Abstract

TOMAS, María Margarita; TABOADA EUDAL, Marcela Alejandra  and  TOLEDO, María Delia. The conditions and environment of work in states companies and their effects on people's health. Cuad. Fac. Humanid. Cienc. Soc., Univ. Nac. Jujuy [online]. 2004, n.22, pp.339-357. ISSN 1668-8104.

The conditions and environment of work - C&EW- change sensibly according to the area that is analyzed. However there is a constant, that can be considered as a frame: in every organization there are dependent variables, the C&EW in which a dynamic, individual and in permanent change process occurs. The present work has as an objective to analyze the C&EW (taking as a reference the theoretical frame from J. Neffa) in the scope of a state company on the way to reconversion. An analysis is made, from the perception of the modifications that cultural, social, political economic and technological surroundings produced in the state organizations. These world- wide constant changes, added to the strong instability of the markets, impose a process of adaptation to the new demands to the organizations. The necessity to consider the important role of the human factor in the companies prevailed. From this point of view the analysis of the C&EW varied their attention center, from the objective factors towards the subjective ones. Within these last factors the life and the health of the workers and its way to react to diverse C&EW, are particularly important. The work group proposed to analyze, from the subjectivity of the individual, the way to perceive the C&EW and their effects in areas such as productivity, absenteeism, rotation and quality of the work of life. The research implied a contact with the national reality and particularly in the province of Santiago del Estero. The attention was centered in the worker's health from the new economic social perspective in Argentina. The dominant conception in this state company (traditional or innovating) was tried to be defined from the reality observed. Both conceptions characterized theoretically the axis of our investigations: the traditional tendency takes care of the problem of security and hygiene in the work and acts on the emergent, without considering its causality and multiple determination. The innovating conception emphasizes the meaning that work has for a person, constituting a right and a social obligation; aspects like reproduction of human species, the scientific-technological progress and the improvement of general conditions of life depend on it. The C&EW were considered as a whole from the innovating vision, result of the insertion of the world of work in a wider context. This demanded a global and integrating treatment. Although the investigations demonstrated the positive effects of the improvement of work conditions, and the persistence of International Labour Organization to obtain its humanization, it has concluded that in our country the deep crisis has prevented the employer from making investments for C&EW improvement. The traditional conception prevails, and the progress towards the innovating conception of the conditions and environment of work remains a social debt

Keywords : Conditions; Environment; Work.

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