Global Health Watch 1 in one file

Health and globalization | A1
Even as labour income is stagnant or declining for many workers, their
hours, workloads and work speed are rising rapidly, not only in Canada but
in almost all OECD countries. Workplace stress, work-related mental health
problems and physical illness are rising in parallel, as is the number of workers
experiencing difficulty in managing both work and family life (Higgins et al.
2004). In ageing societies where social provision is being cut back, as in North
America, increasing numbers of working people like Tom will have to meet
the demands of elder care as well. The multiple dimensions of work-related
insecurity are important sources of stress: workers are unsure not only about
their present employment and income and prospects for the future, but also
about the shrinking safety net of unemployment and welfare transfers (ILO
2004b). Canada’s contribution to labour market flexibility has been a massive
60% decline in spending on supports for unemployed workers, as a percentage
of GDP, in 1991–9 (OECD 2004a). Cutbacks in the national unemployment
insurance system were a major factor in the government’s ability to balance its
budget after years of running deficits, but they made it much harder for Tom,
and others like him, to collect benefits after they lost a job and to survive on
them – reducing the percentage of unemployed workers eligible for benefits
to levels not seen since the original legislation of the 1940s (Rice and Prince
2000).
It is not a great leap to Tom’s accident from what the data tell us about
the physical and mental health risks of part-time, insecure and precarious
employment. In Canada the risks are increased by the post-NAFTA integration
of North American labour markets. Above and beyond the ‘offshoring’
of jobs, Canada has increasing difficulty in setting social and labour market
policies independently of the US. Especially in central Canada where Tom’s
accident occurred, manufacturing industry is tightly linked to suppliers and
customers in the US and the price tag of independence – measured in job
losses, capital flight and forgone tax revenues – is high and almost certainly
rising. Canadian trends and policy responses therefore bear watching as
early warning indicators of the challenges globalization will present for high
income countries.
Conclusion
The fundamental health challenges inherent in our contemporary global
political economy – equity and sustainability – have been central to the struggle
for health for the past century. Addressing them requires some form of
market-correcting system of wealth redistribution between as well as within
nations. Globalization, as we know it today, is fundamentally asymmetric. ‘In
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