‘History(ies) of occupational health’ Colloquium
Le Creusot, 25-26 September 2008

Call for Papers
[Call for talks]

 

Within the framework of the ANR's Programme de recherche Santé-environnement-travail (the health-environment-work research programme), the Groupe d'histoire Santé & Travail (health and occupational history group) is organising an international colloquium that will be held 25 and 26 September 2008, at Le Creusot, under the title 'Histoire(s) de la santé au travail' [history(ies) of occupational health].
Changes that have come about in the production systems and labour markets have contributed to a revival of interest in the issues of occupational health and of safety. New research has focused on deaths due to asbestos and silicosis, the increase in the number of occupational accidents, occupational cancer, MSD, and so on. Nonetheless, most of these studies focus on the most contemporary period.
By favouring a historical approach to the issues regarding occupational health since the end of the 18th century, the colloquium proposes to note these questions down in a long perspective, in various historical contexts and in an international comparison. The intention is for a contribution to be made to bring out continuities and mutations in the representations and the strategies of actors, to discover the national specificities and the international meeting points. It will invite giving an account of the diversity of approaches and the scales of occupational health (institutional history, analysis of the interplay of the actors, individual and collective biographies, etc.).

1.Contextualised issues of occupational health

One of the main goals of the colloquium is to relate the issues of occupational health to the economic and social contexts, to the organisational methods of work and to the systems of social protection.

General situation. How does one explain the fluctuations of occupational health problems in number and in severity? What relationships should be established between these variations in the numbers of occupational health and periods of dips or growth, and what explanations can we give for these phenomena? Is it necessary, for example, to attribute a decline in the numbers to a reduction in the risk of accident or occupational diseases or, on the contrary, to less attention to risk situations? Conversely, is an increase in the workforce with health problems a direct result of the intensification of work or of improved attention to the interest of the workers?

Sectoral level. Occupational health is to be understood at the sectoral level. Can a degradation be observed in the work conditions in the industries in decline (reduction in investments, obsolescence of equipment, or cutback in costs)? Do the new branches or establishments benefit from methods of production that are more certain, or do they on the contrary experience new dangers, unknown risk factors?

Employment conditions. Occupational health should also be analysed as regards the management policies of the companies and the social relationships created there. Crossing the sectors and the national borders, the means of hiring, the differentiated make-up of the workforce (unskilled workers, youth, women, country persons, immigrants), the rotation of personnel, the place given to supervision and short training, and so on, do these not discriminate in the area of occupational health? The disparities within a same sector or a same national area invite questions on the connection between occupational health and economic performance. In this respect, are temping or atypical work contracts, or subcontracting factors for increased risk? Conversely, would internal markets be more protective of the health of their employees? The forms of expression of the employees (strength and attitudes of the union organisation, decentralised or centralised trade unionism, significance of the flexibilities the employees have in developing their occupational activity, etc.) merit particular attention.

The individual level is essential for studying the inequalities in the face of occupational risk: this is where accommodations are carried out between bodily integrity, occupational itineraries and work-related activities. The follow-up of individual trajectories clarifies in particular the effects of structuring the labour market on health, and emphasises the specific position occupied by women and foreigners on this market. It leads to the question of whether the mechanisms for compensating occupational pathologies could constitute a means for exiting the labour market. It stresses the future of beneficiaries of the compensation and more broadly the feeling of the victims whose health is affected at work.

2.Knowledge, recognition and compensation of occupational pathologies

The processes of recognising and compensating pathologies and unemployability that are occupational in origin, at variable levels, intermingle with scientific controversies and social or political mobilisation. Knowledge of these cannot be limited to texts, it also goes through the study of uses that were made from regulations and purviews.

The issue of learnings between progress of knowledge, instrumentation of expertise and denial. It is appropriate first to consider the modalities of emerging questions of occupational health, and the rôle played by lay learnings or the 'expertise' of victims and scientific knowledge. Knowledge forms an issue for legal recognition of pathologies, and the modalities for compensation depend on this knowledge. The actors (employers, including the State employer, public administrations, unions, and victims) often appeal to well-known scientists or experts. The recurrent denial in the strategies of the employers, who often have significant resources in areas of expertise, deserves particular attention in an approach of comparing the pathologies, the 'pathogenesis', even between the countries.

Actors and forms of mobilisation. As many historians have written, the attention that is given occupational health depends as much, if not more, on the mobilisation of social, economic or political forces, as on the progress of medical knowledge. The historic study of mobilisation on the issues of occupational health leads raises questions concerning the identity of the actors (victims and their families, victims' organisations, union organisations, employer organisations, political groups, administrations and public powers) and the way in which they organise themselves to defend their positions, given the kind of pathology, the sector of activity, the economic context and the system of social protection in the various countries.
The attitude of salaried employees and of their organisations is sometimes seen as a passivity that would contribute to the invisibility of the issues of occupational health. This assessment is to be re-examined, particularly by a variation in the levels of observation: the mobilisations, often weak at the national level, should be reconsidered at the local, sectoral or international levels (BIT, European Union, etc.). Attention should also be given to the processes that result in recognition or non-recognition, to the elaboration of compensation regimes: negotiated or conflictual, bipartite or tripartite, centralised or decentralised, etc.

Use of the rules and standards. The standards should be analysed not only when being created but also when in use, through the bodies involved in implementing the occupational health policies (administrations, labour inspectorate, hygiene and safety commissions, insurance organisations, occupational medicine, justice, etc.). It is also a matter of seeing how the actors in the world of labour take these rules up, both within the company and outside of it, and what negotiations or conflicts take place around implementation of the rules. Individually, it is a matter in particular of asking whether the mechanisms for compensation of the occupational pathologies could constitute a way to leave the labour market, and to consider the future of the beneficiaries of the compensation and the feelings of the victims whose health has been affected at work.

Calendar
We suggest two forms of participation in the colloquium: classic papers and contributions with a more limited range before leading to a wrap-up per theme within each main line.
The proposals should fall under one or more of the themes below; they should include the title and a summary (maximum one page with bibliography) of the paper.
These proposals should be received by the colloquium's Scientific Secretary by e-mail before 6 March 2008 (in .rtf and .doc formats): Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir : .
Paper selection: Mid-April 2008
Written papers should be sent before 30 August 2008
 
Proposals for intervention on one, several or all the themes below should be received electronically (in .rtf and .doc formats) by the colloquium's scientific secretary, in the form of a succinct summary by theme, before 15 May 2008: Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir : .
The text of the interventions should be sent before 30 August 2008



In the name of the Groupe d’Histoire Travail et Santé, the organizing committee:
Anne-Sophie Bruno (U. Paris X)
Eric Geerkens (U. Liège)
Françoise Fortunet (U. Bourgogne)
Nicolas Hatzfeld (U. Evry)
Catherine Omnès (U. Versailles S-Q-E)