Just look at the covers of Health & Work since its creation, just thirty years ago, to have an overview of the evolution of occupational risks and working conditions over this period. An overview also of the capacity of our health and social model to prevent and repair these scourges. The results are mixed. While we can be pleased that the risk of occupational accidents (AT) has decreased, we can wonder whether this favorable development is linked to the effectiveness of prevention policies or rather to the disappearance of sectors with high loss experience, like mines, or the steel industry.
In the construction industry, there has been significant progress, even if this sector remains in the lead in terms of number and severity of TAs. But at the same time, other sectors of the economy, the tertiary sector, temporary work, care and personal services, have seen their accident rate increase significantly. This reveals the weight of organizational risk factors, of intensification, of insecurity, also at the origin of the continuous increase in occupational diseases. MSDs (musculoskeletal disorders) and RPS (psychosocial risks) have invaded our columns, as they have monopolized the statistics of occupational risk factors, increased incapacity for work and provoked resounding lawsuits.
The suicides at France Telecom and the convictions of its directors to prison terms had an impact as strong as the asbestos affair. But if the scandal of magic mineral has led to a cascade of measures to prevent and repair occupational cancer – without significantly reducing exposure – nothing similar has happened on the front of work organization and management. Despite the occupational health plans, despite the stated priorities, despite the many and varied agreements on the quality of life at work, primary prevention has failed to impose itself.
Settle the consequences of competitiveness
To put an end to this deleterious work, to embark on the path of sustainable work in which employees will be able to flourish and gain skills, employers should agree to share their organizational power. This means reviewing corporate governance, engaging in a more balanced social dialogue, building solutions with employees. We are far from it.
Today, the discourse of the leaders is that of fatalism in the face of the consequences arising from the demands of competitiveness. « There is no alternative ». « Tina », to use the favorite expression of neoliberals since Margaret Thatcher. The challenge for occupational health is to put an end to the application of this concept in companies. The good news is that it is possible, as evidenced by the special file which celebrates the thirty years of our magazine.
Today, the discourse of the leaders is that of fatalism in the face of the consequences arising from the demands of competitiveness. There are ways to proceed differently
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The knowledge accumulated over these three decades shows that it is for many the accelerated rates of change in companies and administrations that seriously hamper prevention, which is more in the long term. There are ways to proceed otherwise. They involve a more global reflection on the functioning of companies, performance criteria, interactions between work activity, the environment, the aging of the working population, etc.
To be successful, this approach must be rooted in the field, on the concrete aspects of the actual work. Seemingly limited actions can have more lasting positive effects than large projects. While the public authorities and the social partners are preparing to promote the fourth occupational health plan, it would be good to agree on the need for a renewed approach to prevention and management methods.
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