Page 81 - Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 3 2017

Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 3/2017
English Summaries
signi cances visible via written narratives, and thus increasing knowledge of this phenomenon in order to develop working life practices. The participants were seven female municipal child welfare social workers who have been stalked. The participants were aged from 36 to 45 years. Three of them had been working in child welfare for 0.5 to 3 years and four for 10 to 20 years when the stalking began. In six of the cases the stalking had lasted from 6 months to over 3 years, the sev- enth participant wrote the stalking had lasted for years and it was still ongoing. One social worker had been stalked twice.
Becoming stalked emergences as a random phenomenon that is connected to work-related tasks. The stalker is the client or some other person working with the family. The stalker can also use a third party for their motives. The acts of stalking are diverse and unpredictably developing in a process-like manner. The stalk- ing transfers from the subject’s working envi- ronment into their domestic environment thus causing the line of private and public to break. The loved ones of the victim of stalking become secondary victims. Stalking a ects one’s mental health and operating ability, it shapes the real- ity of one’s life, restricts performance and nar- rows life in general. Social workers actively aim at working in order to solve the situation. The loved ones become a meaningful support and shelter for the victim. Developing the services requires recognizing and acknowledging the phenomenon. Stalking should not be seen as a private issue, instead the work-related phenom- enon. Ministry of social a airs is responsible for health and safety in workplaces. The function- ality of the help and co-operation of di erent services in a stalking case for professionals must be developed. Similarly the procedures of inter- fering with the stalking of professionals must be developed.
The article concentrates on the characteristics of precarious work in the new economy. More precisely, it maps out the characteristics of pre- carious work in a private sector of Finnish health and tness industry. Empirically the focus is on yoga instructors’ and group exercise instructors’ work. The research material consists of inter- views with yoga and group exercise instructors, media texts and autoethnographic observations.
The analysis indicates that many of the yoga and group exercise instructors work on poor terms of employment. They work part-time for several employers with insu cient wage. They travel between health and tness rms’ premises and are often expected to do a share of their work without compensation.
In Finnish health and tness industry there is no operative collective agreement. Therefore, the terms of employment depend on the contract of employment made between the instructor and the employer. In addition, the Finnish labour legislation regulates the terms of employment in the private sector of health and tness indus- try, but not all employers are familiar with the legislation.
Characteristics of precarious work in a health and tness industry
Tuija Koivunen, Dr. Soc. Sc., Postdoctoral researcher, University of Tampere
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