Stress among Blue Collar Workers. A Case Study of the Steel Industry
| Published date | 01 November 1981 |
| Date | 01 November 1981 |
| Pages | 18-21 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057221 |
| Author | Mike Kelly,Cary L. Cooper |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Stress among Blue Collar
Workers
A Case Study of the Steel Industry
by Mike Kelly, Staff Development Unit, Manchester Polytechnic
and Professor Cary L. Cooper, Department of Management Sciences, UMIST
Are the sources and effects of executive stress echoed down
the line on to the shopfloor of manufacturing industry?
Should the researchers into the "stress-chains" at
managerial level turn their attention to the investigation of
stress and stress-reduction among blue-collar workers?
How far it can be done, and how parallel are the problems
on each level, are questions which British industry might
well concentrate upon to a greater extent than is evident
from a review of the literature on stress over the last 5-10
years.
This article describes recent work by the authors
into the nature and effects of chains of stressors on the
shopfloor which could be argued to be holding back real
growth in the UK's manufacturing potential, chiefly
through the diversion of energy for human growth into
over-concentration on factors leading to dissatisfaction at
work.
Problems Involving Stress at Work
The issues described below arose in a field research project
in a small to medium-sized private steel manufacturing and
processing company employing around 450 workers. The
study was centred in the steel-making plant, which
produced up to 120,000 tonnes of prime steel billet per
year, for processing into a variety of steel products. The
company prided itself on its progressive and innovating
production methods, which included a continuous casting
process, and its advanced and lively training section. It
wished to ensure that relationships among and with its
employees were of the same high quality and so when
problems were encountered related to the workers on the
continuous casting process, we were asked to investigate
the nature and strength of these problems, using
observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires. In
the view of the management, and those of the employees
who had been involved, particularly the ISTC Union
representatives, the issues were related to the stressful
conditions surrounding the steel manufacturing process.
As the steel plant manager said;
"Improve the quality of working life, which should
therefore improve the productivity . . . the way we'll
perhaps achieve (this) is to get a greater understanding
of the main contributory factors, and see if we possibly
need to restructure the working environment, or re-
structure the work of the teams."
"Severe" Physical and Social Conditions
The stress factors associated with the casting area of the
plant were seen by all concerned as "severe", the term
used by one of the senior line managers, and were
concentrated in the physical aspects of noise, fumes and,
to a lesser extent, heat, plus their social and psychological
consequences of isolation and inter-personal tension. A
further possible source of stress was seen to be in the lack
of job satisfaction, partially arising from the stressors
above, and partially endemic to the nature of the casting of
liquid steel, in a continuous process lasting some 70
minutes, into moulds, whence it was drawn into billets
(90-110mm square).
Are the effects of stress holding back the
growth of UK productivity?
For 75 per cent of this time cycle, the casters were
exposed to, and by the nature of their task, unable to move
away from, very high levels of noise (up to 110 dB(A) for
much of the time), and periodic and unpleasant air
pollution, caused by the activities of other workers and
machines in their proximity. These conditions necessitated
the wearing of ear-protection, in the form of ear-muffs or
cotton-wool swabs, which effectively, in the plant
conditions, isolated the wearer from others around him,
and, according to some casters, from themselves: "You
can't hear yourself think" was a frequent comment, and
one backed by the most relevant previous research
conducted recently into noise, where it was found that one
effect of high levels of noise was the masking "of the inner
speech which a person uses in thinking, and in keeping
track of what he is doing"[1].
The Stress Chain
Such stress chains, the one stressor adding to and leading
to further stressors, are difficult to quantify and evaluate.
Poulton suggests that the effect "least likely to be far from
the truth" is that if each one of three stressors may lead to
a decrease in efficiency at work, (and all the attendance
additional problems posed by such a decrease) of say, 10
per cent, the cummulative effect of the three stressors
might "be considerably in excess of 30 per cent"[2]. This
supposition was supported by the research described here.
Further suggestions as to the possible sources of stress at
work, including blue-collar stressors, are offered by Halse
[3].
Whilst reminding the reader that stress is not the sole
prerogative of the 20th century worker, and warning
against an over-romantic view of the past as an unstressful
"pastoral symphony", he goes on to propose two relevant
stressors as: (a) uncertainty about personal worth in a job
and (b) fear of ridicule or criticism from co-workers.
The development of an image around a worker or
groups of workers which has elements of these two items
18 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT + DATA SYSTEMS
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