Nonstandard Work Arrangements Research Articles

“Everybody is impacted. Everybody's hurting”: Grief, loss and the emotional impacts of overdose on harm reduction workers

BackgroundThe emotional impacts of witnessing and responding to overdose and overdose-related deaths have been largely overlooked during the drug toxicity overdose crisis in North America. Scarce research has analyzed these impacts on the health and well-being of harm reduction workers, and the broader determinants of harm reduction work. Our study investigates the experiences and impacts of witnessing and responding to frequent and escalating rates of overdose on harm reduction workers in Toronto, Canada. MethodsUsing semi-structured interviews, 11 harm reduction workers recruited from harm reduction programs with supervised consumption services in Toronto, Canada, explored experiences with and reactions to overdose in both their professional and personal lives. They also provided insights on supports necessary to help people cope with overdose-related loss. We used thematic analysis to develop an initial coding framework, subsequent iterations of codes and emergent themes. ResultsResults revealed that harm reductions workers experienced physical, emotional, and social effects from overdose-related loss and grief. While some effects were due to the toll of overdose response and grief from overdose-related losses, they were exacerbated by the lack of political response to the scale of the drug toxicity overdose crisis and the broader socio-economic-political environment of chronic underfunding for harm reduction services. Harm reduction workers described the lack of appropriate workplace supports for trauma from repeated overdose response and overdose-related loss, alongside non-standard work arrangements that resulted in a lack of adequate compensation or access to benefits. ConclusionsOur study highlights opportunities for organizational practices that better support harm reduction workers, including formal emotional supports and community-based supportive care services. Improvement to the socio-economic-political determinants of work such as adequate compensation and access to full benefit packages are also needed in the harm reduction sector for all workers.

Examining the health and wellness of solo self-employed workers through narratives of precarity: a qualitative study

BackgroundIn recent decades, there has been a significant transformation in the world of work that is characterized by a shift from traditional manufacturing and managerial capitalism, which offered stable full-time employment, to new forms of entrepreneurial capitalism. This new paradigm involves various forms of insecure, contingent, and non-standard work arrangements. Within this context, there has been a noticeable rise in Self-Employed individuals, exhibiting a wide range of -working arrangements. Despite numerous investigations into the factors driving individuals towards Self-Employment and the associated uncertainties and insecurities impacting their lives and job prospects, studies have specifically delved into the connection between the precarious identity of Self-Employed workers and their overall health and well-being. This exploratory study drew on a ‘precarity’ lens to make contributions to knowledge about Self-Employed workers, aiming to explore how their vulnerable social position might have detrimental effects on their health and well-being.MethodsDrawing on in-depth interviews with 24 solo Self-Employed people in Ontario (January – July 2021), narrative thematic analysis was conducted based on participants' narratives of their work experiences. The dataset was analyzed with the support of NVIVO qualitative data analysis software to elicit narratives and themes.FindingsThe findings showed that people opt into Self-Employment because they prefer flexibility and autonomy in their working life. However, moving forward, in the guise of flexibility, they encounter a life of precarity, in terms of job unsustainability, uncertainties, insecurities, unstable working hours and income, and exclusion from social benefits. As a result, the health and well-being of Self-Employed workers are adversely affected by anger, anomie, and anxiety, bringing forward potential risks for a growing population.Conclusion and implicationsNeoliberalism fabricates a ‘precariat’ Self-Employed class. This is a social position that is vague, volatile, and contingent, that foreshadows potential threats of the health and wellbeing of a growing population in the changing workforce. The findings in this research facilitate some policy implications and practices at the federal or provincial government level to better support the health and wellbeing of SE'd workers.

Labor in Fissured Workplaces: Contract Workers’ Membership Negotiation in “Big Tech”

The companies in Big Tech (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft) increasingly rely on contract workers, not only as suppliers but as contributors who fulfill key organizational functions without formal employment. To understand contractors’ communicative construction of their organizational membership, we analyzed contract workers’ descriptions of membership negotiation in Big Tech using crowdsourced company reviews (n = 500). Contract workers noted their positions enhanced their career development but also described being constrained in negotiating full inclusion within organizations, influencing work processes, and changing their membership status. We discuss the findings’ implications for understanding and practicing membership negotiation in nonstandard work arrangements.

