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Aggressive police attacks on workers and their families at Cananea and Pasta de Conchos on 6 June have moved the United Steelworkers (USW) and the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), or Los Mineros, closer together. The two trade unions have formed a commission, charged with increasing strategic cooperation and exploring a fusion together that would form a potential union of one million workers in Mexico, Canada, the US and the Caribbean. 
 
Although the bi-lateral trade union commission had been operating for some time, Los Mineros General Secretary Napoleon Gomez announced its formation at the global &quot;Triple Crisis of Sustainability&rdquo; conference in Toronto on 19 June. 
 
The commission is made up of five members from each of the union&rsquo;s leaderships. The USW represents 850,000 workers in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, while Los Mineros represents about 180,000 in Mexico. 
<img alt="" src="" width="142" height="150" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="150" height="150" />
Napole&oacute;n Gomez, Leo Gerard
In signing a 20 June joint declaration, announcing the establishment of the commission, Napoleon Gomez and USW President Leo Gerard affirmed their unions&rsquo; &quot;common commitment to democracy, equality, and solidarity for working men and women throughout North America and throughout the world&quot;. 
 
The declaration describes the ongoing systematic campaign of persecution against Los Mineros by the government of Felipe Calder&oacute;n, which is motivated by the government policy of suppressing Mexican workers&rsquo; rights and wages, in order to attract foreign investment. While this policy has made enormous profits possible for corporations in Mexico, the strength and advances of Los Mineros has lead to them being attacked physically, financially, in the media, in the justice system, and with industrial homicide due to poor health and safety standards. The Los Mineros General Secretary Gomez is still forced to lead his union from exile in Canada, and has been supported there by the USW. 
 
The two unions have worked closely together for years, marked by the Global Strategic Alliance, jointly signed on 13 April 2005, which committed to build power by increasing communication and coordination across national borders. While in recent times, they share similar experiences of long mining strikes, as the strike at Cananea nears the three-year mark, and USW&rsquo;s strike in Canada against Vale Inco is into its 11th month. 
 
See the full declaration on the USW website <a href="http://www.usw.org">here</a>.

USW, Los Mineros Announce Unification Commission

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With a 75% ratification vote announced late on 7 July, Canadian nickel mining and processing workers represented by United Steelworkers (USW) Locals 6500 and 6200 in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, ended a 360-day strike against Vale SA. The Brazilian mining company and 3,500 USW members now begin a five-year collective agreement after a contentious strike that ended with both sides compromising on terms in mediated bargaining. 
 
Those terms were pieced together in high-level mediation from 19-22 June in Toronto. But final accord still eluded both sides due to differences in setting forth a just process through arbitration of Vale&rsquo;s unilateral sacking of nine strikers. Over 3-4 July, through the insistence of Ontario Provincial Labour Minister Peter Fonseca, a process was established, opening the way for the 6-7 July contract vote. 
 
Still to be resolved, however, is another strike over a separate labour contract between Vale and USW Local 9508 involving 200 steelworkers in Voiseys Bay and Goose Bay, Labrador. Those strikers have been out since 1 August 2009. The USW and Vale are expected to return to bargaining in mid-July in eastern Canada&rsquo;s maritime province, and resolution appears imminent following the Ontario approval. There, 84% of total membership of the two branch unions turned out last week to ratify. 
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The contract acceptance in Ontario thus closes a chapter to one of Canada&rsquo;s most acrimonious labour disputes, a dispute that saw mining and other unions from around the world galvanize behind the USW in efforts to preserve previously negotiated wage and work terms. The ICEM and the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) helped coordinate the global campaign. 
 
In a joint statement, ICEM and IMF General Secretaries Manfred Warda and Jyrki Raina said: &ldquo;The perseverance and character of USW members in Ontario and Labrador is what trade unions everywhere will remember about this strike. Their fight became our fight and thus they laid the building blocks on how to wage a coordinated global campaign.&rdquo; 
 
The five-year agreement in Ontario includes yearly wage increases that, coupled with cost-of-living increases, will increase salaries between C$2.25 and C$2.50 per hour over the life of the agreement. The existing defined benefit pension plan for current workers also increases in increments over the contract term, with cost-of-living indexing and life-time health care benefits preserved. 
 
