Trust, uncertainty and the reporting of workplaces hazards and injuries

Abstract

In this article, I use qualitative interviews with 121 workers in several industry sectors in Canada in temporary and permanent employment to examine the different ways in which workers managed and coped with workplace safety hazards given varying levels of employment insecurity. I found that temporary employment workers expressed more definite fears about the risk of reprisals if they reported injuries and hazards. However, there were also substantial differences among temporary workers in their reprisal fears, mistrust of management and uncertainty about reporting. I explore these differences by examining workers’ narratives on reporting and their efforts to construct some level of employment and safety security within relatively insecure contexts. I identify some of the key sources of worker mistrust and consider the different ways in which workers actively sought to balance and negotiate some measure of control over both hazards and security in their employment in a context of considerable uncertainty. These included a complex combination of compromises, coping responses and strategic efforts through which they built knowledge and trust with other workers, supervisors and line managers. I identify the contradictory challenges for temporary employment workers as tensions which intensified as employment security and safety weakened, often forcing workers to reconstruct the boundaries of acceptable risk. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical contributions of a trust-based analysis of workers’ responses to hazards and injuries.