Identifying and Managing Risk at Work

Emerging Issues in the Context of Globalisation

Chris L. Peterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367757908
• eBook ISBN: 9781000479393
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

With a focus on five major regions globally (UK, US, Europe, Canada, and Australia) Identifying and Managing Risk at Work outlines key regional factors affecting risk and its management.

This volume looks at the social production and social construction of risk as well as taking a labour-process approach and socio-political perspective to investigate the nature and causes of work-related risk. In addition, there are several issues included that contribute to identifying risk at work such as climate change, the "gig" economy and the "Me Too" movement. Readers will gain a picture of some of the major current issues that are affecting risk under globalisation.

Drawing on these key aspects of risk, students, academics, practitioners, and policy-makers will gain a better understanding of how risk is conceptualised and identified, and of the roles of management and employees in dealing with risk. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners to help gain an understanding of risk for a number of regions, and how several current issues in globalisation can be seen in their risk context.

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction

Globalisation and risk at work

Chris L. Peterson

DOI: 10.4324/9781003164029-1

The following presentation came about as a way of investigating key issues in globalisation that have affected risk at work. It seeks to identify regional issues (UK, US, Europe, Canada, and Australia) reflecting outcomes of changing globalisation and risk, and the impact on risk at work of global issues such as climate change, the “gig” economy, automation, and the “Me Too” movement.

The early 21st century has brought about substantial changes to work and social organisation, in the context of global activity. While the principles of globalisation remain intact there have been some implicit changes in effect. The Brexit vote in 2016 in the UK represented a retreat from a globalised economic and social state. In addition, in a number of European counties such as Hungary and Austria there has been a rise in nationalistic parties. With the election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016 the pursuit to put America first was the catchcry. Frieden (2018) argues that the backlash against globalisation has been discussed for the past 20 years. Cox (2017) refers to the Brexit vote, populist parties in parts of Europe, and Trump’s past political and economic agenda as flying in the face of globalisation and being worrying trends.

Supply chains were affected due to trade wars between Trump and China (Huang and Smith 2020). The emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019 affected globalisation and had rampant effects on health, social, and economic organisation. It bought about extensive unemployment and undermined the health and safety of many workers and may lead to an important reversal of globalisation (Toulan 2020).

Neoliberalism and globalisation

“Neoliberalism is a political-economic theory about the advancement of human well-being” (Bal and Doci 2018, 537). According to Navarro (2007, 47) “a trademark of our times is the dominance of neoliberalism in the major economic, political, and social forums of the developed capitalist countries and in the international agencies they influence.” A lack of state intervention and deregulation of labour, finance, and other institutions have led to a substantial growth of inequality. There is a dominant-class basis of maintaining neoliberal pursuits and maintaining inequity and there are broad effects on social and economic organisation (Navarro 2016).

Bal and Doci (2018) identified three levels of impact at work in neoliberalism: political, social, and “fantasmatic.” The political refers to underlying social relations, such as the belief that individualism is fundamentally good. The social explains how the political affects the social, and why for example when individualism is the dominant mode in society, employees become more self-reliant and negotiate their own work contracts. The “fantasmatic” refers to where there is an appeal to a pleasing “narrative” at work where fantasy resists changes, and underlying power relations are obscured or unrecognised. In this respect employees may see inherent inconsistencies but accept systems that do not operate in their favour.

Under neoliberalism employment is now different, neglecting the traditional meaning it has had including some stability and security. Bal and Doci (2018) argue that a solution to the pervasiveness of neoliberal ideology at work is a return to historic policies of permanent contracts and security, or have it replaced by an ideology of workplace dignity where everyone has value.

Globalisation and deregulation

Scholte (2008) maintains that the term “globality” circulated in the 1980s, and the term globalisation in 1983. He presents the fact that Giddens (1996) argued the term globalisation was poorly conceptualised. “Globalisation involves reductions in barriers to Transworld social contacts. People become more able to engage with each other wherever on earth they might be” (Scholte 2008, 1478).

Lee (2004) has argued that the term globalisation has been overused and that globalisation itself has both positive and negative health effects, although the effects in developing countries have on the whole been negative (Rafat, Emadzadeh, and Ahmadi 2013). The term came into common use during the 1990s (Quiggin 1999). Globalisation is the international aspect of the move towards market-based neoliberal reform. Technological development has been a major factor and inequity resulted from these reforms. Quiggin (2005) maintained that issues of inequality as a result of globalisation needed to be seen in their context.

Brexit in 2016 showed how unpopular globalisation, immigration, and the agenda of economic neoliberalism were in the UK (Grenville 2016). It ushered in the decline and possible fall of a neoliberal and global world (Peters 2018).