In compromises made by the two sides, a defined contribution pension plan for new hires was agreed to that provides company contributions equal to 8% of employees&rsquo; regular basic earnings, with workers able to contribute additionally between 2% to 6% of regular earnings. This plan includes long-term disability coverage that is the same as that contained in the defined benefit pension plan. 
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The nickel production bonus was retained, although at levels less than the previously negotiated bonus. Workers can still supplement regular earnings by up to C$15,000 per year, with compromise struck on the price of nickel in which the trigger kicks in. The prior trigger of US$2.25 per pound was increased to US$3.75, less than the US$5.00-per-pound originally sought by Vale. 
 
The new contract includes a C$2,000 signing bonus for all returning and retiring employees, with two additional C$1,000 bonuses linked to production numbers in the last one-third of 2010. 
 
It also includes a side agreement setting forth rigid contracting-out criteria, which will serve as a job security measure. 
 
A retirement incentive bonus was negotiated that will give workers with 30 years service a one-time C$30,000 retirement stipend, with C$15,000 granted to those with 27-29 years. A reduction in force was also agreed to of 113 jobs, with those redundancies very likely to come by way of attrition. 
 
The return-to-work agreement calls for Vale to recall USW members beginning in the next to the last week of July, and no later that 11 August. In the separate agreement involving the fate of the nine discharged USW Local 6500 members, the two sides agreed to have the Ontario Labour Relations Board make a determination on whether or not the unjust firings will go to independent arbitration. Those governmental hearings began on 9 July. 
 
In the USW&rsquo;s statement announcing the ratification, District Six Director Wayne Fraser said, &quot;Our members have spoken and I believe everyone respects the decisions they have made in extremely difficult circumstances.&rdquo;

Canadian USW Members Ratify 5-Year Collective Agreement with Vale

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The ICEM&rsquo;s statutory quadrennial World Energy Industries Conference will be held in Stavanger, Norway, 6-8 September, followed by the annual ICEM International Nuclear Workers&rsquo; Union Network (INWUN) on 9 September. Some 115 global delegates representing ICEM affiliates and others are expected to attend. 
 
The World Energy Conference will feature four panel discussions, including ones on Future Energy Resources, Global Framework Agreements in the sector (Statoil, EDF, Lukoil), Campaign Experiences from five countries, and ICEM&rsquo;s various Energy Networks and the ongoing networking occurring in those workers&rsquo; networks. 
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ICEM&rsquo;s Energy sector Chair, Lars Mhyre
The conference will also feature a representative from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate speaking on Offshore Safety and Environmental Protection, challenges stemming from deepwater drilling. 
 
The Energy Conference will highlight a presentation by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda on the building of a new global union trade structure in manufacturing. The ICEM&rsquo;s Energy sector is chaired by Lars Myhre of IndustriEnergi (IE) of Norway. 
 
The ICEM World Energy Conference and the INWUN Conference will be held at the Radisson Blu Atlantic Hotel in Stavanger, beginning at 9h30 on 6 September with welcoming and opening by IE President Leif Sande.

ICEM Energy Conferences Coming to Stavanger, Norway, 6-9 September

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In what has been described as a move to win back support from France&rsquo;s right-wing, President Nicholas Sarkozy is pushing adoption of new legislation to push back the retirement age, and increase public sector workers&rsquo; pension contributions in France. Trade unions plan a national protest strike on 7 September. 
 
The National Assembly&rsquo;s social affairs committee voted in favour of the Bill on 22 July, enabling it to go to Plenary debate in France&rsquo;s lower house on 7 September, and to the Senate in October. The Bill would raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 62 in the year 2018, and increase the number of years of contributions to 41.5 before workers receive a full pension. 
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Sarkozy&rsquo;s low opinion poll ratings were recently compounded by claims of his and UMP party former chief fundraiser Eric Woerth&rsquo;s financial misconduct, accepting illegal political cash from L&rsquo;Or&eacute;al heiress Liliane Bettencourt. With the President seeking re-election in 2012, defeat of his pension reform bill would conserve workers&rsquo; conditions, but also strike a significant blow to Sarkozy&rsquo;s right-wing UMP party&rsquo;s election chances. 
 
The mass mobilization planned by France&rsquo;s trade unions will coincide with the Plenary Session in the lower house, debating the pension bill. The action will seek to fight the proposed pension reforms, and also defend jobs and demand government action for economic recovery. 
 
ICEM French affiliated union FCE-CFDT describes the pension reform and other government austerity measures as &ldquo;carriers of social injustice&rdquo;, adding that it is unacceptable that all the financial burden of the economic downturn is passed onto employees in both the public and private sector.

