Canada Auto Workers

To assess the effectiveness of self-help interventions in reducing work disability and improving work- and health-related outcomes among individuals with musculoskeletal, anxiety, and/or depressive conditions; to explore lived experiences with self-help interventions; and to integrate quantitative and qualitative findings to guide future research and implementation. We conducted a rapid mixed methods systematic review following World Health Organization (WHO) and Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group guidance. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experimental, qualitative, and mixed methods studies published in English since 2007. Eligible studies evaluated self-help interventions targeting musculoskeletal, anxiety, and/or depressive conditions in working-age adults (18-65years). Quantitative outcomes included functioning, return-to-work, productivity, and self-efficacy; qualitative outcomes reflected user experiences. Risk of bias was assessed using RoB 2, ROBINS-I, and CASP tools. Findings were synthesized narratively by intervention types and outcome domain. Eight studies met inclusion criteria: five RCTs, two quasi-experimental, and one qualitative. All seven quantitative studies were rated high risk of bias. Short-term improvements were observed in disability and physical quality of life in two exercise-based trials, but effects on work participation were inconsistent and generally below thresholds for clinical importance. Cognitive-behavioral and psychoeducational programs produced small improvements in self-efficacy and presenteeism, and relaxation and educational interventions showed no meaningful effects. The qualitative study highlighted workplace barriers such as productivity pressures and limited opportunities for movement that constrained engagement. Self-help interventions may modestly improve self-management, disability, and coping in the short term but show limited and inconsistent evidence for reducing work disability. Their effectiveness likely depends on adherence, contextual support, and integration into workplace environments. Future high-quality, co-designed, context-sensitive studies are needed to clarify effectiveness, safety, and sustainability in real-world settings. PROSPERO registration: CRD42023472934, registered on October 16, 2023; modified March 17 2025.

Despite evidence of efficacy, the effectiveness of telerehabilitation in real-world clinical settings is still largely unknown. Telerehabilitation requires a substantial transformation of the organization and delivery of traditional services. Considering that a virtual setting can create unique challenges for providing physiotherapy services and given the physical and potential hands-on nature of evidence-based assessments and interventions, it is important to investigate what injured workers think of receiving physiotherapy care via telerehabilitation and to examine if rehabilitation needs are adequately met. A qualitative interpretive description study was conducted to explore the perspectives and experiences of 17 injured workers receiving physiotherapy via telerehabilitation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with participants from three provinces in Western Canada and analysed using thematic analysis. Qualitative rigour criteria of epistemological integrity, analytic logic, interpretive authority, and representative credibility were considered throughout this study. Implementation of telerehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in mixed perceptions from injured workers. Some viewed telerehabilitation as a resourceful option for providing services during the pandemic lockdown, resulting in maintained communications while overcoming barriers to services (e.g., rural/remote workers, transportation barriers, etc.). However, many thought telerehabilitation was inferior to in-person therapy for assessment and when 'hands-on' interaction was needed. Many believed a hybrid option may be ideal now that pandemic restrictions are lifted, with telerehabilitation supplementing in-person physiotherapy when needed. Telerehabilitation was viewed as a resourceful option during the pandemic and in certain clinical situations (e.g., rural/remote). Workers should be able to make informed choices about service delivery format.

Abstract Introduction Workplace Health Without Borders (WHWB – www.whwb.org) engages in global OSH activities to foster improved worker health. Members volunteer their time to offer training, mentoring, advocacy, and technical assistance to develop capacity for preventing occupational disease and injury around the world. Materials and Methods During the global COVID-19 pandemic, WHWB held 22 webinars on topics related to COVID and infection control in a variety of countries. In 2022-2023, WHWB offered webinar series on asbestos and silica exposure from engineered countertops. Special emphasis on WHWB communicating the risk from silica exposure and control has included the ‘silica control tool’ being piloted by the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers Inc. (OHCOW), Canada. During the ICOH2022 Congress, Dr Ryan Hoy presented on ‘Artificial stone-associated silicosis: A rapidly emerging occupational lung disease’, raising awareness of the urgent issue of accelerated silicosis in the stone benchtop industry in Australia. Results The WHWB global webinars on silica exposure led to the development of a tool or model that can be used to both understand and communicate the risk of exposure to silica. The tool predicts exposure levels with and without control measures, and can be used to develop an effective control plan. The recorded webinars are available on the WHWB channel on youtube: (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj5PLvW65Lr0feLYGVLBnmQ). Conclusions The advocacy activities of WHWB around old and emerging hazards have been a valuable contribution to the WHWB mandate of building capacity globally, and particularly in resource-poor settings. The ‘silica control tool’ may be applicable to many workplaces around the world.

Prevailing job stress models encourage a multidimensional view of the psychosocial work environment and highlight the role that multiple co-occurring stressors play in the aetiology of mental health problems. In this study, we develop a latent typology of psychosocial work environment profiles to describe how a comprehensive array of job stressors are clustered in the Canadian labour market. We also examine the association between these latent psychosocial work environment profiles and several indicators of mental health. Data were collected from 6408 workers who completed the Canadian National Psychosocial Work Environment Survey. Psychosocial work exposures were measured using standard items from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. We employed latent profile analyses to identify groups of individuals with similar psychosocial work environment profiles. We used log-linear regression models to examine the association between latent psychosocial work environment profiles and burnout, stress, and cognitive strain. Four distinct groups with highly divergent psychosocial work environment profiles were identified. Adjusting for a range of demographic and socioeconomic factors, latent psychosocial work environment profiles were strongly related to mental health. Individuals who reported exposure to a comprehensive array of psychosocial job stressors (11% prevalence) reported the highest probability of burnout (PR: 7.51, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.56-10.15), stress (PR: 8.98, 95% CI: 6.20-13.0), and cognitive strain (PR: 7.29, 95% CI: 5.02-10.60). Findings suggest that psychosocial work stressors are tightly clustered in the Canadian labour market, and that the clustering of work stressors is strongly associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Future scholarship may benefit from adopting a more comprehensive approach to the assessment of psychosocial job quality as a determinant of health and well-being.

