ILPC 2026

The analysis of the labour processes is not only necessary to understand the value generation and the process of capital accumulation, but is also crucial to examine how its configurations impact on workers´ health. The illnesses and sufferings that workers endure are the least visible cost of capitalist accumulation, but they are socially very significant.

 

Until a few years ago, the ILO (International Labour Organization) attention was focused almost exclusively on pain, physical injuries, occupational accidents and occupational diseases caused by the poor working conditions and environment. But the crisis of the mode of development initiated in the 1970 and the subsequent change of productive paradigm brought not only renewed risks to the human body but also the intensification of work with enormous implications on mental and psychic health. The incidence of these problems have been demonstrated by numerous researches that have addressed these issues under the concept of "psychosocial risks of work".

 

Epidemiological studies have showed how these risks are somatized and eventually predispose to diseases such as myocardial infarctions, strokes, musculoskeletal disorders, ulcers, digestive disorders, sleep and mood disorders, addictions and various psychic disorders.

 

In recent years, we have developed several researches in Argentina that analysed these issues based on the aforementioned theoretical point of view. We have taken the evidence from concrete empirical cases, thus linking with the tradition of studies of the Labour Process Debate. Specifically, we have used a mixed and multidisciplinary methodology which includes studies of occupational medicine, ergonomic measurements, workshops coordinated by labour psychologists and surveys to detect the incidence of these psychosocial risks. In many cases, these researches were initiated by the request of trade unions that needed to identify the risks that workers were facing, that were interested in training their delegates in these issues and that needed to promote their discussion in collective bargaining agreements.

 

Our paper will aim to develop the theoretical approach used in these investigations that we have carried out in our country and to expose the main results of some of them in order to show how problems that affect workers’ health (that were previously hidden or denied) can be systematized and made visible.  In this way, we seek to discuss the links between labour process, accumulation of capital and health using an expanded approach that allows the understanding and the prevention of these renewed risks at work.