- Tytuł:
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Polacy pracujący w czasach COVID-19
Working Poles During Covid-19 - Autorzy:
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Gardawski, Juliusz
Mrozowicki, Adam
Burski, Jacek
Czarzasty, Jan
Karolak, Mateusz
Sroka, Jacek
Ruszkowski, Paweł - Powiązania:
- https://bibliotekanauki.pl/books/27315795.pdf
- Data publikacji:
- 2022
- Wydawca:
- Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar
- Opis:
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XXI wiek rozpoczął się serią kryzysów, począwszy od kryzysu finansowego i gospodarczego, przez kryzys migracyjny, kryzys związany z narastającym eurosceptycyzmem i brexitem, z falą populizmu i erozją poparcia dla demokracji parlamentarnej . Na to wszystko nałożyła się pandemia COVID-19, która wzmocniła większość istniejących kryzysów i przyniosła nowe wyzwania.
Zespół socjologów i socjoekonomistów z Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego i Szkoły Głównej Handlowej w Warszawie podjął badania tych wyzwań i kryzysów. Na podstawie zogniskowanych wywiadów grupowych z pracownikami edukacji, ochrony zdrowia, pomocy społecznej i logistyki, krytycznej analizy dyskursu medialnego oraz ogólnopolskich badań kwestionariuszowych zespół przygotował niniejszą monografię. Odpowiada w niej na pytania o jakość miejsc pracy osób zatrudnionych, w tym w szczególności pracowników niezbędnych w okresie pandemii, medialny obraz pracy w badanych branżach, stosunek społeczeństwa do nowych form pracy, które rozwinęły się w czasach pandemii, o społeczny dobrostan, charakter więzi społecznych i społecznego zaufania, o postawy wobec ustroju politycznego i gospodarczego, stosunek do partii politycznych i państwa. W książce zawarta jest również charakterystyka cech przeciwników szczepień na COVID-19.
Książka nie tylko wpisuje się w kontekst wcześniejszych, ważnych i cytowanych publikacji (...), lecz także otwiera Autorom pole dla dalszych analiz, na które zespół zwykle nie każe długo czekać czytelnikom, a ich znaczne już grono regularnie się powiększa. (…) Obok sprawnej narracji i argumentacji, zwraca uwagę po mistrzowsku prowadzona metodyka oraz wiele szczegółowych, empirycznie udokumentowanych odniesień, podawanych w sposób spójny. (…) Jest to kolejne, cenne opracowanie świetnie potwierdzające markę zaangażowanych badaczy, z których każdy ma na swoim koncie niebagatelne i uznane osiągnięcia.
prof. dr hab. Jacek Sroka
Społeczne skutki COVID-19 są w książce pokazane z kilku perspektyw. Wśród uczestników rynku pracy wpływ pandemii najsilniej odczuli młodzi, zwłaszcza w sytuacji prekaryzacji pracy. Okazało się też, że społeczny prestiż zawodów medycznych wyraźnie wzrósł w warunkach zagrożenia pandemicznego. Towarzyszy temu wzrost oczekiwań rozszerzenia zakresu opieki zdrowotnej oraz zwiększenie bezpieczeństwa pracowników na rynku pracy. Ważna jest konkluzja wskazująca, że dominującą reakcją wszystkich środowisk na COVID-19 było uruchomienie mechanizmów integracyjnych. Nasze społeczeństwo zachowało model familijny o silnych więziach na poziomie grup pierwotnych, rodzinnych i towarzyskich, natomiast znacznie słabszych instytucjonalnych.