The United States previously under Trump, Brexit in the UK (see MacRae et al., Chapter 2 this volume), and the growth of nationalist parties in parts of Europe have not seen an obvious decline in globalisation. Over the past few decades social, political, and economic pressures due to globalisation and technological advances and competition in labour markets have led to a neoliberal upsurge based on deregulation, de-unionisation, and the privatisation of markets (Kalleberg 2013). Work in many countries has become increasingly casualised and precarious, with reduced protection for many workers.

There has been a varied reliance on science and on government controls of occupational health and safety globally. Lee and Hosam (2020) argue that due to Trump’s pronouncements on “fake news” there has been a growth of disbelief in media as a component of American conservatism. Barry, Han, and McGinty (2020) report that during COVID-19 there has been a significant increase in the United States of people who have doubts about science. However, a study of 20 countries found that people who used social media news were more likely to trust science (Huber et al. 2019).

Globalisation encompasses deregulation, free trade, and the use of labour from developing countries (Peterson and Mayhew (2005) 2018). It is based on deregulation of financial arrangements, opening up free-trade arrangements, exploiting the use of automation, the development of the “gig” economy, and deregulated labour markets. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risk has increased due to deregulation and the reduction of union influence. However, in the European Community there had been improved protection in a number of states around the turn of the century (Walters 2002). In developing countries there has also been worker resistance to globalisation. Okafor (2007) argues it can improve productivity and performance but brings deregulation, casualisation, and downsizing.

Control and changing globalisation

In many countries the role of government interventions in OHS has been important, for example with pursuing prosecutions (Schofield, Reeve, and McCallum 2014). Saksvik and Quinlan (2003) compared Norwegian and Australian experiences of regulatory frameworks and identify the close relationship in many industrialised nations between industrial relations and OHS regulatory arrangements. They argue that moves from inclusive collective arrangements constrain independent vetting of health and safety management. Hall (2020) reports how, in a neoliberal environment state and corporate efforts reconstruct control and responsibility through their emphasis on worker participation, rights, and self-regulating technologies, amongst other things.

With growing inequity, those with less, especially those in casualised or precarious work, have substantially reduced control at work (see Tweedie and Chan, Chapter 6 this volume). However, it is not always the case that globalisation brings deregulation and reduced control for employees. Baldwin (2019a) argues that automation has brought with it increases in control for some workers. Information and communication technology (ICT) has moved from manual labour to machine labour, controlled by people, changing the nature of labour from the previous industrial and post-industrial eras. Holland, Brewster, and Kougiannou (Chapter 8 this volume) discuss the history of automation, and Devaraj et al. (Chapter 9 this volume) discuss the effects of automation in the United States. A move from capital to knowledge power allowed office workers to process and control huge amounts of information, leading to what Baldwin refers to as the “new globalisation” which combines knowledge together with low-cost labour. In the 1990s this signalled a new kind of globalisation where automation downgraded physical labour while upgrading mental labour.

There is an emerging new type of globalisation based on research and development, digital services, ideas, and data (van der Marcel 2020). The future of globalisation will be based on digital trade and other less tangible services across borders. Globalisation has been changing in a number of ways (see Le Coze, Chapter 4 this volume, on risk frameworks in Europe).

Baldwin (2019b) claims that digital technology allows remote working which competes for jobs, and together with AI (artificial intelligence) can take over the jobs of many white-collar workers. Robotics and globalisation (“globotics”) are having a major effect. Digital technologies are replacing many jobs and globotics will disrupt the lives of many, forcing them to find new jobs. He argues that some jobs will be protected by government, while long-term employees will work in more human jobs. This represents a major change from the Industrial Revolution where machines took over the jobs of many workers. Globotics is driven by digital technology and will affect manufacturing developments, particularly in developed countries (Baldwin and Forslid 2019). Digital technology is making it easier to trade in services. At the same time the use of robotics in manufacture is increasing, displacing labour.

COVID-19 and effects on globalisation?

An additional factor affecting globalisation was the advent in 2019/20 of COVID-19. The pandemic raged through countries in Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, and in the UK and the United States, Iran, and Brazil, to name some badly affected areas. International travel was virtually at a standstill as countries closed borders in order to contain the virus. In many cases, people were required to work from home and thus experienced social isolation. If these measures had not been strictly adhered to, additional waves of coronavirus would most likely have occurred (Prem et al. 2020).

Some of the worst affected were mobile workers; Neis et al. (Chapter 5 this volume) discuss the nature of their work and the extent of the risk of infection. These workers were in the most precarious employment. The virus has also affected the mental health of many workers (Relationships Australia 2020). Frontline health workers and workers in close contact with people who may have had coronavirus or with objects carrying the infection, were at high risk, including healthcare workers, those transporting possibly infected people, and those undertaking home care for people with COVID-19.

Concurrently, prior to the pandemic Black Lives Matter demonstrations had begun, particularly in the United States over several months, but also in countries such as the UK and Australia. This has ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• PART I Introduction
• PART II Regional developments
• PART III Emerging issues
• PART IV Summary
• Index