French Trade Unions to Strike in Protest of Sarkozy’s Cuts to Pensions

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ICEM Serbian affiliate Sindikat Nezavisnost, the Chemical, Non-Metal, Energy, and Mining Industries Union, will decide today if a proposal by the pharmaceutical concern Srbolek AD is good enough to end a 15-day strike by some 70 workers in Belgrade. On Friday, 20 August, a Serbian state mediation agency moderated an exchange of proposals between the union and company regarding this most recent strike over wage arrears. 
 
The strike began on 9 August, and workers and Nezavisnost leaders have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse by managing director Jovica Stefanovic Nini and his hired security team. Workers of the privatized pharmaceutical producer and distributor have not been paid in six months, with social contributions, taxes, statutory severance packages, and retirement earnings also withheld. 
 
A four-day strike in May 2010 resulted in retaliatory action being taken by the managing director against strike leaders. He unilaterally reduced the pay of union leaders by 60% then. Another strike over wage arrears occurred in August 2009. 
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The ICEM intervened on 11 August in the most recent strike, calling into question the extreme anti-social behavior of management, including overt discrimination against women workers who are pregnant or who have given birth since August 2009. 
 
Following the first day of strike activity on 9 August, the company made a proposal through a state mediator that it would pay one month&rsquo;s salary if workers halted the strike. Nezavisnost declined to consider the offer. The very next day, another trade union at a plant of Srbolek affiliated with the Sindikat Samostalni Federation of Serbia (SSSS) joined the strike, thus ratcheting up pressure on Stefanovic Nini. 
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But again security of Serbia&rsquo;s third largest pharmaceutical company undertook brute tactics by prohibiting union leaders from entering the state mediation agency&rsquo;s offices. 
 
Finally, following near constant negotiations last week, state mediators crafted a set of proposals that appears to satisfy the strikers. Srbolek, for the first time since the outset of the strike, also submitted a proposal on 20 August that could end the strike. It is that proposal which union leaders and strikers will examine today. 
 
The ICEM will continue to monitor the dispute and even if proposals are accepted to end the current strike, the Geneva-based Global Union Federation will follow future labour-management developments between Srbolek and trade unions.

Wage Arrears Again Fuel Bitter Serbian Pharmaceutical Strike

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Ukrainian trade unions are furious with the International Monetary Fund&rsquo;s (IMF) unlawful interference into domestic policy, following agreement of a US$15 billion crisis loan. The conditions of the loan see workers hit hard, through a raft of social cuts. 
 
Opposition has been lead by the main Ukrainian national labour centre, the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU), an ITUC affiliate. A demonstration staged by trade unionists outside the IMF regional office in Kiev, on 17 August, condemned a wage freeze for 4 million public sector workers, increased gas prices, fines for delayed payments for utilities, and a 5-year increase to the retirement age for women from 55 to 60, which will slash opportunities for young professionals seeking first-time employment. Gas price rises will double the average household&rsquo;s monthly bill. IMF loan conditions also oblige Ukraine to increase the minimum period of employment that qualifies for a state pension from 5 to 15. 
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While the IMF conditionalities demand penalties for overdue payment of utilities bills, they do not address the common problem of overdue payment of wages. 
 
Trade unions demand that the IMF hold joint consultations with the Ukrainian cabinet and trade union representatives, leading to a lifting of the social restrictions, especially the raise in retirement age. 
 
Ukraine&rsquo;s heavily industrialized economy was hit hard by the global financial crisis. The US$15 billion IMF loan will be paid back over 2.5 years. Ukrainian trade union leaders requested international solidarity and support, stating that the IMF&rsquo;s intrusion into domestic policy will increase poverty levels in the country and create a permanent dependence on IMF credit.

Ukrainian Trade Unions Protest IMF Interference in Domestic Policy

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Members of ICEM UK affiliates GMB and Unite, at pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca have voted for strike action over cuts to pension benefits of 2,500 staff, based mainly in Macclesfield, Cheshire, North West England. 
 
Public-sector trade union GMB recorded 70 percent support for strike action in a recent ballot of their members at Astra Zeneca. The multinational refused to back down during three months of talks earlier 2010, maintaining its proposal to end its final-salary pension scheme for workers. Some workers&rsquo; pensions would be frozen forever if they accepted the changes proposed by management. 
 
