The experience of employment strain and activation among temporary agency workers in Canada

This article integrates the employment strain model with the social stress model in order to reveal the mechanisms that explain the relation between precarious employment and mental well-being. This model is applied to the case of temporary agency employment by analysing 41 in-depth interviews with temporary agency workers from Canada. The results show how temporary agency workers perceive employment-related uncertainties and efforts mainly as negative and to a lesser extent as positive experiences, respectively evoking strain or activation. Further, it is revealed how uncertainties and efforts mutually reinforce each other, which increases strain, and how support can serve as a buffer.This work is supported by a research grant [FWO1.1.B13.12N] and a travel grant [V4.018.14N] assigned to the first author by the Research Foundation Flanders. The data collection is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and by funds made available by McMaster University and United Way Toronto.Peer Reviewe

Uncomfortable truths - teamworking under lean in the UK

A recent contribution in this journal – Procter, S. and Radnor, Z. (2014) ‘Teamworking under Lean in UK public services: lean teams and team targets in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25:21, 2978–2995 – provides an account of teamworking in the UK Civil Service, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), focused on the relationship between recently implemented lean work organisation and teams and teamworking. Procter and Radnor claim in this work that it delivers a ‘more nuanced’ analysis of lean in this government department and, it follows, of the lean phenomenon more generally. Our riposte critiques their article on several grounds. It suffers from problems of logic and construction, conceptual confusion and definitional imprecision. Methodological difficulties and inconsistent evidence contribute additionally to analytical weakness. Included in our response are empirical findings on teamworking at HMRC that challenge Procter and Radnor’s evidential basis and further reveal the shortcomings of their interpretation

The interplay between structure and agency in shaping the mental health consequences of job loss

Main themes that emerged from the qualitative exploration of the psychological distress of job loss included stress, changes to perceived control, loss of self-esteem, shame and loss of status, experiencing a grieving process, and financial strain. Drawing on two models of agency we identified the different ways workers employed their agency, and how their agency was enabled, but mainly constrained, when dealing with job loss consequences. Respondents’ accounts support the literature on the moderating effects of economic resources such as redundancy packages. The results suggest the need for policies to put more focus on social, emotional and financial investment to mediate the structural constraints of job loss. Our study also suggests that human agency must be understood within an individual’s whole of life circumstances, including structural and material constraints, and the personal or interior factors that shape these circumstances.The authors acknowledge support from the National Health and Medical Research Council Capacity Building Grant (324724). The research was supported by the SA Department of Health and the SA Department of Families and Communities through the Human Services Research and Innovation Program (HSRIP), and the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (LP0562288), with the Department of Health (DOH) serving as Industry Partner. Professor Fran Baum was supported by an ARC Federation Fellowship and Drs Newman and Ziersch by the SA Premier’s Science and Research Fund

Contemporary contestations over working time: time for health to weigh in

Non-communicable disease (NCD) incidence and prevalence is of central concern to most nations, along with international agencies such as the UN, OECD, IMF and World Bank. As a result, the search has begun for ‘causes of the cause’ behind health risks and behaviours responsible for the major NCDs. As part of this effort, researchers are turning their attention to charting the temporal nature of societal changes that might be associated with the rapid rise in NCDs. From this, the experience of time and its allocation are increasingly understood to be key individual and societal resources for health (7–9). The interdisciplinary study outlined in this paper will produce a systematic analysis of the behavioural health dimensions, or ‘health time economies’ (quantity and quality of time necessary for the practice of health behaviours), that have accompanied labour market transitions of the last 30 years - the period in which so many NCDs have risen sharply

COVID-19 and Precarious Employment: Consequences of the Evolving Crisis

The world of work is facing an ongoing pandemic and an economic downturn with severe effects worldwide. Workers trapped in precarious employment (PE), both formal and informal, are among those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we call attention to at least 5 critical ways that the consequences of the crisis among workers in PE will be felt globally: (a) PE will increase, (b) workers in PE will become more precarious, (c) workers in PE will face unemployment without being officially laid off, (d) workers in PE will be exposed to serious stressors and dramatic life changes that may lead to a rise in diseases of despair, and (e) PE might be a factor in deterring the control of or in generating new COVID-19 outbreaks. We conclude that what we really need is a new social contract, where the work of all workers is recognized and protected with adequate job contracts, employment security, and social protection in a new economy, both during and after the COVID-19 crisis

Casual catastrophe or contentment: is casual employment related to ill-health in young South Australians?

The past two decades have seen Australia experience a trend of workforce casualisation, which is particularly high amongst young people, alongside claims that casual employment is a form of low-quality employment that erodes workers’ physical and mental health. Although current literature in this area is growing, it is still dominated by international research that is not easily generalisable to the Australian context, and is characterised by simplistic measurements of employment status that may not adequately capture its complexities. This study used a cross-sectional sample of 453 recent South Australian school-leavers, aged 19–20 years, to examine the relationship between employment status (casual, permanent or full-time study) and ill-health in young people. Job insecurity, job dissatisfaction, financial strain and low social support were tested as moderators and as a means to move beyond only taxonomic measures of employment status. The results indicated that employment status was not associated with ill-health. No interaction between employment status and the moderator variables was found. Instead, the moderator variables alone were better predictors of non-optimal mental health and job stress. The results suggest that for young people at least casual employment is not associated with poorer health.Natalie Matthews, Paul Delfabbro and Anthony Winefiel

Fordist technology and Britain The diffusion of labour speed-up

Paper at Warwick Economics Summer Workshop, Jul 1989Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:9261.96(340) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo