Home based work and OHS:
Melody Kemp
Regional Council AMRC and Tech Adviser: ANROAV.
Women work at home as part of production chains, from outsourced production, or to make products for cooperatives, for sale to local entrepreneurs or for personal sale. The hazards and problems presented are numerous and need individual risk assessment. I will briefly consider two cases and a little of my own. As a member of the AMRC I am pledged to a rights based approach which places workplace health and safety in center of other labour rights such as the right organize and collectively bargain and for workers to be the focus and drivers of their own campaign and solutions.
Let me open by saying that I am a home worker. Being a writer I spend a lot of time at home working on stories. As someone who for years worked in occupational health and safety (and an older woman) I am aware that I have to safeguard my own welfare, by taking regular breaks, stretching and walking. I am also aware that when the pressure is on, I do not do those things. A friend noted that I have bottles of Neurofen, on my desk near the keyboard. I was ashamed.
So this brings me to the first of the points:
- Home based workers have no one to help or remind them adhere to safe and well-being enhancing behaviour, and when the pressure is on to produce, in the absence of a peer group, OHS is sacrificed to the deadline.
Despite having a partner who is gender sensitive, he cannot cook and I can.
So at times when my deadlines are looming and the stress is on, my
- other household duties ensure additional stress. I do not have time to wind down or seek any space between the work and home precincts.
Often when a deadline looms (read piece or target) I leave the table and go back to work, often working into the night.
- Working hours are not regulated or enforced and the architectural ambiguity of the work home nexus makes it easy to reduce time needed for rest, and thus increase exposure to ergonomic, physical or psychological hazards.
In 1992 I worked with Save the Children in Jakarta on as far as we knew one of the first OHS programs for home based workers. These were women whose work had been outsourced from nearby factories. Most did work involving flammable solvents; some screen printing designs on T shirts, other using solvent based glues to make hair accessories. The population of the area was 34,000 per square km. So dense that fire engines could not penetrate the streets that were at times a mere meter and a half wide.
So fire prevention and fire fighting were immediate concerns. They had had several bad fires that had destroyed a huge number of homes and livelihoods. Safe chemical/flammables storage and handling was a priority. Many worked and cooked in proximity.
Raw materials were individually manually handled from the factory and completed goods manually handled back again. Women reported body pain and discomfort from this and other domestic manual handling which exacerbated risk.
Leading from that:
- Risk assessment and prioritization had to be realistic and aimed at problem solving note merely awareness raising. E.g. sand bucket brigades -water was scarce. Risk assessment and management should be done participatively to ensure all are involved and are in agreement.
- Solutions had to be cheap and not technology or energy based. Many home based workers such as weavers discussed below, have no employer and have to bear the cost of workplace improvements themselves. Work with traditional artisinal fishers has shown the rubbish can be recycled as safety equipment.
- Solutions needed to be able to be made locally and involve groups to enhance solidarity and peer strength.
- They had to fit the situation: eg carts to take collectively made goods had to be narrow to negotiate the streets.
- Educational activities had to suit time available for women so as not to add stress.
- Cumulative trauma for house/versus house based work calculated. Especially in regards to ergonomic hazards.
- Hazards are often not of the ‘sexy’ variety: e.g chemicals or radiation but more mundane, to do with reduction in fire risk or ergonomic pressures.
Our work was taken over by the ILO program, after which we were effectively precluded from further involvement. Thirteen year later the ILO in collaboration with Thai Homenet has produced a very useful manual -Work Improvement for Safe Home (sic), which should be widely dispersed.
Threads of Life.
Weaving and textile production is a source of income for many women in this part of the world. In Lao where I live, silk weaving underpins the tradition and culture.
Women and to a lesser extent men, weave at looms usually located under the house. Sometimes they weave with other women, but in most cases individually. Some cooperative exist and I have been fortunate enough to have a lot to do with one such Lao cooperative in my role as a writer.
This cooperative had been given fair trade status which it deserves. The women get what they ask for their products, their are given training in improved techniques, funds go directly to producers and they have an open relationship with the production farm to which they can come to work on designs, ideas and dyes.
The products are organically produced, the place run and organized by women with support from men, and the hours flexible to allow for other season duties such as rice planting and harvesting.