GMB National officer, and ICEM Materials Section Vice-Chair, Allan Black described the result of the ballot as a &ldquo;clear mandate for a strike in the midst of the current economic circumstances (which) ought to be a wake-up call to Astra Zeneca to resume negotiations&rdquo;. 
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Unions agreed in 2000 to close the company&rsquo;s defined benefit pension scheme to new recruits. Now, new joiners have been offered membership to a defined contribution pension scheme instead. Since that date, workers have contributed &pound;645 million. Now the multinational is attempting to push members of the defined benefit scheme to choose between continuing making their contributions, but with their pensionable salary frozen at current levels, or moving to the defined contribution scheme. 
Astra Zeneca employees in the UK have tolerated huge job losses and radical changes of working practices over the last three or four years, to increase to the company's profits. &nbsp; 
 
Strike action will take place next month, although the unions are hoping for a return to the bargaining table by management. 
 
These plans for cost cutting come at a time when Anglo-Swedish Astra Zeneca is making record profits. In 2009, operating profits rose by 24%, and by a further 11% in the first quarter of 2010.&nbsp;
In a letter to CEO David Brennan, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda described management&rsquo;s demands as &ldquo;unacceptable and warrants a critical re-evaluation by corporate management of AstraZeneca&rdquo;. &ldquo;Please know that if the dispute escalates, and GMB members do vote to take industrial actions, the ICEM will not hesitate to communicate this dispute to other AstraZeneca workplaces in the world, as well as to all our chemical and pharmaceutical trade unions across the globe,&rdquo; Warda added. 
 
ICEM Swedish affiliate IF-Metall also wrote to corporate management, urging a change to the draconian measure. 
 
The Macclesfield plant is the company&rsquo;s second largest facility worldwide. Workers there produce the drug Zoladex, used to treat cancer of the prostate and breast cancer.

AstraZenica Workers in UK to Strike against Pension Cuts

Strike actions in April and a flurry of trade union activities over the past two weeks have succeeded in bringing formal recognition to the ICEM affiliate, Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Industry Workers&rsquo; Trade Union of Georgia, at the Zestafoni Ferroalloys Plant and the Georgian Manganese mines, some 40 kilometres from Zestafoni in Chiatura. 
 
That was reinforced on 13 May after the union, backed by the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC), and top managers met for a second conciliation commission session and made headway towards resolving a host of demands put forward by workers. 
 
Miners and metalworkers were buoyed massively when, ten days after a three-day strike ended on 25 April that got management&rsquo;s rapt attention, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan travelled to western Georgian to meet with workers. 

<img alt="" src="" width="300" height="225" />
(LtoR) Irakli Petriashvili, President of GTUC, Manfred Warda,&nbsp;GTUC interpreter, Kemal &Ouml;zkan 
Bringing pledges of solidarity from the ICEM and the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), Warda told Georgian workers they were not alone. And speaking before regional news media and to workers directly, Warda assured all that the combined strength of the two federations was ready and willing to take this fight beyond central Asia if that was needed. 
 
The message underscored a resolve borne through several months of struggle, culminating in a series of April incidents, including grievous intimidation tricks (see prior ICEM report <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3731-Miners-Metalworkers-Not-Intimidated-by-Georgian-Manganese-Managers">here</a>) by management that served only to bring more staff into the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers&rsquo; fold. 
 
Initially in the 13 May negotiations, managers and their attorneys sought involvement of an existing but dying &ldquo;yellow&rdquo; union in the talks. But the seven union members of the joint, bilateral commission threatened to walk out and begin renewed strike actions. The union and GTUC representatives then showed managers a large number of power-of-attorney statements by workers that expressed their allegiance to the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union. 

<img alt="" src="" width="300" height="142" />
Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union Members
Recognition was achieved. The numerous petitions that workers demand to improve their working lives were then open for discussion. Foremost among them were wages. In the hours leading up to the talks, the ICEM and IMF scrambled to gather and succeeded in delivering wage rates from associated ferroalloy plants in Ukraine, owned by the metals arm of PrivatBank. 
 
Miners at the Georgian Manganese complex are paid an average monthly wage of GEL (lari) 450, or US$238, &euro;192. Metalworkers at the ferroalloy plant in Zestafoni earn a monthly average of GEL 562, or US$298, &euro;240. With both sides having already agreed to 1 May as the effective date for salary adjustments, management proposed a 15% increase for shift workers and 8% for day workers. 
 
