Improving Workplace Quality: New Perspectives and Challenges for Worker Well-Being

EDITORIAL The volume presents a selection of contributions mostly from the fourteenth annual conference in commemoration of Prof Marco Biagi on Wellbeing at and through Work held in Modena (Italy) on 17-18 March 2016. The papers cover a number of countries and a wide range of issues in relation to quality of work and employee well-being including discrimination, harassment, disability, and work-life balance addressing them in an interdisciplinary perspective. Moreover, a number of regulatory approaches ranging from legislative interventions to voluntary measures are analysed in an attempt to cast light on the problem of well-being at work. Certain legal problems of discrimination are highlighted by Wendy Greene with respect to the USA. In particular, her legal analysis is concentrated on the questionable interpretation by the courts of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act aiming to protect employees from any form of discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex and religion. The focus of the paper is on “misperception discrimination” by which employees suffer discrimination based on false assumptions about their ethnic or national origin. The author draws attention to the evident discrepancies and sometimes paradoxes deriving from the courts’ interpretation which may be potentially harmful for employees. In a similar vein Elena Gerasimova considers the role of the national courts in shaping anti-discriminatory policies and business culture in Russia. She focuses her analysis on the impact of a landmark court ruling, Konstantin Markin vs Russia, which demonstrates highly controversial aspects and attitudes to this problem as well as the general weakness of international law in the face of national sovereignty and the primacy of national legislation. Also in relation to Russia, Nikita Lyutov investigates the problems of discrimination legislation with particular reference to age and disability discrimination, and its compliance with the international labour standards. While highlighting a significant gap in the legislation and case law and the reasons for this lack of provisions, the author outlines some constructive ways to harmonise domestic law with international standards. A further dimension of well-being concerning harassment at work is addressed by another Russian scholar, Elena Sychenko, who provides a comparative analysis of the regulatory approaches to this problem in France and Italy. By highlighting the lack of attention to this matter in Russia, the author argues that this problem is not sufficiently taken into consideration even in the European countries with a sounder anti-discrimination legislative framework. Another crucial aspect of worker well-being linked to the conciliation of work and family life is at the centre of Trina Jones’s analysis exploring the effects of work-life balance policies on low-wage workers in the US. The author argues that for a number of reasons these workers have limited access to such benefits compared to their higher-wage counterparts. In this regard the author provides some interesting insights into a complex question concerning advantages and disadvantages of these policies, advocating the extension of these benefits to low-wage workers. Maddalena Cannito reflects on the use of parental leave as a means to improve employee well-being and the prospects for its more effective implementation in Italy. The author argues that legislative measures alone are likely to be insufficient and should be supported by a range of measures aimed to encourage fathers to take parental leave. Even though the research is limited to the Piedmont region, it provides useful insights into the general situation at national level in relation to parental leave, in particular paternity leave, in Italy. The legal aspects of the regulation of part-time work as a way to allow better conciliation of work and family needs are examined by Carla Spinelli in light of recent Italian labour law reforms aimed at the rationalisation and simplification of the regulation of non-standard employment contracts. Again with regard to non-standard forms of employment, in particular digital work, Marco Tufo provides a detailed assessment of the approaches towards its legal regulation at national and international level, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of these new forms of employment and their possible impact on employee well-being. Marius Olivier and Avinash Govindjee consider the relation between disabilities and worker well-being by examining different strategies for the return to work of people with disabilities, with a focus on emerging countries such as South Africa and Malaysia. By providing a critical overview of the existing international provisions in this regard and its implementation at national level, they draw attention to the need for in-depth research into the proper adaption of these measures and best practices implemented in the developed countries to the particular institutional contexts of countries emerging on the global scene. The paper by Ubaldo Macchitella and Giorgio Gallizioli shows how the approaches to well-being at work may be creative and not necessarily limited to statutory provisions. In particular the authors reflect on innovative measures adopted by the European Commission for its employees within the programme Fit@work aiming to encourage a healthy lifestyle and to create a healthy work environment by promoting active participation in sport. Other examples of creative approaches to well-being at work, achieved by means of partnerships between private and public welfare institutions, are outlined in the paper by Daniela Oliva and Giorgio Risso examining two care services projects successfully implemented in Turin and Bologna. Their research brings to mind some of the experimental programmes promoted by Marco Biagi in Modena and Milan, aimed at improving the working conditions of care workers, against the backdrop of demographic changes in society with increasing numbers of individuals in the older age cohorts in need of care services in the home. Also in this instance, it is evident that Marco Biagi’s research work was both innovative and far-sighted. Finally an interesting econometric analysis of the link between mental health, well-being and unemployment is proposed by Tindara Addabbo, Fabrizio Starace and Elena Sarti in relation to Modena (Italy). The study provides a breakdown on the basis of sex, age and education considering also the effects of the economic crisis and the series of major earthquakes which took place in Modena (Italy) in May 2011. Several of the contributions in this volume adopt a wide-ranging international and comparative perspective while others focus on more specific regional experiences, but it is evident that a common set of problems in relation to employee well-being can be identified in various countries and at different levels. One important indication that emerges from the case studies is that many problems can be solved not just through legislation, but also by means of original and creative solutions and practices that need to be properly analysed by researchers and promoted by policy-makers. William Bromwich Olga Rymkevich