The effect of system restructuring on absenteeism due to sickness in the work place. I. Sickness absenteeism during the period 19989-1994

The current transformation of property relations and economic restructuring, along with many other factors, influence the health condition of workers. The objective of the study was to illustrate the size of the problem and to identify the major causes of work disability among persons employed in enterprises undergoing those processes during the years 1989-94 against the situation observed in the whole country during the same period. The study was carried out in one of the largest industrial plants undergoing the process of economic restructuring. The group investigated was composed of 8,588 workers (including 62.6% of males). In individual years the number of workers in this group was decreasing, and in 1994 the employment status in the group accounted for 37% in relation to the number of workers employed during the first year under observation. The analysis of work disability was based on the rate of sickness absenteeism calculated as a relationship between the number of days of work disability and the number of working days during that particular period. Due to the application of this method it was feasible to consider both workers employed and persons who left the plant, regardless of their employment duration during a year. The study showed a 20 per cent increase in sickness absenteeism during the period of 1989-94. The highest rate (8.60) was noted in 1994. It was higher by 16% in comparison to the rate for the whole country. The greatest difference between these rates was observed in 1990 (the rate in the group investigated was higher by 46%). As to the causes of work disability, the main differences concerned two categories of illnesses, diseases of the circulatory system, a major cause of sickness absenteeism in the group studied (21%), and diseases of the musculoskeletal system, a major cause of sickness absenteeism in Poland. The change in the relationship between sickness absenteeism and the age during the period of the plant restructuring resulted from the fact that a large number of workers left the job. It was observed that the rate of the sickness absenteeism was almost directly proportional to the percentage of persons leaving the plant in individual years. The study showed that changes in the size and the structure of employment resulting from the plant restructuring influence the level of sickness absenteeism, and the age-related diversification in causes of diseases, and in consequence alter the established regularities.