Racial and ethnic differences in the prevalence of work organization and occupational psychosocial exposures

This study sought to assess if there were differences in exposure to job insecurity, shift work, work-life imbalance, workplace harassment, and nonstandard work arrangements according to race and ethnicity in the United States. Using data from the nationally representative National Health Interview Survey conducted in 2015, we calculated the prevalence of job insecurity, shift work, work-life imbalance, workplace harassment, and nonstandard work arrangements according to race and ethnicity. Using this data, we then modeled the prevalence of these exposures while adjusting for covariates including occupation. Compared to non-Hispanic White workers, Hispanic (prevalence ratio [PR] = 1.47, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.30, 1.66) and non-Hispanic Asian (PR = 1.57, 95% CI = 1.28, 1.92) workers reported more job insecurity. Non-Hispanic Black workers were more likely to report working in shifts (PR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.22, 1.46) and Hispanic workers reported being employed in alternative work arrangements (PR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.23, 1.58) more often than non-Hispanic White workers. Non-Hispanic White workers were slightly more likely to report work-life imbalance and workplace harassment than other races/ethnicities. Occupational segregation accounted for some of the racial/ethnic differences in shift work and alternative work arrangements. These findings are consistent with some previous research on differences in the prevalence of these work organization and psychosocial exposures by race/ethnicity, especially with respect to shift work and alternative work arrangements. However, other studies have found contradictory findings, especially with respect to workplace harassment. There is a need for future research that tackles the association between these exposures and racial/ethnic health disparities.

Standard and non-standard working arrangements in Norway – consequences of COVID-19

ABSTRACT This study investigates how work-related consequences of COVID-19 in Norway during the first wave varied between workers in different employment arrangements. The generalised linear model (GLM) regressions estimate the relative risk of being directed to work from home, temporarily laid off, having reduced working time and income loss in a representative sample of 3002 workers. The models compare temporarily employed and self-employed workers with permanently employed workers and workers in voluntary and involuntary part-time positions with full-time workers. Results indicate that the self-employed had a higher likelihood of experiencing reduced working time and income loss. Temporary employment did not entail a higher likelihood of any measured outcomes. Part-time workers had a higher chance of income loss and a lower chance of being directed to work from home than full-time workers. Results also indicate that employees in part-time positions had a higher likelihood of having reduced working hours. The findings are discussed with perspectives on flexibility, risk and how standard jobs form regulation and welfare policy. Despite the government’s efforts to increase the safety nets for new groups of workers, our results indicate that the coverage was not wide enough. Thus, illustrating the individual economic risk inherent in non-standard employment relationships.

Workplace Gender Segregation in the “New Economy”

Using an institutional theory perspective we examine workplace gender segregation and provide a systematic analysis of what the rise of nonstandard employment means for gender inequality in the workplace. We compare four standard and nonstandard employment regimes paying special attention to independent contingent employment - the segment of nonstandard work representing novel and consequential developments in work arrangements. Our analyses based on a comprehensive sample of the U.S. workforce reveal that the overall degree of workplace gender segregation is lower in nonstandard employment, that the degree of segregation corresponds to the degree of attachment to the employer, and that the pattern of segregation in nonstandard work arrangements is not uniform but complex, with some occupations segregated more, not less, despite the overall lower segregation.

How Will the Future of Work Shape OSH Research and Practice? A Workshop Summary.

Growth of the information economy and globalization of labor markets will be marked by exponential growth in emerging technologies that will cause considerable disruption of the social and economic sectors that drive the global job market. These disruptions will alter the way we work, where we work, and will be further affected by the changing demographic characteristics and level of training of the available workforce. These changes will likely result in scenarios where existing workplace hazards are exacerbated and new hazards with unknown health effects are created. The pace of these changes heralds an urgent need for a proactive approach to understand the potential effects new and emerging workplace hazards will have on worker health, safety, and well-being. As employers increasingly rely on non-standard work arrangements, research is needed to better understand the work organization and employment models that best support decent work and improved worker health, safety, and well-being. This need has been made more acute by the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic that has resulted in dramatic changes in employment patterns, millions of lost jobs, an erosion of many economic sectors, and widespread disparities which further challenge occupational safety and health (OSH) systems to ensure a healthy and productive workplace. To help identify new research approaches to address OSH challenges in the future, a virtual workshop was organized in June 2020 with leading experts in the fields of OSH, well-being, research methods, mental health, economics, and life-course analysis. A paradigm shift will be needed for OSH research in the future of work that embraces key stakeholders and thinks differently about research that will improve lives of workers and enhance enterprise success. A more transdisciplinary approach to research will be needed that integrates the skills of traditional and non-traditional OSH research disciplines, as well as broader research methods that support the transdisciplinary character of an expanded OSH paradigm. This article provides a summary of the presentations, discussion, and recommendations that will inform the agenda of the Expanded Focus for Occupational Safety and Health (Ex4OSH) International Conference, planned for December 2021.