dr hab. prof. ucz. Paweł Ruszkowski
The book aims at expanding the existing body of knowledge on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as a specific type of health and social crisis with potentially deep and profound consequences for labour. The research presented in the book represents a worker-centred, longitudinal, and critical perspective. It emphasises workers’ subjective and intersubjective processes of sense-making with regard to phenomena and processes in the sphere of work, taking into account broader socio-economic, institutional, and cultural contexts. The ‘critical’ aspects refer to the tradition of critical labour studies, while the longitudinal approach indicates a departure from the ‘hot sociology’ of the pandemic towards a more systematic view, using successive measurements as we move away in time from its origins. The book summarises the results of the early phase of research in the project “COV-WORK: Socio-economic consciousness, work experiences and coping strategies of Poles in the context of the post-pandemic crisis.” The pro- ject is funded by the National Science Centre, contract number UMO-2020/37/B/ HS6/00479. The title of the book intentionally rephrases the title of the 2009 book Working Poles and the Crisis of Fordism, edited by Juliusz Gardawski. In the context of the tradition of research on overlapping crises in the spheres of public health, economy, politics, ecology, etc. (“polycrises”, cf. Tooze, 2021), we step forward with two hypotheses. The first one assumes the transformative potential of the health crisis for Poles’ socio-economic consciousness, work situation, and life strategies, which in the last instance may translate into a crisis of the entire socio-economic system based on neoliberal principles. The second hypothesis says that although we have been facing an unprecedented social crisis, the socio-economic system and the key features of socio-economic consciousness (“the normative visions of economy”) show a considerable resilience. The pandemic has accelerated change and is likely to intensify phenomena already present in the pre-pandemic world for a long time, but its transformative potential has been – at least in short-term, according to our research – limited. The empirical research presented in the book combines quantitative (a representative CATI survey on a nationwide sample of adults, N = 1400) and qualitative methods and techniques (15 focus group interviews with employees from 4 sectors – education, health care, social assistance, and logistics; as well as an analysis of the media discourse around the theme of “essential work”). The category of “essential workers” is central to the qualitative research. For the purposes of the research, we define them as people whose work is necessary for social reproduction and meeting biological and basic social needs under the conditions of a pandemic. Our focus in the book is on the experience of the pandemic crisis in Poland and we have been able to make the following, empirically-based observations. Firstly, the Polish society has had an extensive record of crisis experiences amassed over several decades, which has translated – as we argued in one of our earlier works ( Mrozowicki, Czarzasty 2020) – into the “taming of uncertainty” and developing biographical resources for coping with unexpected phenomena and social breakdowns. Secondly, it can be argued that the model of economic and social life shaped in Poland as a result of the confrontation with the radical social changes of the last few decades bears features that facilitate coping with overlapping and reinforcing “polycrises.” “Patchwork capitalism” (Rapacki, 2019) is characterised by internal heterogeneity, institutional ambiguity, and a lack of institutional coherence. The system developed in a cyclical manner, driven by crises – as well as its internal incoherence – was often a source of adaptability to radical changes in the external environment, including, as Gardawski and Towalski argue (2020, p. 54), pandemic shocks. The book consists of seven chapters preceded by the introduction. Chapter 1 discusses the labour market situation in Poland at the time of COVID-19, including the impact of the pandemic on the labour-market status of Poles, the socio-demographic characteristics of those working remotely, and selected issues of the quality of work. Chapter 2 contributes to the discussion of the category of essential work, covering issues such as public perception and the media discourse around this category in Poland. Chapter 3 looks into the ways in which selected categories of essential workers perceive the future of work and their occupational group. Chapter 4 focuses on the organisational conditions of work in the COVID-19 era. Chapter 5 contains the conclusions of the analyses of the socio-economic awareness of working Poles, including, first and foremost, a diagnosis of the normative visions of the economy shared by them. Chapter 6 discusses issues related to the structural and class position of the respondents in relation to selected problems of their social consciousness. Chapter 7 summarises the analyses of the respondents’ views on their well-being under the conditions of the pandemic and their opinions about the state of the economy, the state, and anti-crisis policies, as well as the characteristics of the anti-vaccine faction. The book closes with Conclusions. The results presented in the book are locally-determined but at the same time – due to the global nature of the pandemic – they bear a number of universal features. The global, more widespread trends include: (1) the “normalisation” and reconfiguration of the social profile of work performed from home, which has become the domain of ‘white collars’ and has been identified with remote work much more unambiguously ( Felstead, 2022); (2) acceleration of the process of coming into terms with new technologies in the workplace ( Śledziewska, Włoch, 2021), which is expressed, inter alia, by the growing “transparency” of new digital tools; (3) the development of the prospect of post-pandemic protests in the case of at least some of the essential workers in the industries under scrutiny (Chen, Barrett, 2021; Vandaele, 2021); and (4) the development of inequalities and precarisation of work, which affect predominantly those workers who had already been on the periphery of the labour market prior to the pandemic, including young, less-educated people working under civil law contracts. The frame of reference outlined above is supplemented by the list of hypotheses we adopted in the design phase of the study. At that time, we assumed that the (post-)pandemic crisis would be characterised by the following: 1. The reinforcement of social inequalities and precarisation in the world of work, which had already been present before the pandemic. In this case, conclusions are ambiguous. On