Skip to main content
PMC home page
Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique logoLink to Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique
editorial
. 2010 Mar 1;101(Suppl 1):S29–S33. doi: 10.1007/BF03403843

Health and Safety in Small Workplaces: Refocusing Upstream

Joan M Eakin 15,✉, Danièle Champoux 25, Ellen MacEachen 35
PMCID: PMC6974124  PMID: 20629444

Abstract

Small workplaces have particular injury risks and are enduringly difficult for the occupational health and safety (OHS) system to reach. This paper puts forward an “upstream” perspective on OHS in small workplaces that moves beyond the attributes of the workplace and those who work there.

The paper draws on and synthesizes ideas and findings from emerging upstream OHS research, our own empirical investigations in Ontario and Quebec, and our collected research experience in small workplace health.

Upstream structures and processes (regulations, policies, services, interventions, professional practices) are often misaligned with the conditions of work and social relations of small workplaces. Key upstream factors include regulatory exemption, subcontracting, unionization levels, the changing character of small enterprise, joint management, service and inspection constraints, competing institutional accountabilities, institutional orientation to large business, and inappropriate service and policy.

Misalignment of the OHS system with the nature and practical realities of small workplaces can undermine prevention and the management of ill health and injury. To address such misalignments, the paper calls for: 1) restructuring of data collection and consultation processes to increase the visibility, voice and credibility of small workplaces; 2) “audits” of OHS-related legislation, policy and interventions to assess and address implications for small workplaces; 3) reflection on current terms and concepts that render workers invisible and capture poorly the essence and (increasing) diversity of these workplaces; and 4) extension of the upstream gaze to the global level.

Key words: Social sciences, government agencies, government regulation, safety management, small business

Footnotes

Acknowledgements: Funders of the research drawn on in this paper include the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en securitu travail.

