Occupational Health and Safety for Workers in Precarious Job Situations: Combating Inequalities in the Workplace

This paper summarises the findings of a project comprising a research component and a component of social mobilisation on protecting the occupational health and safety (OHS) of workers in precarious job situations. Three worker categories were studied: workers hired through recruitment agencies, temporary foreign workers (TFW) and workers in small non-unionized businesses (SB). This article is comprised of three sections. The first section defines the theoretical framework of cumulative precariousness among workers, including immigrant workers. The second section summarises the main highlights of a review of the literature (> 200 documents) on the health of workers hired through recruitment agencies, temporary foreign workers (TFW) and workers in small non-unionized businesses (SB). The third section outlines the mobilisation capabilities of stakeholders (80 experts) in the areas of OHS, immigration and employability to transform preventive practices. We have observed that these three categories of workers cumulate the risks of exposure to work-related injuries, but that the preventive OHS practices in effect are inequitable and not adapted for these workers, who bear the brunt of the flexibility needs of the job market.