The periodical of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) has dedicated its 443rd issue (April-June 2026) to a topic that continues to affect the daily lives of millions of workers: workplace accidents, occupational diseases, and, more generally, the relationship between work, health, and safety.
The dossier Trabajar mata ("Work Kills") addresses the issue from various perspectives: technical, union, social, and political. From injury data to the shortcomings of prevention systems, from gender differences in workplace health to corporate responsibilities, a picture emerges that questions not only working conditions, but the very model of production organization.We offer Il Cantiere readers this article on mental health, translated by our editorial staff, as an opportunity for discussion and in-depth analysis of a topic that affects the lives, health, and dignity of workers every day.
A woman enters our center one morning looking terrible. She tells us she can't take it anymore, that she wants to disappear. For years, she's been scraping together odd, short-hour jobs, forced to report everything to the public employment service to avoid sanctions, because she receives a minimal benefit that is reduced every time she finds a few extra hours of work.
One of the companies she works for isn't even reimbursed for her transportation to the industrial area and tells us that, in effect, she's losing money. She's also overcome by anger when she thinks companies can benefit from her disability certificate and that this status is also used to justify a lower salary, based on a less favorable contract.
She won't stop crying. She's shaking. We've never seen her like this, even though we'd been noticing signs of growing distress for some time. She's a strong woman with some very difficult experiences behind her. We admire her and love her because, above all else, she's affectionate and grateful for the support we try to offer her.
That morning, we can only tell her that she's right, that it's not fair, and that this is all rubbish. She talks to the psychologist for a while. It's clear she's reached her limit. Her self-esteem is rock bottom.
Luckily, this story had a modestly happy ending. Precarious, but happy nonetheless. Shortly thereafter, a job offer arrived, securing a stable, almost full-time contract. Soon, she no longer needed therapy.
Now she often comes in with a smile on her face. Sometimes she complains about her salary, and rightly so. She doesn't lose sight of the fact that she's still in precarious employment and poor, but the pressure has eased significantly, and with it, her mental health has improved.
There are many forms of discrimination that plague her body and her life. They will continue to plague her, but she has accessed the small potion she needed to continue facing life with strength and humor. Other stories, however, never find a way out. The vessel fills up irremediably and no solution arrives. No stroke of luck. No train to catch that will allow her to even partially change her living conditions.
And yes, we're calling access to a poorly paid job with an indecent contract a "stroke of luck." But many people, especially women, are excluded from even this.
At this point, it's no longer necessary to spend too much time demonstrating that health is profoundly linked to social class, income, and gender. And we also know that when we talk about health, we must include mental health.
However, claiming that there is a close relationship between mental health and socioeconomic status can become problematic if the various factors at play are not considered. There is a risk that those who perceive themselves
- rightly or wrongly - how members of the middle or upper classes end up thinking that mental health is an issue that concerns only the poor and therefore cannot affect them.
The same thing happens with gender. There's a risk that many men will think, or continue to think, that psychological problems are a women's problem.
This is also due to the strong social stigma that continues to surround mental health issues. We know that the stronger the stigma and the more entrenched the prejudices surrounding these issues, the greater the resistance to acknowledging and accepting mental distress, both in oneself and in loved ones. This delays seeking help and thus worsens the prospects for recovering their quality of life. However, we also know that when working-class people recognize a problem and seek help, the public healthcare system takes months to offer them assistance. And when this assistance arrives, it is often insufficient, fragmented, and inadequate.
Furthermore, the widespread discussion about mental health today hasn't translated into a real increase in public resources. For this reason, initial psychological or psychiatric visits require extremely long wait times. The same is true for subsequent appointments.
The relationship of trust and the atmosphere of safety that should develop between therapist and patient become almost science fiction, a true leap of faith, when meetings take place once every four months.
For this reason, people who have sufficient income to turn to the private sector, with greater or lesser financial sacrifice, often end up doing so. In this effort, many families compromise their financial stability. Yet, those who manage to access private care become privileged, placed beyond the line that separates those who can treat their mental health issues from those who cannot. This lack of access to effective therapy causes mental health problems to drag on for years, sometimes a lifetime.
When mental health issues arise, there's a risk of falling into a vicious cycle that's extremely difficult to break. Poverty and precarious conditions impede access to care, and at the same time, psychological distress makes it extremely difficult to improve one's social, economic, and employment status. For people with serious mental health issues, finding and maintaining employment is particularly challenging.
An equation in which we must include stigma, taboo, capitalism, and productivity.
The labor market is a breeding ground for mental distress. It's a hostile environment for those who already suffer from it and a breeding ground for new ailments for those who have never experienced it before. Not only that, unemployment and the lack of job opportunities also cause suffering. If we accept these premises, we must also accept that social factors play a decisive role in mental health. This is not a recent discovery. Yet, in practice, there continues to be a certain resistance, both social and medical, to accepting these factors as causes, triggers, or aggravators of mental distress.
If, on the one hand, we have a biomedical vision of mental health that tends to emphasize biological factors and, on the other, a meritocratic society that constantly tells us that everyone gets what they deserve or what they are entitled to, the result is a collective imagination in which those who suffer or become ill are responsible for their condition or are victims exclusively of their genetic predisposition.
Thus, the material living conditions, lived experiences, and various forms of violence embedded in social, economic, cultural, and family contexts that have very little to do with individual choices or one's genetic heritage disappear.
Many studies indicate that the lack of support networks contributes to generating or worsening psychological distress. This doesn't mean blaming the family circle or those closest to those suffering from mental health problems. It's not simply a matter of having a family that knew or could provide the necessary support.
The problem is deeper: we live in a social model that places enormous demands on people and offers very little care in return.
This is why many individuals and groups are investing energy in building solidarity networks. It's about creating refuges where people can express themselves and receive the necessary support.
Mental health organizations-associations, collectives, and self-help groups-are places of trust and support for many people and their families. They are precious places for those who often feel alone within a system that creates suffering and, rather than offering the tools to overcome it, perpetuates it through precarious living conditions and weak public services.
We have ended up considering many mental disorders as chronic pathologies, probably because it is simpler and more convenient than recognizing that, in many cases, it is the living conditions themselves that are at the origin of the malaise.
Changing these conditions often means questioning some of the fundamental pillars of neoliberal heteropatriarchy: breaking with the family, with the couple, with the labor market, with gender roles, with expectations of success.
And, to be honest, we know that such a transformation is almost impossible if there isn't a solid network beneath our feet and if there aren't many hands around us ready to support us.
For this reason, as we continue to demand the right to dignified and free psychological and psychiatric care, we will also continue to build a network of networks, in cities and in the countryside, places where we can meet others and rediscover ourselves, places where we can name our ailments and, together, seek alternatives.
https://alternativalibertaria.org/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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