WORLD WORLDWIDE United Kingdom EUROPE - news journal UPDATE - (en) UK, SOLfed Direct Action #2 - Wellness Schemes At Work Don't Work (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Great news! Employers worldwide spent around $60billion in 2021 on

"wellness" programs - and here you were thinking your employer didn't
give a crap about you. The even better news is that the money spent on
"wellness" by employers is projected to grow to the sum of $94billion by
2026. The extent that companies will go to improve the health of their
workforce knows no bounds, with companies splashing out billions in
schemes such as helping to stop workers smoking, offering diet plans,
introducing yoga and exercise sessions, installing bicycle-powered desks
(the mind boggles), providing counselling, taking employees on outdoor
adventures and much more. Your bosses are truly wonderful people.
The only fly in the ointment of this utopian world of work is that
"wellness" programs do not work & can even make things worse - as a
number of studies have shown. A new study by Oxford University found
that almost all "wellness" interventions had no statistically
significant impact on worker wellbeing or job satisfaction. They notably
failed to reduce stress, make employees feel supported or improve
workplace relationships. In some cases, wellbeing interventions seemed
to make matters worse. For example, the study found that mindfulness
training actually had a negative impact on workers overall mental
health. No doubt many readers will be utterly shocked to learn that
peddling away at the desk while trying to deal with ever rising
workloads does not actually improve your health. Who would have thought it?
The reality is that wellness programs are little more than PR exercises
aimed at convincing workers, customers, and the wider public that
employers really do care. Worse, they are insulting, given that the
employers seem to think that workers are so thick that sending them off
for a weekend of thrilling "outdoor adventure" and "fun" will blind them
to the fact that workloads are increasing while their pay, in real
terms, is falling. In truth the very same employers who are falling over
themselves to promote wellness schemes, as a way of improving workplace
health, are the very same people who are making people ill by driving
down working conditions in the name of ever greater profit.
The extent to which declining working conditions are affecting workers'
health is truly shocking. A recent study at Stanford University found
that the most common workplace sources of stress included shift work,
long working hours, job insecurity, conflicts between work and life, low
job control, high work demands and lack of support. The report found
that in the USA, 120,000 deaths a year could be attributable to these
factors and estimated that between 5% and 8% of healthcare is down to
how employers treat their workforce.
The answer to ill health arising from poor working conditions is not the
degrading farce of management driven wellness programs but workers
getting together and challenging the power of the employer. As a trade
union the Solidarity Federation runs a number of workplace training
courses, including a course aimed at women, and one tailored for LGBTQ+
people who wish to organise in their workplaces.

http://solfed.org.uk/da/direct-action-solidarity-federation-2024-issue-2
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