What do we do when work kills?
How do we — as a global community — take urgent action in order to define, recognize, investigate and prevent work-related suicide?
What are “work-related suicide” deaths? Suicide deaths that are caused in part or in whole by work-related factors.
The IASP Workplace special interest group has highlighted the need to move the workplace focus in suicide prevention from seeing the workplace as simply the venue where interventions can occur but also a place and a connection that interacts with individuals’ suicidal intensity. What happens when there is a causal link between workplace and suicidal intensity is it enough just to identify individuals and treat or should the workplace itself be treated. This podcast episode discusses the suicide prevention benefits of acknowledging suicide as a potential consequence of psychosocial hazards in the workplace.
While the workplace can offer a sense of purpose and belonging when working well, it can also be a place fraught with psychosocial hazards that increase distress and despair than can lead to suicide. Research shows that exposure to psychosocial job stressors including lack of autonomy, lack of variety, effort-reward imbalance, bullying and discrimination at work are linked to an elevated risk of suicidal behavior.
Historically, governments and employers have largely attributed suicide risk to personal and medical issues, but with this emerging research we must also acknowledge the workplace contribution. In this podcast I speak with world thought leaders Jorgen Gullestrup of Australia and Prof Sarah Waters of the UK about this paradigm shift and our need to define, measure and regulate suicide deaths related to work.
About Jorgen Gullestrup
Starting his career in the construction industry, Jorgen saw first-hand the impact of suicide on the workers, their families and friends. He also experienced suicide intensity first hand and decided to take action.
Jorgen founded the MATES in Construction program and within the first five years saw an 8% reduction in Queensland construction industry suicide rates was achieved.
Jorgen holds is Masters in Suicidology and was recently named the winner of the 14th Annual LiFE Award in 2018, recognizing excellence in suicide prevention. He serves as the Co-Chair for the International Association for Suicide Prevention’s Workplace Special Interest Group.
About Prof Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters is Professor of French Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on work-related suicide in France and across the international stage and seeks to understand the complex connections that link contemporary working conditions with the extreme and subjective act of suicide. Her book, Suicide Voices. Labour Trauma in France was published by Liverpool University Press in September 2020.
In her book, Sarah examines testimonial material linked to 66 suicide cases across three large French corporations. She examines ‘suicide voices’ considering how workers themselves describe the circumstances that led them to such desperate extremes in the letters, emails and recordings they leave behind. Why at the present historical juncture do conditions of work push some individuals to take their own lives? What can suicide letters tell us about the contemporary economic order and its impact on flesh and blood bodies? How do suicidal individuals describe the causes and motivations of their act?
Alongside her research, Sarah actively campaigns to improve workplace legislation in order to recognise and monitor work-related suicides. She is part of the trade union Hazards campaign in the UK that lobbies the Health and Safety Executive
She lives in Leeds and is a mother of two teenage boys.
Show Notes
WORK RELATED SUICIDE OVERVIEW: https://research.iscrr.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/297147/Work-related-fatalities-Overview-of-work-related-suicide.pdf
https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/53177/
http://www.hazards.org/suicide/suicidenote.htm
http://www.hazards.org/suicide/suicidalwork.htm
https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=core_ac_uk__::50394fbea95b8d9643610cf2b5d43dae
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/capitalisms-victims/
