Abstract
Most occupational health research is conducted with the so-called “standard employment relationship” in mind, which entails ongoing, full-time employment for a single employer. Yet mounting evidence suggests the way work is organized is increasingly deviating from this standard model, and that work arrangements themselves—the terms and conditions of employment such as contract type and the extent of directive control over tasks—are important determinants of worker health and safety. However, a lack of clear conceptual definitions or taxonomic system defining the wide variety of economic work arrangements in the contemporary workplace hampers rigorous investigation of their relationship to health. The various forms of “non-standard” employment arrangements—also called non-traditional, alternative, flexible, fissured, precarious, contingent, temporary, atypical, or gig work—may have overlapping attributes, yet ambiguity regarding the character of these arrangements obscures mechanisms that lead to increased health and safety risks. Here, we attempt to clarify work arrangements as a workplace exposure, deserving of specific attention within occupational health and safety research, practice, and policy. We argue that, at minimum, three key features of work arrangements need to be considered: (1) whether an arrangement is permanent or temporary; (2) whether a worker is a contractor or an employee; and (3) whether an arrangement involves more than one firm. We further propose mechanisms linking work arrangements to increased work-related health risks to better inform strategies aimed at protecting the growing non-standard workforce.
Highlights
Occupational health and safety (OH&S) research, practice, and policy has typically been conducted with the so-called “standard employment relationship” in mind; that is, work of permanent, ongoing duration, with full-time hours, and under a single employer that both directs tasks and has clear responsibilities and obligations to the worker
We propose that work arrangements themselves be considered occupational exposures deserving of explicit attention from OH&S professionals alongside the physical, chemical, and psychosocial workplace hazards already familiar to the field
It is important to note that the three distinguishing features are not the only aspects of work arrangements which influence a worker’s health and safety experience
Summary
Occupational health and safety (OH&S) research, practice, and policy has typically been conducted with the so-called “standard employment relationship” in mind; that is, work of permanent, ongoing duration, with full-time hours, and under a single employer that both directs tasks and has clear responsibilities and obligations to the worker. These distinct forms of temp work differ in terms of who directs workers’ job tasks and working conditions— i.e., their employer, or their employer’s client—which may have implications for worker health and safety through a variety of mechanisms.
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