The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the issue of working conditions and risk management in organizations. To do this, we will first analyze the classical methods of analysis of working conditions used by sociology; secondly, we will address the issue of the new risks that arise in working conditions under the new forms of work organization; and, thirdly, we will cite the theories that incorporate risk in the field of organizational management. All this combining a rich theoretical discussion taking the theory of Ülrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, as well as empirical reference around the subject.

Keywords: work, risk, organizations, risk management

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the issue of working conditions and risk management in organizations. To do this, we will first analyze the classical methods of analysis of working conditions used by sociology; secondly, we will address the issue of the new risks that arise in working conditions under the new forms of work organization; and, thirdly, we will cite the theories that incorporate risk in the field of organizational management. The question that guides this essay is: what research procedure is capable of generating a formalized knowledge-evaluator of working conditions?

Classical methods of analysis of working conditions used by sociology

The method problem

Juan José Castillo and Carlos Prieto¹ define "working conditions" as "everything that is and revolves around work from the point of view of its impact on the people who work", either at the physiological (safety, hygiene, physical load, etc.), as well as on a psychological and social level.

The study of working conditions presents methodological problems, since there is an evaluative component in the analysis, from which positive or negative conclusions can be drawn depending on the values of the groups or institutions of society that evaluate the risk conditions. And this is where the problem of the method arises: what research procedure is capable of generating a formalized knowledge-evaluator of working conditions? How to study its degree of positive or negative incidence in the affected subjects? The methodologies for analyzing working conditions are divided into two broad categories:

1. Subjective (they consider that the assessment should be made by the individuals who work);
2. Objective (those that dispense with any type of subjective assessment to focus on objective measures.

In turn, they can be classified into 4 subtypes:

1. Subjective;
2. Direct objective;
3. Indirect objectives;
4. Objective social indicators.

Subjective methodologies focus on the analysis of job satisfaction through satisfaction surveys applied to the workers themselves. These surveys have the advantage of their integrative component, since although the working conditions can be broken down analytically (light, cold, humidity, etc.), the worker suffers them as a whole, and this global subjective representation is what the survey collects. In turn, it enables large empirical generalizations.

Beyond their benefits, satisfaction surveys have received various criticisms. Among them, the first issue that they fail to resolve "is that of the very definition of the concept".¹ The "job satisfaction" indicator is what the questionnaires measure, without there being the possibility later of discriminating all the parts that make up the concept of "satisfaction" for the person surveyed. "The measurement of job satisfaction should be considered, in any case, as a measure of interaction between needs and aspirations, between requirements and capacities, and they do not reflect the dimensions of the person or those of the environment only".¹

Another series of criticisms derive from the finding of great stability of the results over time and space. An international analysis such as that of Thurman, allows verifying the high percentages of satisfaction and the similarity of said percentages in the countries studied. The stability of the results is explained by the fact that satisfaction is linked to the individual's perceptions and expectations regarding work, which are ultimately social constructions.

Another set of criticisms is linked to problems with the application of the survey. For example, it is difficult to measure satisfaction on equal terms for all workers, since not all individuals are subject to the same pressures, and also, the same question can have different meanings according to different individuals.

Another disadvantage is that "the workers, as such, are not characterized by the individualized action to which the questionnaire subjects them, but by the collective action".¹ However, satisfaction surveys take subjects at random and remove them from the network of relationships in which they act and communicate.

Likewise, these surveys entail the problem of "statistical mortality", which derives from the fact that I left out of the analysis all the workers who did not endure the working conditions. In turn, as they show at a given time, the history of a given job is lost.

Finally, there is another obstacle to the use of questionnaires derived from the very perception of social risk. For example, an individual worker does not have the capacity to understand the complexities of the work that would allow him to perceive the risk, since there is a great distance between how individuals perceive the risk, and the severity of the same. This requires the performance of the technical component.² In short, the perception of risk is a social construction and is influenced by the collective.

As far as objective methodologies are concerned, here those who qualify the state and evolution of working conditions are no longer the workers themselves, but the researchers. As for the direct objective methodologies, they analyze the working conditions in the jobs themselves (for example, temperature, noise, number of hours, etc.).

The criticisms that this method has received are directed in the first place towards the limits of generalization, since not all the posts of a branch can be studied. Secondly, the problem of the technician's subjectivity arises when constructing his perception of risk, and the question arises as to whether it is possible to leave aside the subjective component of the worker. Thirdly, the distances between what is the prescribed work and the real work are raised, and the importance of taking into account the daily practices to understand the working conditions.

In relation to the indirect objective methodologies, they try to analyze the working conditions based on the demands of the job, and the information will not be collected directly through the observation of the jobs, but indirectly through the workers who they occupy them. The technique used is the survey by questionnaire to a representative sample of the universe, whose working conditions are to be studied.

