Subcontractors and increased risk for work‐related diseases and absenteeism

Abstract

Subcontracting workers were found to have a higher risk of work-related diseases and a higher absenteeism rate than parent firm workers. Our study highlights the need to protect and improve the occupational health and safety of subcontractor employees.

Who is working while sick? Nonstandard employment and its association with absenteeism and presenteeism in South Korea

“…Absenteeism measures two different issues simultaneously: (1) whether workers are sick, and (2) whether workers are allowed to take leave when sick. Regarding the first issue, we expect that the nonstandard employment group in this study may have poor overall health, based on the previous studies about the health of fixed-term (Kim et al 2008a(Kim et al , 2012Lewchuk et al 2003;Virtanen et al 2008) or subcontracted workers (Min et al 2013) in South Korea. When it comes to the second issue, we hypothesize that the parent firm-long term employment group is relatively empowered to take sick leave compared to other nonstandard employment types.…”

“…If the respondents were paid by the subcontracting company, they were coded as "subcontract," and the remaining respondents were coded as "parent firm." Subcontract is known as an arrangement that a contractor authorizes another company to perform tasks which could affect the employment status of workers, or the manner in which those tasks are performed (Min et al 2013). By combining information from contract duration and type, employment condition was categorized into six groups:…”

“…Most occupational health studies about nonstandard employment classified employment into two categories-permanent and temporary/contingent (Benavides et al 2006;Kim et al 2008a, b;Tompa et al 2008)-without considering subcontracting (Min et al 2013). Previous studies in South Korea have shown that subcontracting workers have vulnerable working conditions, high job insecurity, and low income comparable to other contingent workers (Kim et al 2008b;Min et al 2013).…”

Two cases of methyl alcohol intoxication by sub-chronic inhalation and dermal exposure during aluminum CNC cutting in a small-sized subcontracted factory

“…These factories mostly hire workers as the dispatched workers employed by temporary work agencies. Electrical and electronic industry ranks fourth to hire the subcontractor employees in the manufacturing business, subsequently shipping, steel, machine industry [3]. Workers in a subcontracted firm are more likely to have a risk which occurred from physical and chemical factors than workers at parent firms [3].…”

“…Electrical and electronic industry ranks fourth to hire the subcontractor employees in the manufacturing business, subsequently shipping, steel, machine industry [3]. Workers in a subcontracted firm are more likely to have a risk which occurred from physical and chemical factors than workers at parent firms [3]. The patients worked as the dispatched workers who were more vulnerable to occupational health than regular employees.…”