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China

Workplace Stress: Western Social Ill Spreads To Developing World

Developing countries, including such emerging powers as China, have joined the West in trying to find ways of dealing with a dangerous – and expensive -- social ill.

Factory workers in Guangdong, China (Lyle Vincent)
Factory workers in Guangdong, China (Lyle Vincent)
Rémi Barroux

PARIS – Stress in the workplace, an established problem in the post-industrial West, is now emerging as a social ill in the developing world, too. Countries from Asia and the southern hemisphere are now carefully – and officially – looking at the psycho-social problems and economic consequences linked to work-induced stress.

Still, for a problem that is all too real, the statistics on the subject are surprisingly scarce. Quantifying stress is of course quite difficult, but the figures available today come only from rich countries. In Europe, nearly 30% of the total number of workers describe themselves as being "exposed to stress," according to a study conducted in 2009 by Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union. In the United States, the cost of stress in the workplace – absenteeism, reduced productivity, sick leave, etc. – was an estimated $300 billion in 2010.

Concerned about the lack of reliable information on this issue in developing countries, the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) declared April 28 the world day for safety and health at work. The agency also launched a study at the beginning of 2011, expected to be concluded within a year.

Discreetly, China has also recently turned to the ILO for information on how to best manage psycho-social risks. African countries have started showing some interest on the question. In Latin America, a network led by Columbia, Mexico and Argentina has been looking into the issue of moral harassment of workers, including mobbing.

For Valentina Forastieri, the ILO specialist in occupational health and safety in charge of the study, "the industrial restructuring that followed the economic crisis has triggered a certain number of lay-offs. But those who did manage to keep their jobs have had to cope with an increased level of stress because of longer working hours and the higher expectations of their employers."

In its 2010 report on "emerging risks', the ILO spoke about dangers linked to new working conditions, and about the miserable existence of migrant workers and those toiling in the informal economy.

"Globalization is a source of stress because it involves increased competition," says Luc Brunet, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Montreal. "But the level of stress is not the same everywhere, it depends on the work environment, or the way in which employees think they are treated, and their employers' experience in dealing with these kind of complaints."

Stress often leads to drug or alcohol use in the workplace, a phenomenon observed in a number of countries, France being among those most affected, according to experts.

But methods used to deal with this psycho-social risk cannot be identical for all nations. "We can speak about a sort of international awareness, but there is unfortunately no miracle recipe for this," says Stéphane Pimbert, general director of the French National Institute for Research and Security. "This is not the same thing as installing a metal cover on a machine to prevent workers from cutting off their fingers."

Stress aside, physical illnesses such as repetitive strain injuries (which represent the majority of work-related ailments) or skin diseases are considered to be of psychological origin.

"In the past, health in the workplace was linked to the type of activity performed; today stress and fatigue stem from what employees no longer have the time to do, because of the increased number and different nature of their tasks," says Yves Clot, from the psychology department of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. "Work today requires more commitment on the part of workers, but the very organization of work makes this impossible, which leaves employees facing a very painful paradox."


photo- Lyle Vincent

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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