The criterion of objectivity can only be achieved by ensuring that the questions posed to the interviewees do not include value judgments, but rather judgments of fact. The advantages of this method are that something can be achieved that could never be achieved through direct analysis: the study of working conditions in large sectors of the total number of workers and even of the group as such. "It happens, however, that what is gained in extension is lost in density. No matter how well elaborated and complete the questionnaire is, it does not in any way allow us to achieve `a coherent and synthetic description of the jobs ' nor `a study detail of some of its aspects'".¹

On the other hand, it is worth highlighting the analyzes of working conditions by objective social indicators (for example, absenteeism rates, accident rates, etc.). The movement of social indicators must be placed in the middle of the sixties, and they are elaborated following the same requirements as any system of social indicators:

1. Allow synchronous comparisons in space;
2. Allow diachronic comparisons in time;
3. Represent values on which there is a high degree of consensus.

Finally, there are methodologies that attempt to mitigate the problems of objective methods, on the one hand, and subjective methods, on the other, by combining both approaches. Within the objective-subjective methods, two subtypes should be highlighted: the "consensual validation" method, and the LEST method. The main assumption of these methodologies is that any research on working conditions carried out by technicians must be delegated to the workers. Scientific knowledge is fundamental, but it always has to be validated by the workers. There is a back and forth between technical and practical knowledge. Likewise, these analysis methodologies are not individual but collective, and aim to recover the company's history in terms of working conditions.

The LEST method supports the importance of reaching consensus among the workers on the need to carry out this research. In the consensual validation method, on the other hand, the workers have to participate in the research design itself.

As critics, we must point out that beyond their attempts, these methodologies fail to overcome the evaluative components of the analysis, which continue to be present in workers and technicians. Likewise, there is a politicization of the analysis of working conditions as an emerging effect, with the ideological frameworks of the unions coming into action.

Statistics on working conditions and environment

As empirical evidence of these methodologies, we will now cite a study by Serge Volkoff ³ on the reciprocal relationship between work and health.                                                                                                                       

A priori, the author uses a very extensive notion of health, which is not limited to the absence of disease, but includes small pathologies, pain, discomfort, fear, dissatisfaction, etc.³

The author describes three broad categories of statistical instruments to study the relationship between work and health:

1. Those of the "longitudinal" type: long-term surveys, with elements of the past and present professional, good quality data about the evaluation of the state of health, eventually data on mortality;
2. Available indicators, which can be obtained without conducting a survey (absenteeism, turnover, work accidents and occupational diseases;
3. Instruments that investigate the extent of certain professional risks, demands or inconveniences of the job through the subjective appreciation of the respondent.³

Finally, the author describes the results of the SUMER Survey, which is included in the third characterization of statistical instruments carried out. Among its results, it verifies the importance of the population that declared itself exposed to dust aspiration, a fact that was interpreted by the French CGT (the most important and combative Confederation) as an affirmation of the professional origin of numerous cancers of the respiratory tract.

Regarding the nature of the risks to which workers in the industry are exposed, Volkoff finds noise far above other risks. This is followed by night work and work in front of screens, both more frequent the larger the size of the establishment. Chemical hazards and allergic or respiratory conditions follow next.³

In the construction sector, chemical, physical and infectious risks appear more frequently than in the industrial sector. With the exception of noise, which is present in both sectors, in the construction sector the nature of the risks is linked to vibration problems, exposure to cement, risks of hygroma of the knee, dust breathing and exposure to mineral oils.

Finally, it analyzes the data from the INSEE survey and compares the links between morbidity rates and age at death by type of profession. Thus, it proves that the probability of dying between the ages of 35 and 60, for a 35-year-old man alive, is twice as great if he is a laborer than if he is a business executive.³

The risk society

To initiate a sociological approach to the issue of risk management in organizations, we must frame this phenomenon within its historical context of emergence: contemporary times. Entering the 21st century, many thinkers cling more and more to the idea that we are facing the beginning of a new era that transcends modernity itself, suggesting a curious variety of neologisms to refer to that transition: "postmodernity", " consumer society", etc. In contrast, there are other views that understand that the project of modernity has not yet come to an end (Ülrich Beck and Anthony Giddens), although they admit that the contours of a postmodern order are very close. The entire theoretical approach to risk management in organizations will rest on the second of these proposals, whose objective is to expose, against the past that still prevails, the future that is already beginning to take shape.

Both Giddens and Beck argue that we are witnessing a fracture within modernity, so we can distinguish between an "early modernity" and an "advanced modernity". In this sense, another social figure within modernity emerges from the contours of classical industrial society, which Beck will call risk society, and which Giddens will call recent (or late) modernity.

The guiding theoretical idea that Beck develops is expressed through a historical analogy: "In a similar way to how in the nineteenth century modernization dissolved the stagnant agrarian society and elaborated the structural image of industrial society, modernization today dissolves the contours of industrial society, and in the continuity of modernity another social figure emerges".⁴ If in the 19th century class privileges and the religious vision of the world became disenchanted, in the current era we are witnessing the disenchantment of the understanding of science and technique typical of classical industrial society, the forms of life and work in the small family and in the profession, the guiding images of male and female roles, the concept and means of politics, etc.