The Contribution of Occupation-Specific Factors to the Deaths of Despair, Massachusetts, 2005–2015

In the USA, deaths from poisonings (especially opioids), suicides, and alcoholic liver disease, collectively referred to as 'deaths of despair', have been increasing rapidly over the past two decades. The risk of deaths from these causes is known to be higher among certain occupations. It may be that specific exposures and experiences of workers in these occupations explain these differences in risk. This study sought to determine whether differences in the risk of deaths of despair were associated with rate of occupational injuries and illnesses, job insecurity, and temporal changes in employment in non-standard work arrangements. Usual occupation information was collected from death certificates of Massachusetts residents aged 16-64 with relevant causes of death between 2005 and 2015. These data were combined with occupation-level data about occupational injuries and illnesses, job insecurity, and non-standard work arrangements. We calculated occupation-specific mortality rates for deaths of despair, categorized by occupational injury and illnesses rates and job insecurity. We calculated trends in mortality according to changes in non-standard work arrangements. Workers in occupations with higher injury and illnesses rates and more job insecurity had higher rates of deaths of despair, especially opioid-related deaths. Rates of deaths of despair increased most rapidly for occupations with increasing prevalence of workers employed in non-standard work arrangements. The findings suggest occupational factors that may contribute to the risk of deaths of despair. Future studies should examine these factors with individual-level data. In the meantime, efforts should be made to address these factors, which also represent known or suspected hazards for other adverse health outcomes.

Precarious Work and Parenting Stress among Mexican Immigrant Women in the United States

AbstractObjectiveTo qualitatively examine how precarious work contributes to parenting stress among Mexican immigrant women.BackgroundMexican immigrants tend to be employed in low‐wage occupations with nonstandard work arrangements and schedules. Besides common strains associated with balancing work and family, they experience immigrant‐specific stressors due to their unique positions in society and differences in structural resources and cultural values regarding parenting.MethodTen focus groups were conducted with 30 Mexican immigrant women living in Nashville, TN. An additional focus group was conducted with four key informants who served the local immigrant community. Transcripts were analyzed using inductive and deductive approaches.ResultsPrecarious working conditions were a major source of stress and a central contributor to parenting stress. Three themes related to parenting stress emerged: finding and paying for childcare, limited family time, and concerns about children's well‐being. Traditional gender expectations and the structural context of legal status shaped the challenges they experienced in the work and parenting realms.ConclusionThe narratives of women in this study reveal the impact that contingent, excessive, or exploitative workloads can have on immigrant families. Overall, women struggled to reconcile their better economic standing and their poor family life.

Casualization of Labour: Implications of the Triangular Employment Relationship in Nigeria

Casualization is a global phenomenon. It is a form of nonstandard work arrangements practized in both developed and developing countries with varying degrees of regulation. Employers see it as a means of cutting costs and achieving flexibility, while workers see it as a work arrangement that denies them the right to employment benefits and to unionize and bargain collectively. This paper examines the concept of casualization and the implications of the triangular employment relationship in Nigeria in the context of international labour standards. It also examines the rights of casual workers to employment benefits and trade union rights in Ghana and China. It argues that the triangular or disguised employment relationship, which is the commonest form of casual employment in the banking and oil and gas sectors in Nigeria, fall outside the purview of the Labour Act. Amongst other things, the paper finds that the triangular or disguised employment relationship does not yield itself to the rights and benefits provided for workers in the traditional employment relationship and that it has segmented the labour market into core, non-core and peripheral zones. The paper calls for a comprehensive review of the Labour Act in line with international labour standards. It recommends the Ghana model with the necessary changes to suit local circumstances.

Are Individuals with Low Trait Anxiety Better Suited to On-Call Work?