Conflict of Interest: None to declare

References

  • 1.Statistics Canada . Business Register. 2004. [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Lentz TJ, Wenzl TB. Small businesses with high fatality rates: Assessment of hazards and their prevention. J Occup Environ Hygiene. 2006;3:D8–D14. doi: 10.1080/15459620500496715. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3.Eakin J, Lamm F, Limborg H. International perspective on the promotion of health and safety in small workplaces. In: Frick K, Langaa-Jensen P, Quinlan M, Wilthagen T, editors. Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management: Perspectives on an International Development. Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.; 2000. pp. 227–47. [Google Scholar]
  • 4.Walters D. Work Safety in Small Enterprises in Europe: Toward a Sustainable System for Worker Participation and Representation. Brussels: European Trade Union Confederation; 2002. [Google Scholar]
  • 5.Dawson S, Willman P, Clinton A, Bamford M. Safety at Work: The Limits of Self-Regulation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press; 1988. [Google Scholar]
  • 6.Antonsson A-B. A method to support small companies in improving their work environment: A manual for the plastics industry. Ann Occup Hygiene. 1990;34:29–34. [Google Scholar]
  • 7.Hasle P, Limborg HJ. A review of the literature on preventive occupational health and safety activities in small enterprises. Ind Health. 2006;44:6–12. doi: 10.2486/indhealth.44.6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 8.Frick K, Jensen PL, Quinlan M, Wilthagen T. Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management: Perspectives on an International Development. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science Ltd.; 2000. [Google Scholar]
  • 9.Champoux D, Brun J-P. Occupational health and safety management in small size enterprises: An overview of the situation and avenues for intervention and research. Safety Sci. 2003;41:301–18. doi: 10.1016/S0925-7535(02)00043-7. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 10.Frick K. Health and safety representation in small firms: A Swedish success under threat. In: Walters D, Nichols T, editors. Workplace Health and Safety–International Perspectives on Worker Representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2009. pp. 154–67. [Google Scholar]
  • 11.Walters D. Worker representation and health and safety in small enterprises in Europe. Ind Relat J. 2004;35:169–86. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2338.2004.00307.x. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 12.Antonsson A, Birgersdotter L, Bornberger-Dankvardt S. Small Enterprises in Sweden: Health and Safety and the Significance of Intermediaries in Preventive Health and Safety. Stockholm: National Institute for Working Life; 2002. [Google Scholar]
  • 13.Lamm F. Small businesses and OHS advisors. Br J Safety Sci. 1997;25:153–61. doi: 10.1016/S0925-7535(97)00013-1. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 14.McKinlay J. A case for refocusing upstream: The political economy of illness. In: Jaco EG, editor. Patients, Physicians, and Illness: A Sourcebook in Behavioral Science and Health. New York, NY: Free Press; 1979. pp. 9–25. [Google Scholar]
  • 15.Quinlan M. The impact of labour market restructuring on occupational health and safety in industrialised societies. Econ Ind Democracy. 1999;20:427–60. doi: 10.1177/0143831X99203005. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 16.Mayhew C, Quinlan M. Subcontracting and occupational health and safety in the residential building industry. Ind Relat J. 1997;28:192–205. doi: 10.1111/1468-2338.00054. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 17.Mayhew C, Quinlan M. Outsourcing and Occupational Health and Safety: A Comparative Study of Factory-based and Outworkers in the Australian TCF Industry. Sydney, Australia: Industrial Relations Research Centre; 1997. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 18.Dyhrberg MB, Jensen PL. Organizations in context: Proposal for a new theoretical approach in prescriptive accident research. Safety Sci. 2004;42:961–77. doi: 10.1016/j.ssci.2004.04.003. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 19.MacEachen E, Breslin C, Kyle N, Irvin E, Kosny A, Bigelow P, et al. Effectiveness and Implementation of Health and Safety in Small Enterprises. Toronto: Institute for Work & Health; 2008. [Google Scholar]
  • 20.MacEachen E, Kosny A, Scott-Dixon K, Facey M, Chambers L, Breslin C, et al. J Occup Rehab. 2010. the Small Business Systematic Review Team. Workplace health understandings and processes in small businesses: A systematic review of the qualitative literature. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 21.A Guide for Joint HealthSafety Committees JHSCsRepresentatives in the Workplace. Ontario Ministry of Labour. 2002. [Google Scholar]
  • 22.Wulfhorst B, Schobel K, Schwanitz HJ. Prevention of work-related skin diseases in hairdressers: First results. Prev Rehab. 1996;8:22–28. [Google Scholar]
  • 23.Niewohner J, Cox P, Garrard S, Pidgeon N. Evaluating the efficacy of a mental models approach for improving occupational chemical risk protection. Risk Anal. 2004;24:349–61. doi: 10.1111/j.0272-4332.2004.00437.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 24.Walters D. Health and safety and trade union workplace representation: A case study in the printing industry. Ind Relat J. 1987;18:40–49. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2338.1987.tb00886.x. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 25.Eakin J. ‘Leaving it up to the workers’: Sociological perspective on the management of health and safety in small workplaces. Int J Health Serv. 1992;22:689–704. doi: 10.2190/DNV0-57VV-FJ7K-8KU5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 26.Aragon A, Aragon C, Thorn A P. peasants and pesticides on the northern Nicaraguan Pacific plain. Int J Occup Environ Health. 2001;7:295–302. doi: 10.1179/oeh.2001.7.4.295. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 27.Eakin J, MacEachen E, Clarke J. ‘Playing it smart’ with return to work: Small workplace experience under Ontario’s policy of self-reliance and early return. Policy Pract Health Safety. 2003;1:19–42. doi: 10.1080/14774003.2003.11667635. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 28.Laflamme L, Cloutier E. Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. 4th. Geneva: Bureau international du travail; 1997. Working conditions and safety in forestry work; pp. 68.32–68.35. [Google Scholar]
  • 29.Walters D. Employee representation on health and safety in small enterprises. Employee Relat. 1998;20:164–79. doi: 10.1108/01425459810211322. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 30.Corneliusson F. The impact of regulations on firms: A case study of the biotech industry. Law Policy. 2005;27:429–49. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9930.2005.00206.x. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 31.Champoux D, Brun JP. Dispositions, capacités et pratiques de SST dans les petites entreprises: opinions de patrons, d’employés et d’intervenants en SST au Québec. PISTES (in press).
  • 32.Walters D. Health and Safety in Small Enterprises. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang; 2001. [Google Scholar]
  • 33.Walters D, Jensen PL. The discourses and purposes behind the development of the EU framework directive 89/391. In: Frick K, Jensen PL, Quinlan M, Wilthagen T, editors. Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management. Amsterdam: Pergamon; 2000. pp. 87–98. [Google Scholar]
  • 34.Tucker E. Working Disasters: The Politics of Recognition and Response. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing; 2006. [Google Scholar]
  • 35.Gollac M, Volkoff S. La santé au travail et ses masques. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales. 2006;163:5–17. [Google Scholar]
  • 36.Hall A, Forrest A, Sears A, Carlan N. Making a difference. Knowledge, activism and worker representation in joint OHS committees. Relations Industrielles. 2006;61:408–36. doi: 10.7202/014184ar. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 37.Lamm F, Walters D. Regulating occupational health and safety in small businesses. In: Bluff L, Gunningham N, Johnstone R, editors. Occupational Health and Safety Regulation for a Changing World. Sydney: The Federation Press; 2004. [Google Scholar]
  • 38.Demarais L. Évaluation de l’implantation des comités de santé et de sécurité du travail: une étude de cas multiples réalisée dans les petites et moyennes entreprises au Québec. Montreal: Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM); 2004. [Google Scholar]
  • 39.Simard M. Étude des Mécanismes de Prévention et de Participation en Santé-Sécurité du Travail au Canada. Montreal: Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST); 2000. [Google Scholar]
  • 40.Eakin J, MacEachen E, Mansfield E, Clarke J. The Logic of Practice: An Ethnographic Study of Front-line Service Work with Small Businesses in Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Toronto: Workplace Safety and Insurance Board; 2009. [Google Scholar]
  • 41.Eakin J. The discourse of abuse in return-to-work: A hidden epidemic of suffering. In: Peterson C, Mayhew C, editors. Occupational Health and Safety: International Influences and the New Epidemics. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing; 2005. [Google Scholar]
  • 42.Ram M, Edwards P, Gilman M, Arrowsmith J. The dynamics of informality: Employment relations in small firms and the effects of regulatory change. Work Employ Soc. 2001;15:845–61. doi: 10.1177/095001701400438233. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 43.Balka E, Freilich J. Evaluating nurses’ injury rates: Challenges associated with information technology and indicator content and design. Policy Pract Health Safety. 2008;6:83–99. doi: 10.1080/14774003.2008.11667724. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  • 44.Becker H. Whose side are we on? Soc Probl. 1967;14:239–48. doi: 10.2307/799147. [DOI] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique are provided here courtesy of Springer

RESOURCES