This is unsatisfactory to the union side of the commission. But they are confident that further negotiations on 17-18 May, and again on 20 May, will bring long overdue percentage increases higher. The union did get a commitment at the 13 May set of talks that the enterprises will begin to comply with Georgia labour law regarding sick leave payments, including retroactive compensation for those workers who have been denied such pay. 
 
&ldquo;It is a big step forward,&rdquo; said Gocha Aleksandria, Vice President of the GTUC, who is a member of the 14-member conciliation commission. &ldquo;The administration now accepts our union, but the hardest part is still ahead. We intend to achieve the obvious, meaningful, and tangible results for our members and that is permanent labour contracts that address all issues.&rdquo; 

<img alt="" src="" width="304" height="241" />
Some of those issues include raising the number of yearly paid leave days from 30 (metal) and 32 (mining) to 35; creation of a joint contributory pension fund to supplement a miserly state pension; better safety and health conditions; and an upgrade to medical facilities. 
 
Even prior to the first commission negotiations, on 7 May, management reacted to workers&rsquo; militancy and ICEM&rsquo;s mission statement of that week by agreeing to permanent work contracts, as well as reinstatement of two union leaders who were discharged for strike activities. (At the 13 May session, management agreed to pay the two their full April salaries.) 
 
Another accomplishment in the recent bargaining is that union leaders will bring their demands directly to Georgian shareholders of the enterprises. The complex ownership of the ferroalloy plant and manganese mines has stock ownership by privately-held Stemcor Holdings of the UK, with shares also traded publicly on the Georgian bourse with Georgia entrepreneurs and the Ukrainian oligarch Gennadiy Boholyubov and his manganese empire that is tied to PrivatBank holding vast sums. 
 
For now, the 3,600 miners and 2,200 metalworkers have a free and democratic union they can call their own &ndash; the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Industry Workers&rsquo; Trade Union of Imereti Region. But as Aleksandria states, the journey now begins in earnest: erstwhile dialogue to gain the wage levels, benefits and work conditions that they justly deserve.

Recognition Realised for Georgian Miners, Metalworkers at Manganese Operations

The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission recently published the damning results of an inquiry into the recruitment and treatment of agency workers in the meat and poultry processing sector in England and Wales. 
 
Although the investigation focused exclusively on the meat and poultry industry, it was said that &ldquo;...the Commission has no evidence to suggest that supply chain practices in the meat processing sector are more detrimental to workers than in any other sector that makes significant use of low-paid, agency migrant labour.&rdquo; 
 
The Commission found evidence of widespread poor treatment of agency workers, especially among those who are migrants or who are pregnant, both by agencies and by user enterprises. In particular, the Commission found evidence of practices that contravene legal requirements, ethical trading standards, and basic human rights. Other types of treatment were described as being &ldquo;an affront to dignity.&rdquo; 
 
One-third of agencies told the investigators that they had acted unlawfully by recruiting workers of particular nationalities, by giving preference to candidates with particular nationalities they judged the user firm would prefer, or by discriminating against certain nationalities at the direct request of the user firm. 
<img alt="" src="" width="237" height="60" />
While flexibility is often cited as being an advantage of agency work by the industry, only two workers cited the flexibility of agency work as a positive aspect. Almost all workers said they would prefer permanent work due to the security and rights it offers. More than 80% of the interviewees said that agency workers were treated worse than permanent workers in every aspect of their job. The agency workers said they received poorer pay, were allocated the worst jobs, and were treated like inferiors. Not a single interviewee thought that agency workers were treated better than their permanent counterparts. 
 
Workers reported being refused toilet breaks, and enduring physical and verbal abuse. Concerns about health and safety were raised in over half the interviews, and many interviewees expressed concern that their personal protective equipment was poor quality, ill fitting, shared with other workers, or missing altogether. 
 
The Commission found that abusive treatment was less common in organised factories, and said that &ldquo;In workplaces where unions are recognised, or have a strong presence, we found that they provide a significant degree of protection for workers.&rdquo; However, some workers reported that their right to Freedom of Association had been restricted and reported instances where hostility of companies towards union activities discouraged people from joining a union for fear of retribution. 
 