Research has indicated that individuals with certain traits may be better suited to shiftwork and non-standard working arrangements. However, no research has investigated how individual differences impact on-call outcomes. As such, this study investigated the impact of trait anxiety on sleep and performance outcomes on-call. Seventy male participants (20–35 years) completed an adaptation night, a control night, and two on-call nights in a laboratory. Trait anxiety was determined using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) X-2, and participants completed the STAI X-1 prior to bed each night to assess state anxiety. Sleep was measured using polysomnography and quantitative electroencephalographic analysis. Performance was assessed using a 10-min psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performed each day at 0930, 1200, 1430 and 1700 h. Data pooled from three separate but inter-related studies was used for these analyses. Results indicated that the effects of trait anxiety on state anxiety, sleep and performance outcomes on-call were generally limited. These findings suggest that on-call outcomes are not negatively affected by higher levels of trait anxiety.

‘Peer’ work as precarious: A qualitative study of work conditions and experiences of people who use drugs engaged in harm reduction work

In this study, we examine the qualitative accounts of people who use drugs engaged in ‘peer’ work in harm reduction settings across British Columbia, Canada. We found peer work was precarious, characterized by nonstandard or casual work arrangements, high job instability and insecurity, insufficient wages, and limited social benefits. Participants were reluctant to exercise their rights or negotiate work conditions, such as higher wages or more consistent work, out of fear of job loss. However, the flexibility of peer work was beneficial for some in that it worked within their life circumstances and provided a low-barrier entry into the labor market. If inequities in peer work are perpetuated, unrecognized and unaddressed, precarious work conditions may continue to undermine the potential benefits of harm reduction work for organizations, peer workers and the people to whom they engage with and support. This study adds people who use drugs to the many social groups that are impacted by precarious work conditions globally.

When IT Professionals Choose Nonstandard Work: The Fit between Individuals and Work Arrangements

As organizations face the reality of rapidly evolving technology and the labor shortage of IT professionals, the externalization of their IT workforce is a viable way to handle IT costs and human capital needs. This workforce externalization increasingly is providing IT professionals with various alternatives to standard work arrangements, i.e., nonstandard work arrangements (NSWAs) such as independent contracting, remote work, and contract firm work. While the NSWA literature has shown that voluntarily choosing such arrangements relates to positive work-related outcomes, not much is known about the mechanism behind an individual’s voluntary pursuit of a nonstandard rather than a standard work arrangement, or of one type of NSWA over another. In this study, we use person-environment (P-E) fit as a theoretical framework to provide an explanation for voluntary choice of various NSWAs. Specifically, we draw connections between a variety of individual difference characteristics and the work arrangement characteristics of some of the most prevalent NSWAs for IT professionals in the United States, highlighting the important role of personality variables and individual needs in work arrangement choices. Our conceptual framework provides a new understanding of volitional choice of NSWAs. It may serve as a blueprint for future NSWA research as well as for recruiting and selection tactics for organizations utilizing nonstandard workers.

Emerging Forms of Precariousness Related to Autonomy at Work: Toward an Empirical Typology.

Societal, technological, and economical changes in the last decades have led to the development of new work arrangements located in a ≪ gray zone ≫ between standard employment and classical self-employment (Cappelli and Keller, 2013a; ILO, 2016; Katz and Krueger, 2016). Official labor market statistics must be adapted to provide researchers and policymakers with relevant data on this population (Gazier et al., 2016; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2017; ILO, 2018). Cappelli and Keller (2013b) point out that new work arrangements are characterized by changes in the management of the work relationships (with a growing intervention of labor market intermediaries) and in the way the work is supervised (from work processes to outcomes). The concept of autonomy thus becomes a central feature of new work arrangements leading to specific configurations of risks and opportunities for individual workers concerned. Autonomy can be divided in three main dimensions: work status, work content, and working conditions (Pichault and McKeown, 2019). International surveys such as the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) provide valuable data covering these dimensions of autonomy. Our paper is focused on a specific category of workers experiencing the ambiguities of autonomy at work: Independent Professionals (Ipros). Ipros provide various forms of intellectual work in the service sector through self-employment and are often regarded as a highly autonomous workforce (Leighton and Brown, 2014; McKeown, 2015) while they can also be subject to precarious situations regarding their economic dependency or freedom of choice (de Peuter, 2011; Standing, 2011; Bergvall-Kåreborn and Howcroft, 2013). The objectives of this paper are, first, to build a set of indicators likely to measure the various dimensions of autonomy, and, second, to provide an empirical typology of new work arrangements by using cluster analysis methods. Through the application of this analytical framework on the EWCS 2015 data, we observe various situations in terms of risk and opportunities related to autonomy, shedding light on unexpected precarious situations where Ipros face the risks of autonomy without getting the associated benefits. Our results provide a nuanced typology of empirical situations, overcoming such a dichotomic vision of non-standard work arrangements.