Despite numerous studies of asbestos workers in the epidemiologic literature, there are very few cohort studies of chrysotile asbestos miners/millers that include high-quality retrospective exposure assessments. As part of the creation of the Baie Verte Miners' Registry in 2008, a two-dimensional job exposure matrix (JEM) was developed for estimating asbestos exposures for former chrysotile asbestos miners/millers. Industrial hygiene data collected between 1963 and 1994 were analysed to assess validity for use in a retrospective exposure assessment and epidemiologic study. Registered former employees were divided into 52 exposure groups (EGs) based on job title and department and mean asbestos concentrations were calculated for each EG. The resulting exposure estimates were linked to individual registrants' work histories allowing for the calculation of cumulative asbestos exposure for each registrant. The distribution of exposure for most EGs (82.6%) could be described as fitting a log-normal distribution, although variability within some EGs (55%) exceeded a geometric standard deviation (GSD) of 2.5. Overall, the data used to create EGs in the development of the JEM were deemed to be of adequate quality for estimating cumulative asbestos exposures for the former employees of the Baie Verte asbestos mine/mill. The variability between workers in the same job was often high and is an important factor to be considered when using estimates of cumulative asbestos exposure to adjudicate compensation claims. The exposures experienced in this cohort were comparable to those of other chrysotile asbestos miners/millers cohorts, specifically Italian and Québec cohorts.

Recent studies have started disentangling components of disturbed sleep as part of the post-concussive syndrome, but little is known about the workers with an injury' perspectives on post-injury sleep changes or what causes these changes. To determine the effects of work-related concussion/mild traumatic brain injury (wr-mTBI) on perceptions of refreshing sleep in workers with an injury and to identify the relevant factors responsible for sleep changes. We studied post-concussive changes in sleep in 66 adults (50% male workers, 42% aged 30-50 years, median post-injury days: 155) who had sustained wr-mTBI and experienced functional limitations long after the injury. We collected sociodemographic, occupational and health status data and identified variables related to post-concussive changes in refreshing sleep. Forty-seven workers with wr-mTBI (79% of male workers, 64% of female workers) perceived their sleep as being refreshing before injury and unrefreshing afterwards (χ2 = 67.70 for change, χ2 = 27.6 for female and χ2 = 41.1 for male workers, p < 0.0001). Post-concussive losses in refreshing sleep were associated with socio demographic, occupational, and health status data variables. Sex stratification revealed differences between male and female workers. Workers with wr-mTBI experience clinically meaningful changes in refreshing sleep that are associated with modifiable variables. The observed differences in functional outcomes between male and female workers warrant further study.

This book is an ambitious attempt to tell the whole story of the conflict between labour and capital from the earliest days of the United States to the present.Its central argument is that the labour/capital conflict is often expressed through the formation and transformation of social institutions.As economic realities change, and as workers find new ways to unite and spread their voice, the forces of capitalism make use of or modify social institutions -government, the press, workplaces themselves -to make it possible to repress labour more successfully.Ambitious as the book is, it is unsuccessful in achieving its goals.The central argument of Political Economy of Labor Repression in the United States is certainly a persuasive one but it is hardly original.It is no surprise that efforts by the have-nots to organise against the haves are opposed by the haves; 'twas ever thus.This is not a work of original research, so its presumed purpose is to serve as either a textbook or an overview of the subject for general readers.Several critical flaws, however, render it unsuitable for these purposes.First, for what is primarily a work of history, the book's historical grounding is thin, dated and incomplete.To take just one example, the author spends a great deal of time in Chapters 7 and 8 discussing the role of Communists in labour unions in the 1930s and 1940s, but relies almost entirely on secondary works published before the end of the Cold War in 1991 opened up Soviet archives to American researchers.As such, the author misses so much of the great insights that historians like Randi Storch have brought to the subject.This is just one of the many ways in which this book is not aware of, and therefore does not speak to, the myriad works on labour history from the last three decades.This reviewer does not wish to be unduly harsh, but it is inexcusable to write about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the Pacific Northwest without referencing the work of Erik Loomis (2016), about Communist organising without the work of Robin D.G. Kelley (1990), about twentieth-century women's labour without Dorothy Sue Cobble ( 2004), or the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) without Joseph McCartin (2011).The author's main source of quotations for labour history are the magisterial volumes of Phillip Foner, the first of which was published in the late 1940s.Too much good work has been done in the years since they were published, though, for those works to be the author's go-to for historical narrative.The result is an historical analysis that frequently does not pass muster.The author seems determined, for example, to make financial speculators the driving force behind the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the US Constitution, when the wealthiest people in the country were plantation owners whose wealth was derived from slavery (Chapter 2).Kolin seems utterly perplexed about the motives and intentions of the Gompers-led American Federation of Labour (AFL), contradicting himself from one chapter to the next.At one point he states, "AFL