The emotional atmosphere is one of joy, sisterly busy-ness and commitment. At no stage have I felt anything but total delight in being in the workshops or in the producing villages. But there are some improvements that would make life gentler for the weavers in OHS terms. As far as I can tell, safe and humane working conditions are prescribed under the terms of Fair Trade (IFAT)
Point 4. Working Conditions
To ensure a safe working environment that satisfied at a minimum all local statutory regulations. To provide the opportunity for all individuals to grow and reach their potential. To ensure that work is carried out under humane working conditions, using appropriate materials and technologies, while following good production and work practices.
Lighting:
Weavers do fine work requiring both close and distant vision. For the complex supplementary weaving required close vision and good lighting is required.
In most cases lighting conditions are poor. In rural Lao many villages are not electrified and again intermediate technologies such as pressure lanterns are not present. Adequate lighting needs to be addressed using a combination of sources both natural and energy based. Placing work closer to light sources may expose the worker to additional heat so careful consideration needs to be given to solutions.
Seating:
Most looms are wooden and square framed with a hard and narrow bench seat integral to the loom. It cannot be moved or adjusted for the comfort of the weaver. This means the weaver is forced to lean forward placing pressure on the lower back. No backs rests are in evidence so the small and long muscles of the back are always at play supporting the spine.
The bench seat is usually about 20-25cms across providing insufficient seating area and cuts into the buttocks and thighs unless the legs are kept elevated. Rudimentary pedals control the warp threads with the patterns being developed via patterns sticks which are transferred from above to below the loom.
Young Lao weavers are told that if they fall off the loom they will turn into bears and have to live in the forest. It’s is hoped that by holding this idea in their heads they will work hard and not fall asleep or succumb to fatigue. However taking the hardness of the seats into account, sleep is the least of the worries.
Dye Shop:
While the emphasis in Lao is on natural dyes, some of those like indigo have been thought to have a degree of toxicity. Dermal absorption of indigo is thought to be related to reproductive effects. Research needs to be done into the toxicity of plant based dyes and a protocol of safe use measures compiled into an easy to read booklet. Emphasis has to be on low tech, low cost and locally available solutions.
Dye shops have smoke and heat hazards. Also ergonomic hazards. Pots and dye baths are often too low and hot dye baths have to be carried by shoulder pole. A lot can be done by simply raising he heat sources and constructing higher benches and simple trolleys. Paths need to be paved to allow trolleys to be used with ease.
While most traditional peoples know how to treat burns using local plants, those plants may not be available near the working place. First aid kits specific to existing hazards and basic training are useful inputs.
Weaving and other decorative arts are at times closely linked to the spiritual. Matters of material logic may need to accord with matters of the soul to be accepted into practice. At all stages artisans need to be involved so that spiritual and traditional precepts are not trampled on.
Organizing
In Australia and the UK, the peak trade union councils and pertinent members such as clothing and textile unions, have responded to the increasing number of multicultural and home based workers by a model of community organizing. By community they mean amongst a particular age group (young or older workers), ethnic group (particularly those that don’t share a common language), occupational group (weavers, t shirt makers, food makers) or locational parameters (suburb or village based). (http://www.actu.asn.au/organising/news/1053579943_13456.html) Community unionism is more in sympathy with women’s needs to be with family and cultural restrictions which may prohibit women venturing far from the village or being involved in organizations where men may dominate. (www.uniglobalunion.org)
Rather than taking a step backwards community unionism represents a return to organizing traditions when workers rallied in their villages and guilds in post industrial Europe and in the time leading up to Pre WWII.
In addition to being suitable for the types of decentralized settings in which home based workers are found, community unionism is particularly suited to the modern deregulating labour market, and reduces the polarisation occurring between different types working communities. It is suited to post communist nations where despite pro workers revolutionary origins, labour cannot freely organize. Community unions or loose associations around workplace issues such as safety, provide supportive alternatives. Canada has also experimented with this model, as has Indonesia.
Industrial trade unions can provide expertise and outreach to community organising. Community unionism has taught industrial unions lessons in alternative leadership and decision making as some communities value and respect age and rank issues located within the cultures. Through community based unions with revolving or other credit systems, workers can be assured of income if accidents occur that prohibit them from working.
In this short presentation I hope to have canvassed some of the issues as I see them from both practical experience in the past and structured concern in the present.
This is a challenging issue and within the AMRC’s global concern for workers rights to safe and healthy workplace. In addition ANROAV which struggles for and defends the rights of injured workers wherever they are unjustly treated in Asia, welcomes all workers into its membership if they are dealing with health and safety and compensation issues.
Melody can be contacted on musi@magma.ca
|