the one hand, the pandemic clearly affected more painfully those employed under temporary and civil law contracts, as they were more likely to lose their jobs and did admit to having experienced changes in their labour-market situation during the pandemic, yet not necessarily due to COVID-19 itself. If the specific category of farmers is put aside, it was the economically-disadvantaged and the less-educated who were more likely to perform stationary (non-remote) work than those economically-better-off and better-educated. It confirms the observations from other research, namely that work at home (in the pandemic: remote work) has become a kind of privilege and a new dimension of social inequality. On the other hand, the analyses presented in Chapter 5 provide a different picture. The extent of precarious employment was not large. Only in the age groups 16–24 and 25–30 the share of holders of permanent contracts was relatively low (36% and 52%) when compared to the remaining age groups, where such contracts were held by around 70% of the respondents. In the economic-occupational categories, only unskilled workers and blue-collar workers were less likely to have permanent contracts (40% and 59%), while around 70% of representatives of the other groups also had permanent contracts. 2. The crisis will be conducive to a deterioration in the quality of work of working Poles and their general well-being. This hypothesis is not fully confirmed. The majority of the respondents were positive about the prospects for career development and work-life balance, and they did not fear losing their job due to the pandemic, and, compared to the results of the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), the percentage of those confident that they would easily find another job with a similar pay if they lost their current job increased from 34% to 52%. Analyses presented in Chapter 4 make it clear that working from home manifested in better opinions about various aspects of work than those expressed by workers who are still confined to their workplace or other place assigned by the employer (Table 4.5). At the same time, however, the research confirms that some dimensions of job quality, wages in particular, deteriorated during the pandemic in groups who used to be worse off in the labour market before the outbreak of COVID-19. Among those surveyed, young, lower earners with primary education were the most likely to report decreasing wages during the pandemic. 3. Working during the pandemic will affect the well-being of working Poles. Analyses presented in Chapter 7 generally validate the hypothesis that overall life satisfaction has significantly decreased in comparison to the pre-pandemic state (the conclusion, however, needs to be treated with caution due to incomplete comparability of data). 4. The pandemic will negatively affect well-being in groups situated lower in the stratification hierarchy. The hypothesis should be tentatively accepted in relation to satisfaction with one’s own life: entrepreneurs, executives, and senior professionals were the groups actually most satisfied with life, while independent farmers and unskilled workers were the least satisfied. There was a negative correlation between life satisfaction and income, and education; those employed under civil law contracts were also less satisfied. Concerns about their own health appear to be very complex in the light of the responses, and workers turned to be the least concerned. Unskilled workers and farmers appeared to be most satisfied with the state of the economy, which was coupled with their stronger support for the policies of the ruling party in Poland (Law and Justice). 5. In the normative visions of the economy, the pro-worker and market-critical components will be enhanced, and expectations of strengthening the institutions of worker participation and trade unions will grow, while support of market and competition will diminish. Those expectations did not materialise (this was indicated by the analyses of the industrial relations assessments in Chapter 4 and the visions of a well-ordered economy in Chapter 5). Comparing the data collected before the pandemic (2016) with the results from the current study, we can see a relatively similar and unchanged hierarchy of principles in the pre-pandemic period and in autumn of 2021. As had been assumed, COVID-19 translated into expectations of better healthcare coverage and increased labour market security. As expected, there was a decrease in the level of acceptance of market institutions in the area of labour relations, but the level of acceptance of free competition among enterprises remained unaffected. Contrary to prior assumptions, there was no increase in expectations of state intervention in the economy, as well as no increase in expectations of reducing inequality and increasing employee participation. Nor was there a growth in the level of the protectionist orientation (expectations of increased protection of domestic enterprises against foreign capital). Undoubtedly, the registered state of economic mentality had consequences and manifested through a high level of optimism of the respondents in the survey regarding aspects of their job quality such as career prospects, job security, worklife balance, wages, and working time. In conclusion, we would like to reiterate that the empirical research presented in the book employed a combination of quantitative (an analysis of data from a representative survey of a nationwide sample of adults) and qualitative (an analysis of focus group interviews with those working in four sectors: education, healthcare, social assistance, and logistics; as well as an analysis of the media discourse around the topic of ‘essential work’) methods and techniques. The category of essential workers played a special role in the qualitative research. As mentioned before, for the purposes of the research, we defined essential workers as people whose work is necessary for social reproduction and providing for biological and basic social needs under the conditions of a pandemic. Opinions about the quality of work during COVID-19 varied much more and were generally more critique-oriented among essential workers than the CATI survey suggested. Symbolic expressions of gratitude that the workers encountered in the media at the early stage of the pandemic turned out to be short-lived and did not translate into any systemic, lasting improvements of their working conditions. Based on the qualitative analyses, it can be assumed that the critical assessment of the quality of work in healthcare, education, social assistance, and logistics – coupled with chronic labour shortages – is likely to result in a growing potential for discontent in the said groups as polycrises unfold. - Dostawca treści:
- Biblioteka Nauki
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