Most importantly, we also look at how you can start getting things changed with health and safety, with an eye to the fact that ultimately the only true healthy and safe workplace can be one which us the workers run ourselves. Take atypical office work example. Bad design and poor maintenance in modern sealed workplaces with their artificial environments can be responsible for allergies, exhaustion, depression, asthma and other respiratory illness, eye problems and infections such as humidifier fever. It currently affects 200,000 workers a year in Britain, many of whom are in constant pain and disabled, sometimes permanently. RSI also affects manual workers in all kinds of repetitive jobs- food, electronics, clothing, cars, packing, care work, cleaning, furniture and many other industries.
Many workers realise the danger too late, and become disabled.
Photocopiers and laser printers give off Ozone, which can cause health problems such as eye, nose and throat irritation, dermatitis, headaches, premature ageing and possible reproductive and cancer hazards. The ever increasing use of computers also subjects up to 10 million UK workers to a range of possible hazards -eyestrain, RSI, skin problems, miscarriages, stressful work organisation. Occupational Stress in areas such as office work, social work, care work, nursing education etc. is now widespread and growing, not least because of increasing casualisation of work in these areas, and the added pressures this brings. As cuts bite, and new, more hierarchical, systems are imposed in workplaces, the tendency for managers to harass and bully workers into increasing their workload becomes greater. All leads to more stress, which can result in stomach and heart disease and a variety of psychological illnesses.