2. THE IMPACT OF AUSTERITY AND INSECURITY

Although the economy has come out of recession, the multi-billion pound spending cuts the Conservative-led coalition government is imposing as part of its austerity programme are still hitting hard and causing rocketing stress levels, particularly in the public sector.

In 2013, the mental health charity Mind reported work to be the biggest cause of stress in people’s lives, with one in three people (34%) saying that their work life was either very or quite stressful. It found that work outranked debt and financial problems (30%) and health (17%) as the major cause of stress.

Its survey of over 2,000 people found that workplace stress has resulted in 7% of people having suicidal thoughts (rising to 10% among 18 to 24-year-olds), and one in five people (18%) developing anxiety. More than half (57%) said they drink after work, and one in seven (14%) drink during the working day to cope with workplace stress and pressure. Other coping mechanisms people cited were smoking (28%), taking antidepressants (15%), over the counter sleeping aids (16%) and prescribed sleeping tablets (10%).

Mind also found that a culture of fear and silence about stress and mental health problems is costly for employers. It reported that:

• one in five workers (19%) take a day off sick because of stress, but 90% of those people cited a different reason for their absence;

• one in 10 (9%) have resigned from a job due to stress and one in four (25%) have considered resigning due to work pressure;

• of the 22% who had a diagnosed mental health problem, less than half had actually told their boss about their diagnosis.

In addition, 45% of workers reported that staff are expected to cope without mentioning stress at work, and 31% said that they would not be able to talk openly to their line manager if they felt stressed.

The charity also found that employers are not doing enough to tackle stress in the workplace. Over half of managers (56%) said they would like to do more to improve staff mental wellbeing but they needed more training and/or guidance. And almost half (46%) said they would like to do more but it is not a priority in their organisation.

Mind also found a huge disparity between the perceptions of managers and other workers. While only 22% of those surveyed felt that their boss took active steps to help them manage stress, more than two-thirds of managers (68%) appeared to believe that they were doing enough to support staff.

Only 36% of workers in the survey thought that looking after staff mental wellbeing was an organisational priority, while 42% believed that in their workplace stress is regarded as a sign of weakness or not coping. Only a third (32%) thought time off for stress was treated as seriously as time off for physical illness, while 42% believe that stress is seen as an “excuse” for something else.

Mind chief executive Paul Farmer described stress as “the elephant in the room in many workplaces.”

In October 2013, the general union GMB released figures showing that one million public sector jobs (one in six) will have disappeared under the coalition government before the general election in 2015, with 631,000 already lost. More than half have been lost from councils.

A survey of more than 14,000 council workers carried out by the public services union UNISON in 2013, found that 87% were struggling to cope with increased stress and pressure at work. It described a “toxic cocktail” of declining staff numbers and increasing expectations from the public and employers piling the pressure on staff. Almost three-quarters of workers in the survey (72%) said that stress was affecting how well they can do their jobs, and 70% said that workplace stress was affecting their personal lives.

UNISON head of local government Heather Wakefield described working in local government as “like living in a pressure cooker”, adding that “eventually the lid will blow off”. She said that impossible demands were being placed on stressed out council workers and that the stress continued at home with real pay falling and causing “a constant financial juggling act as red bills pile in and wages just don’t match up.”

The union called on the government to slow down its cuts programme and last year it launched new leaflets and stickers with the message “Cut stress not jobs”. UNISON head of health and safety Tracey Harding said that tens of thousands of public services jobs are being cut, each one of which “is a tragedy for the person concerned”. She pointed out that those left behind are expected to keep vital public services running with fewer staff and less money. “Something has to give. And all too often it is the health of UNISON members.”

Harding added that the new stickers and leaflets can be used in addition to the union’s guide on stress giving practical tips on how branches can campaign and organise around getting employers to prevent or control work-related stress.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) reports similar problems in the NHS (see page 8). It says stress among nurses is a result of long working hours, unrealistic time pressures and unachievable deadlines, against a background of efficiency savings, job cuts, a pay freeze and downgrading of pay and posts and pension changes.

The Bank Workers Charity (BWC) survey of 5,000 bank workers (see page 8) found: “An unmanageable level of work intensity created by the rapidly changing working environment during the recession”. The BWC says that this finding, taken against a backdrop of increasing work intensity, paints a worrying picture of the stress levels of bank workers.

Meanwhile, there has been what has been described as a “rising tide of insecurity”. For example, revising earlier estimates, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported in March 2014 that official figures showed that more than half a million (around 583,000) workers are now employed on zero-hours contracts. This insecurity is allowing employers to turn a once marginal and niche element of the labour market into the norm.

And unions say that the official figures underestimate the true extent of these types of contracts. For example, in 2013 the general union Unite said that research it commissioned from the social survey company Mass1 “points to a growing subclass of insecure and low-paid employment which could include as many as 5.5 million people on zero hour contracts.”