The Role of Social Allowance in an Era of Increasing Multiple Disparities

We are living in an era of a spectacular growth of nonstandard work arrangements, gig-workers, and on-demand and flexible hours workers; their work patterns deviate from the archetypical employment. We are also experiencing merely patchy social protection coverage which shown many of its drawbacks in a stark contrast with the welfare state of golden age. There is a great disparity between regular and irregular workers, between prime-age workers and young workers(job seekers), between employed workers and self-employed workers. There are structured disparities by income classes, education achievements, and employment status which are increasingly and constantly intertwined. It is, therefore, time we should reform our contributory social protection systems for better coverage, and it is high time to redesign the social allowance scheme including a temporary allowance and a special scheme, which are un-tied benefits from contributions in order to properly help the truly disadvantaged who rigid social insurances fail to support.

On the Evolution of Multiple Jobholding in Canada

The number of workers who hold more than one job (a.k.a. multiple jobholders) has increased recently in Canada. While this seems to echo the view that non-standard work arrangements are becoming pervasive, the increase has in fact been trivial compared with the long-run rise of multiple jobholding that has occurred since the mid-1970s.

The Impact of Non-Standard Work Arrangements and Communication Climate on Organisational and Team Identification and Work-Related Outcomes Amongst Millennials in Chile and the UK

Previous research has found inconsistent results on the impact of work-status (permanent vs. fixed term vs. causal work) on attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. This study explored this topic from a social identity perspective and examines the effect of communication climate, organisational and team identification on job-affective well-being, organisational commitment and intentions to recommend. In Study 1, 631 professionals working in Chile completed our survey. In Study 2, which was pre-registered, 520 professionals from the UK completed the same survey. In both studies we conducted multi-group path analyses comparing employees with three work-statuses: permanent, fixed-term, and casual workers (Study 1: n = 369, 129, and 131, respectively; Study 2: n = 438, 53, and 34, respectively). We found work-status influenced the relationship between organisational and team identification with job-affective well-being, but not with organisational citizenship behaviour or intentions to recommend. Across all groups, communication climate was an important predictor for identification measures, job-affective well-being and intention to recommend. These findings offer an understanding of the dynamics of social identification in the workplace that are related to work-status in the context of two different countries; Chile, a country that is characterised by high rates of fixed-term and casual job agreement and the UK, which has comparatively fewer non-standard work-arrangements.

Taking EU labour law beyond the employment contract: The role played by the European Court of Justice

The ongoing transformation of work has been increasing the number of working relationships not falling within the domain of labour law. Non-standard and contingent working arrangements, most recently those prompted by the so-called gig economy, struggle to meet customary employment tests, since the employee/self-employed dichotomy has long been eclipsed. As this article will argue, the Court of Justice of the European Union, in shaping the scope of EU labour law, has been looking beyond the traditional categories. Starting from the area of the free movement of workers, the Court has built a common European concept of worker, broader than that of ‘employee’ endorsed by national jurisdictions, applying it to an increasing body of EU social legislation. Because of the primacy of EU law, the Court’s approach is bound to influence national laws.

IN-WORK POVERTY IN LATVIA

The results of a survey carried out in Latvia in 2015 are examined to estimate the scope and depth of in-work poverty. The widely used EU-SILC data considerably underestimate in-work poverty in Latvia. Logistic regression analysis indicates that persons with low education, poor health, persons of pre-retirement age, and those employed in non-standard work arrangements are more likely exposed to a high in-work poverty risk. Social transfers and the income of other household members do not significantly reduce this risk. The Latvian government should provide adequate social protection and funding to alleviate the in-work poverty problem.

Corrigendum: Unions and Non-Standard Work: Union Representation and Wage Premiums across Non-Standard Work Arrangements in Canada, 1997–2014

Corrigendum: Unions and Non-Standard Work: Union Representation and Wage Premiums across Non-Standard Work Arrangements in Canada, 1997–2014