Occupational Safety and Health Coordinators – Puzzle-piece Caretakers or Necessary Evils

The construction industry continues to be high-risk in terms of occupational safety and health (OSH) issues. A pivotal instrument in preventing these risks at both European and Danish levels is the OSH coordinator. In spite of the important role of the coordinator, little research on their roles and functions exist, and critics have pointed out that OSH professionals in general may only confer limited impact on preventive OSH work. This study argues that professional identities and struggles to maintain preferred, as well as rejecting unwanted identities are highly important to understand OSH coordinators’ practices. The study investigates OSH coordinators professional identities and their implications for practice through analysis of interviews with 12 experienced OSH coordinators in the Danish construction industry. The study reveals how struggles for maintaining a positive self-image and social recognition may explain why coordinators struggle to prioritize preventing OSH risks over legitimization and social practices

Habituating pain:Questioning pain and physical strain as inextricable conditions in the construction industry

In this article, we investigate the relations between discursive practices within the Danish construction industry and the perceived pain, physical deterioration, and strain affecting the construction workers. Of central importance is the widely accepted hegemonic discourse on physical strain and pain as unavoidable conditions in construction work. Based on 32 semi-structured interviews performed in eight case studies within four different construction professions, workers’ descriptions of physical strain and its relation to the organizational and social context are analyzed through concepts of subject positioning in discursive practice and a focus on power relations. The analysis shows that workers and employers reproduce certain types of traditional working class masculinities and search for high-pace productive working rhythms, which in combination with economic incentives common within the industry reproduce physical strain and the habituation of pain as unquestioned conditions in construction work. The understanding of this mutual reinforcement of the necessity of physically straining, painful, high-paced construction work provides fruitful perspectives on the overrepresentation of musculoskeletal deterioration within construction work and also sheds light on some of the difficulties in addressing and changing occupational health and safety practices in the construction industry

Occupational Identities and Physical Exertion in (re)configurations of New Technologies in Eldercare

New technologies are perceived as a solution to the rising proportion of people requiring elderly care across the Nordic countries. Implementing technologies has unforeseen consequences for the content of work and the working environment. This interview-based study within Danish elderly care investigates the consequences of physical exertion for the work and occupational identities of care workers. Through analytical framework integrating positioning theory and agential realism, the study shows that new technologies in certain constellations may further synergies between the reduction of physical exertion and occupational identities, and in others may harm this relation. The study contributes to empirical knowledge about implementing technologies and to discussions of moral literacy and workarounds within care work by suggesting that the ability to openly judge and question physical and ethical consequences of employing technologies is a valuable competence for care workers and, in addition, that furthering these competences is a challenge for managers and legislators

Participatory intervention with objectively measured physical risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders in the construction industry:study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: There is high prevalence of back pain and neck-shoulder pain among blue collar workers in Denmark. Excessive physical exposures such as heavy lifting or working with bended or twisted back are risk factors for back pain among workers in the construction industry. Technical evaluation of awkward postures and kinematics of upper/ lower extremities (accelerometry) during work combined with the level of muscular activity (EMG) and video recordings can improve quantification of physical exposure and thereby can facilitate designing preventive strategies. Participatory ergonomics potentially increase the success of interventions aimed at reducing excessive physical exposures. The objectives of this study are to; 1) determine which work-tasks in selected job-groups involve excessive physical load of the back and shoulders during a normal working day (measured with accelerometers, EMG and video recordings). And 2) investigate whether a participatory intervention can reduce the excessive physical workloads, drawing on measurements from phase 1. METHODS/DESIGN: A two-armed parallel-group, single-blind, cluster randomized controlled trial with allocation concealment will be conducted in the Danish construction industry. Approximately 20 construction gangs (≈80 subjects) will be recruited and randomized at the cluster level (gang). We will record in situ physical workload using technical measurements (EMG, accelerometers and video recordings) during a working day before and after the intervention. Based on these measurements a physical load matrix for each worker will be developed. The participatory intervention consist of three workshops: 1) One at baseline, involving presentation of video clips of the work-tasks with excessive physical load customized for each gang, followed by a participatory development of solutions on how to reduce excessive workloads, leading to development of an action plan on how to implement these solutions at the workplace. 2) A second workshop where the implemented solutions will be further developed and qualitatively evaluated during group discussions. 3) A final workshop at follow-up to enhance long-time organizational sustainability of the implemented solutions. DISCUSSION: The results will provide knowledge about the level of physical exposure of the back and shoulders during specific work tasks in the construction industry, and will provide information on options to implement participatory interventions aiming at reducing excessive physical workload. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02498197), registered 29 June 2015