A crisis in workplace mental health injuries... And in work itself

A crisis in workplace mental health injuries... And in work itself Dr Mélanie Dufour-Poirier, Associate Professor at the University of Montreal’s School of Industrial Relations, discusses opportunities to safeguard employees’ mental health injuries and wellbeing through union involvement. Well before the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread requirement for telework, mental health injuries in the workplace (e.g., chronic stress, anxiety, depression, burnout and, in the worst cases, suicide) increased throughout the world. The acute rise in these problems is now considered the epiphenomenon of a global social and societal crisis, not to mention a major public health concern. That every year in Canada, on average, five hundred thousand workers are not at work due to mental health issues is testament to this. From that perspective, more and more research (including ours) shows the existence of a close correlation between how work is conceived, designed, organized and carried out and the prevalence of mental health problems in workplaces.