The report concludes with a set of recommendations to key bodies in the industry to &ldquo;encourage a systematic change in behaviour,&rdquo; and improve the operations of the Gangmaster Licensing Authority (GLA). Although outside of its remit, the Commission said &ldquo;...that there is a case for broadening the GLA&rsquo;s remit to include other sectors where low-paid agency workers are at risk of exploitation&rdquo; and urged the government to positively consider this proposal. 
 
Commenting on the findings, Nicola Smith, Senior Policy Officer at the UK&rsquo;s Trades Union Congress (TUC), said, &ldquo;This strongly evidenced based report demonstrates the scale of mistreatment that continues across low paid industries, where temporary workers with insecure employment status face some of the greatest risks. The TUC remains concerned that such exploitative practices are not confined to the meat processing sector.&rdquo;

Report on Abusive Treatment of Agency Workers in the UK

Lacking job security and decent working conditions creates a great deal of stress, particularly in people who are struggling to support a family. Medical researchers discovered, in the 1930s, that stress by itself could produce physical effects. Since then, there has been an ongoing effort to better understand the stress response. 
 
The strict scientific definition of stress is &quot;any stimulus, or group of stimuli, that provokes a physiological or psychological response.&quot; A more useful definition of stress in the work context might be &quot;conditions that exceed a person's normal coping capacity.&quot; In occupational health, we are particularly concerned with the stressful effects on workers of conditions in the workplace. 
 
What are the negative effects of excessive stress on health - and by health, we mean all aspects of physical, mental, and social well-being? 
 
The symptoms of stress are generally thought to arise from the &quot;fight or flight response.&quot; In our evolutionary history, human beings were adapted to respond to a threat by preparing to either fight, give chase, or run away. The body instinctively reacts in certain ways designed to prepare itself for a sudden, short-term, all-out effort to survive. 
<img alt="" src="" width="126" height="95" />
At first, the sense heightens, blood pressure goes up, heart rate accelerates, respiration increases, blood flow to the muscles is increase, muscles tense, and the digestive system shuts down. Your body temperature may change, provoking sweating. In our evolutionary past, these responses prepared you mentally and physically to meet a threat that would be resolved, for better or for worse, within a few minutes. 
 
The problem in modern terms is that our bodies seem unable to distinguish between the &quot;threat&quot; posed by a cave-bear, a bullying boss, or perpetual fear of job loss. The fight-or-flight response, maintained or repeated too often, results in chronic or long-term damage. These can include hypertension and cardiovascular disease, ulcers, colitis, compromised immune systems, headaches, and psychological changes. 
 
To further complicate things, different people respond to chronic stress in different ways and with different symptoms. Faced with the same workplace stressors, Jane may experience diseases of her digestive system while John may develop high blood pressure. These inconsistent symptoms have made it very difficult to get stress symptoms recognized as a legitimate occupational disease. 
 
All working people experience some degree of career stress; but workers who toiled under Contract and Agency Labour (CAL), who lack even minimal job security and often work for lower wages and in poorer conditions than their full-time counterparts, experience much more. Career stress should be thought of as adding to all the other stresses caused by every aspect of a person's life. 
 
To control stress in the workplace, the same hierarchy of controls that are considered in the control of any other hazard should be used. Control the hazard at the source, if possible; failing that, control the hazard before it reaches the worker (along the exposure path); and as a last resort, control the hazard at the worker. 
 
CAL workers have less scope to seek these controls. They may be subjected to heavy work demands, a poor workplace environment, harassment or bullying, shift work, role uncertainty, a lack of training, unrealistic expectations, lack of input or control over the work, poor ergonomic factors, a high degree of scrutiny or monitoring, and of course job insecurity. Stress at work can have a synergistic effect on stress away from work, capable both of exacerbating and being exacerbated by: family problems, financial problems, sleep and fatigue problems, financial problems, and a feeling of powerlessness and low self worth. 
 
Unlike full-time workers, who often experience a level of loyalty to their employer and their work, CAL workers can feel less commitment. In the long term, this can increase the risk of burn-out. Job performance will come to consist of doing just enough to get by, and this can spill over into personal life as the burned out worker fails to look after their own health, relationships, and families. 
 
Stress is not a trivial condition that can be dealt with simply by willing it away. It is a serious problem, and a proven cause of a wide range of medical conditions 
 
Control of the hazard at the source, would in this case mean the conversion of contract and agency jobs to secure, decent work. 
 
Contract and Agency Labour can and does make workers sick.

Contract and Agency Labour … and Stress

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