Dignidad en el empleo desde un punto de vista de la salud

Abstract

In the process of financial recovery, any social and labour objective set by the government must go definitely by job creation in the first place and get its dignity, in the second place.

The question is what is a decent job? Usually the answer is someone who has a big salary. A large salary is socially accepted while below a thousand euros are mini-jobs and those who perceive it, «mileuristas», definitely «precarious employment».

This is a «covert payment» of a poor labour to which workers are exposed, in terms of health, recognition or measurement, of reconciling family life, etc… with their satisfaction because collective bargaining is focused  solely on wages section

If it focuses the aim in the first term: health, it would be interesting to value the dignity of employment with this in mind.

Health and safety legislation in Spain have several specialties in order to assess the various health damage suffered by workers. Security and diseases research are very important because they try to avoid labour accidents and occupational diseases from physical and biological agents. Ergonomics is in second place because his aim is «only» to improve the level of comfort. However the labour statistics show the ergonomics problem as a major threat.

The musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are diseases of high incidence in the population. This paper try to estimate the incidence of MSDs of Spanish working population in comparison with European data. The difficulty is that the list of occupational diseases in the different European Union states are different and therefore difficult to compare it.

The study methodology involves the use of two types of data: the opinion of workers and the official results of workplace accidents. In the first case, the results of the Spanish and European Working Conditions Survey are compared and, secondly, a comparison is made between the accident data published by the Spanish labour authorities with those provided by the Office EU statistics (EUROSTAT).

The incidence of the problem of MSDs in Spain is demonstrated and therefore the dignity of employment will be challenged, not only in economic terms but in terms of health. The conclusion is that, during collective bargaining, other factors besides economic, should be taken into account.