South African mineworkers' perspectives on the right to refuse dangerous work and the constraints to worker self-regulation

Coulson, Nancy; Stewart, Paul; Saeed, Shaista Afzal

doi:10.17159/2411-9717/2019/v119n1a3

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(19 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These studies from a holistic perspective seek to understand both the external and internal determinants of the workplace that influence the effectiveness of worker participation. In this sense, the following external determinants can be identified: macrocontextual factors, related to policies and systems of legal regulation of occupational health [28,29], such as the capacity of representatives and workers to paralyze productive activity in the face of serious or imminent risk [30]; the promotion of regulations that reward the integration of the prevention management system through its own means to facilitate participation [31]; the promotion of participation through the requirements of the labour inspection [32], regulations that do not systematically make technicians responsible for the prevention of accidents in companies to prevent expert knowledge from blocking participation [33]; or the promotion of policies for the representation of interests that facilitate decentralised self-regulation through the participation of autonomous trade unions [27,34]. The internal factors that influence the effectiveness of participation are business leadership and willingness to promote a participatory culture [35][36][37][38][39][40]; training and empowerment of workers and their representatives to collectively challenge unsafe situations [37][38][39]; the size of the workplace and the sector of activity to the extent that participation is greater in larger workplaces and in industries where occupational risks are more evident [18,27,41]; in addition, greater capacity for participation will exist when specialized occupational health representation is unionized [42] or has strong external support from the union [43,44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the Direct Participation of Workers on the Rates of Absenteeism in the Spanish Labor Environment

Castiblanque

2020

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of this research was to study the relationship between the different levels of direct participation of workers (passive, consultative or active-delegated) in risk prevention management with the levels of absenteeism in Spain. To this end, a transversal study was carried out using microdata from the Second European Survey of Companies on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-2-Spain, 2014) with a master population of 3162 work centres. A multinomial logistic regression model was carried out, with the dependent variable being the levels of absenteeism and the independent variables, the participation indicators and preventive management, calculating the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) between all the independent and control variables, with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% IC). The results obtained showed how the active-delegative participation of workers in the design and adoption of psychosocial risk prevention measures reported 2.33 less probabilities of having a very high or fairly high level of absenteeism (aOR = 0.43; 95%IC:0.27–0.69). However, having documented aspects of preventive management (plan, risk assessment, planning measures) did not have any impact on absenteeism levels, which shows that we can fall into an unrealistic institutional mirage of security with active policies of co-education or co-management being necessary to reduce absenteeism.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the Direct Participation of Workers on the Rates of Absenteeism in the Spanish Labor Environment

Castiblanque

2020

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Of the 13 policy intervention research studies, all were conducted in LMICs with the purpose of either evaluating a specific policy intervention or exploring the experiences of workers or key informants with existing policies or programmes. Of these, 9 were in relation to extending health insurance to informal workers [ 59 – 67 ], 3 were about extending occupational health and safety services to informal workers [ 68 – 70 ], and 1 was about the implementation of the right to refuse dangerous work in South African mines [ 71 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because informal workers remain excluded from the health and safety regulatory system, diverse interventions were attempted to extend occupational health and safety to informal workers, including the development of a health and safety program by non-governmental organizations with urban street vendors in South Africa [ 68 ] and by community stakeholders in rural Thai settings [ 69 ] and awareness program on various occupational health hazards among the ragpickers in India [ 70 ]. Even though informal workers are given the right to refuse dangerous work as in the case of South African mine workers [ 71 ], significant gaps in implementation were identified due to the predominant practice of non-confrontational consultation with supervisors.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does informal employment affect health and health equity? Emerging gaps in research from a scoping review and modified e-Delphi survey

Lee

Ruggiero

2022

Int J Equity Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction This article reports on the results from a scoping review and a modified e-Delphi survey with experts which aimed to synthesize existing knowledge and identify research gaps on the health and health equity implications of informal employment in both low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). Methods The scoping review included peer-reviewed articles published online between January 2015 and December 2019 in English. Additionally, a modified e-Delphi survey with experts was conducted to validate our findings from the scoping review and receive feedback on additional research and policy gaps. We drew on micro- and macro-level frameworks on employment relations and health inequities developed by the Employment Conditions Knowledge Network to synthesize and analyze existing literature. Results A total of 540 articles were screened, and 57 met the eligibility criteria for this scoping review study, including 36 on micro-level research, 19 on macro-level research, and 13 on policy intervention research. Most of the included studies were conducted in LMICs while the research interest in informal work and health has increased globally. Findings from existing literature on the health and health equity implications of informal employment are mixed: informal employment does not necessarily lead to poorer health outcomes than formal employment. Although all informal workers share some fundamental vulnerabilities, including harmful working conditions and limited access to health and social protections, the related health implications vary according to the sub-groups of workers (e.g., gender) and the country context (e.g., types of welfare state or labour market). In the modified e-Delphi survey, participants showed a high level of agreement on a lack of consensus on the definition of informal employment, the usefulness of the concept of informal employment, the need for more comparative policy research, qualitative health research, and research on the intersection between gender and informal employment. Conclusions Our results clearly identify the need for more research to further understand the various mechanisms through which informal employment affects health in different countries and for different groups of informal workers.

show abstract

“…Globally the arrangements for HSRs are associated with positive OHS outcomes (Nichols et al, 2007;Walters and Nichols, 2007;Walters et al, 2016) and the overall positive safety performance of the mining sector post-apartheid would appear to lend weight to this. In support of this a South African study of the right to leave a dangerous workplace (MHSA section 23) found workers were more likely to leave a dangerous workplace under instruction of an HSR than of their own volition (Coulson et al, 2019). However weaknesses in the tripartite project have emerged at the national level, which demands a closer examination of what is contributing to the reported OHS improvements.…”

Section: The Tripartite Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

How worker health and safety representatives are captured and outdone by production on South African mines

Coulson

Christofides

2019

Economic and Industrial Democracy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In South Africa, post-apartheid, under the Mine Health and Safety Act No. 29 of 1996, workers elect health and safety representatives (HSRs). Descriptive case studies were conducted at four underground mine sites (gold, platinum and diamond) to explore the relationship between employer safety management and HSRs. A systems approach (socio-autopoiesis) is used as a metaphor for the circular/closed communication that ensured HSRs were dominated by employer interests and let down by the regulator. The stance of the employer to worker representation has not significantly changed since the managerial self-regulation prevalent in the demise of apartheid years. Given union membership is high, the capacity of HSRs to act without reference to management is uniquely compromised and presents as an anomaly in studies of worker representatives worldwide.

show abstract

South African mineworkers' perspectives on the right to refuse dangerous work and the constraints to worker self-regulation

Cited by 6 publications

References 17 publications

The Impact of the Direct Participation of Workers on the Rates of Absenteeism in the Spanish Labor Environment

The Impact of the Direct Participation of Workers on the Rates of Absenteeism in the Spanish Labor Environment

How does informal employment affect health and health equity? Emerging gaps in research from a scoping review and modified e-Delphi survey

How worker health and safety representatives are captured and outdone by production on South African mines

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About