, this has often been accompanied by an increase in overtime ¡V unofficial and unpaid.
Restructuring, lean production, subcontracting and outsourcing reduce the number of jobs and put higher requirements on individual workers, in terms of both quality and quantity of production. Workers have to adjust continuously to new working methods and management techniques, they have to deliver faster and make better products and services at lower prices. They have to work at high speed and tight, often unrealistic, deadlines. The nature of work is also changing and more driven by customer demand. The client is king and determining the work rhythm. With their competitive requirements, companies today have become real stress-producing factories. It is no longer machines which break down. It is the workers themselves.
THE IT REVOLUTION FUELS STRESS
The incursion of information technology is not extraneous to this development. The pressure of mastering the IT revolution fuels workplace stress. Moreover, new technology and computer science are imposing their rhythm on daily life and make the borderline between work and private life more and more blurred. Working schedules are no longer what they were yesterday.
In many companies, for certain categories of employees, time is becoming less relevant. What matters is the carrying out of projects and achieving the predetermined goals. The notion of working time is vanishing and the employee's attitude is increasingly dictated by the need to attain these objectives. Many people are taking their work home and log in as teleworkers. Whether they have to work overtime to achieve these results is not management's concern.
"Do whatever you like but make sure that you are profitable" is the motto in many companies. The high-return requirements imposed by shareholders take precedence over workers' interests and exert excessive pressure on them. This pressure does not necessarily come from management alone but also from other colleagues. As expressed by the head of the IBM Works Council in Germany, "cruel mechanisms" may "take place between the co-workers. It is peer pressure aimed at those who do not go along and who do not contribute towards the survival of the business unit" (Wilfried Glissmann in the IMF Report on "Stress and Burnout"). These developments are undermining solidarity and cooperation among workers and thus contributing to tension in the workplace.
Control and autonomy are another important dimension to understand whether or not people develop stress. As research has shown, a situation of high demand combined with low worker control over the work process can lead to stress and related illnesses.
Stress is a topic that is discussed more and more in the media. In Sweden, for example, it has been given a high profile in the press and is the subject of numerous debates.
THE COST OF STRESS
Stress has a high cost ¡V a high human cost but also a high financial cost ¡V and it figures as one of the main causes of sick leave. A number of studies underline the fact that the costs of stress to society are increasing continuously.
High levels of stress have detrimental effects on workers' health and may lead to a variety of disorders and illness, including hypertension and also alter the immune system. In addition, the loss of capacity to cope with working and social situations can lead to less success at work, possibly unemployment. It can give rise to greater strain in family relationships and even result in depression or death.
For companies, the cost of stress is multifaceted. It can be reflected in absenteeism, higher medical costs and employee turnover, with the associated cost of recruiting and training new workers. It can also take the form of diminished productivity and efficiency.
This cost factor should already be a good reason for governments and employers to act and take effective steps to improve the situation.
Cost of work-related stress:
„h In the United Kingdom, it has been suggested that over 40 million working days are lost each year due to stress-related disorders. According to one estimate, stress costs British industry two or three per cent of gross domestic product a year.
„h In Australia, the federal assistant minister for industrial relations estimated the cost of occupational stress to be around A$30 million in 1994 (US$22 million). A$55 million were paid out on stress claims in 1998/99.
„h In the United States, over half of the 550 million working days lost each year due to absenteeism are stress-related.
„h In Switzerland, the direct costs of stress amounted to about CHF4.2 billion (US$ 2.6 billion) in 2000.
Source: ILO, Safework and International Metalworkers' Federation. For Switzerland, figures from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
When the issue is raised, employers often point at personal problems of employees. They argue that stress is primarily a matter of individual differences and the level of work-related stress cannot be correctly measured. As a result, they do not bother to question the way work is organised or what the content of tasks is. Moreover, psychology and occupational doctors are claimed to cure people, and not so much the workplace or work organisation. They encourage them to cope with stress by prescribing tranquillisers and other drugs. Not only does this not tackle the underlying cause, but there are all reasons to believe that it could lead to long-term dependence and additional health problems.
Stress needs to be controlled at the source. Stress management techniques and complementary medicine may have some positive benefits in the short term and help relieve the strains caused by stress, but they cannot remove the source of stress itself. To be successful, any strategy should not focus on the individual in isolation, but look at the relationship between the worker, his/her job context and working conditions, and incorporate changes upstream at the workplace as well.
Job stress is the result of a "mismatch" between the worker and his/her job. There is a clear linkage between stress and other workplace issues such as, for example, enterprise restructuring and employment, working time, flexibility, skills development, payment systems, control and participation. It is a topic for trade union policy and should, therefore, enter the field of collective bargaining.
Stress should also be the subject of minimum international norms Most countries have standards for health and safety provisions at the workplace, but these standards tend to focus on the physical aspects and do not clearly include the psychological or mental health aspects of working conditions. Action should be taken within the ILO to set legally binding standards in this field and devise effective implementation mechanisms.
SOME TRADE UNION RESPONSES.
As indicated above, stress emanates to a large extent from the way work is organised. It can therefore only be prevented if workers seek to have the work reorganised, collectively through their unions. In this connection, some IMF affiliates have broken new ground and started working out innovative approaches. In the Netherlands, for instance, the FNV has developed an instrument called "the Quick Scan Stress" which consists of a questionnaire and an associated computer programme to analyse the results. It has enabled unions to identify the causes of stress and put the issue on the company agenda.
In Germany, IG Metall launched an initiative in 1999 under the motto "Arbeiten ohne Ende ¡V meine Zeit ist mein Leben" (Work without end ¡V my life is my time) and opened a debate on this issue in enterprises and throughout the union structure. This initiative met with a good response both on the shopfloor and amongst the general public and has generated a great deal of debate throughout the entire country. IG Metall will pursue this campaign, enhance cooperation with practitioners of occupational medicine and researchers, and expand existing networks.
In Sweden, the SIF has produced a CD-Rom with the name "Allt har sin tid" (There is a right time for everything) which describes the balance which must be struck between work/leisure/rest, and the repercussions if the proper balance is absent.
In Canada, the autoworkers' union CAW is carrying out a study in cooperation with medical staff and university researchers on the relationship between work organisation and blood pressure levels of autoworkers. In Japan, Denki Rengo (Japanese Electrical, Electronic & Information Union) established a "Heartful" Centre in 1999 as a concrete action policy towards providing mental health care. The Centre provides consultation to union members and their families over the telephone (toll-free dial) on matters of mental health. Services are provided by the Centre on a strictly confidential and anonymous basis.
In the United Kingdom, the issue of work-related stress has come to the fore over the past few years, and there are encouraging signs that stress will be put on a statutory footing. It would seem that the government has recognised the problem, and the trade unions are also pushing for legislation. At the moment, the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) is working with the Corus Group to develop an occupational health and safety training which deals with bullying, harassment and stress.
NEW ATTITUDES ARE NEEDED.
Addressing the negative consequences of changes in the nature of work has always been a key function of industrial relations. Constantly changing organisation of work and its corollary stress and burnout are challenges for organised workers and the trade unions. New attitudes and strategies are needed to tackle this new area of worker protection.
Raising awareness among the union membership is an important element in advocating stress prevention measures. Unions must promote understanding of the stress syndrome, its causes and the problems that result from it, and explain the need for early intervention. They should include awareness-building exercises in their activities to enable their members to demand that employers take the necessary measures upstream and that prevention prevails over cure.