According to Giddens,⁵ we still do not live in a postmodern world, but the distinctive characteristics of our main social institutions reveal rather the emergence of a period of "high modernity", in which the previous tendencies, instead of weakening, become radicalized and universalized. Among the consequences of modernity, Giddens⁵ points out the institutionalization of doubt as a consequence of the break with tradition and the emergence of new parameters of risk and danger with respect to those experienced in previous historical periods.

Simple and thoughtful science

Continuing with the demarcation between early modernity and late modernity, Beck⁴ distinguishes two constellations in relation to science, practice and public life: "simple" and "reflexive" scientificization.

In the simple scientific phase, it happens that science is applied to the "given" world of nature, man and society, based on the contrast between tradition and modernity, laymen and experts. The cultural consensus prevails on the idea that the application of science will automatically lead to a certain improvement in human well-being. Beck⁴ explains that "that constellation of an unbroken belief in science and progress is typical until well beyond the first half of the 20th century (although certainty diminishes). In that phase, science is confronted with a practice and public opinion whose resistance it is possible to counteract thanks to the evidence of its successes and with the promises of liberation from incomprehensible constrictions" (p. 204).

To the extent that reflexive scientification acquires importance, science is oriented towards science, towards its own objectified past and the present: with itself, as a product and producer of the reality that it has been in charge of analyzing and dominating. In this phase, the sciences are already faced with their own products, defects, induced problems and risks. As Beck analyzes, science "no longer turns out to be only a source of problem solving, but also in turn is a source that causes problems".⁴ The explanation lies in the fact that together with the successes, the risks of scientific-technical development seem to increase disproportionately.

As public awareness becomes aware of the risks of scientific-technical development, the greater is the recourse for social agents to the "defining power of science" to redefine its course and minimize its unwanted effects. The loss of function experienced by science is the product of the reflexivity of scientific-technical development under conditions of risk. "The reflexivity of modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of new information about those same practices, thereby altering their constitutive character".⁵

The institutionalization of uncertainty derives as a consequence from the operation of reflexivity in contemporary experience, which refers to the fact that "under the conditions of modernity, no knowledge is knowledge in its old sense, where "knowing" is having certainty".⁵ For Giddens, the security of traditions and customs has not managed to be replaced in modernity by the certainty of rational knowledge. "Doubt, a pervasive feature of modern critical reason, permeates everyday life and philosophical consciousness and constitutes an existential aspect of the contemporary social world".⁶

 The situation we have reached is due to the exponential growth of human productive forces in the modernization process, which has released risks and threat potentials to a previously unknown extent. Consequently, what is decisive for society will be to question what science is promoted by managing the risk and the social consequences produced by it as much as possible.

 The risks of modernization

Taking into consideration the concept of risk in a broad sense, we find that risks are not an invention of modernity, since they have existed in previous times. However, there are clear distinctions between one and the other: pre-modern risks were personal risks, while modern ones are presented as global situations of threat to all of humanity (think of those of nuclear origin). The word risk initially had the connotation of courage and adventure, not the possible self-destruction of life on earth.⁴

Luhmann² for his part, prefers to use the terms of danger and risk to work on this distinction, according to the level of observation to which each of them refers. Although in both types of situations an uncertainty is referred to in relation to future damage, the concept of danger refers to a possible damage caused externally (when it is attributed to the environment), while we speak of risk when we consider that the eventual damage is consequence of a decision. The progressive institutionalization of risk in this second form is what makes it one of the distinctive marks of modernity.

Said renewal and transformation of the sources and risk factors configure what Giddens⁵ has called the new "risk profile" in modernity. Today, society is not subjected to externally generated dangers (gods, nature, etc.), but to risks and insecurities induced and introduced by modernity itself.^4,5

The business and professional risks of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can in turn be distinguished from the risks of late modernity, in the sense that the latter are no longer limited to places and groups, but contain a tendency immanent to globalization that encompasses production and reproduction and does not respect the borders of Nation States, thereby giving rise to global threats that in this sense are supranational and not class-specific, endowed with a new social and political dynamic.

In turn, new risks (such as radioactivity and harmful or toxic substances in food, water and air, with their short and long-term consequences for plants, animals and humans) they tend to remain invisible, since they are completely removed from immediate human perception. The fact that these dangers are not visible or perceptible by those affected, gives them a dependency on knowledge, as the "perceptive organs" of science are required to make them "visible" and interpretable as dangers.

Now, given that these risks are only established in the (scientific or anti-scientific) knowledge of them, and in knowledge they can be transformed, enlarged or reduced, dramatized or minimized, they are open to a special extent to the social processes of definition. With this, the means and positions of risk definition become key sociopolitical positions.

The spread of manufactured risk

Giddens points out that until recently, human societies were threatened by "external hazards": hazards such as droughts, earthquakes, famines, storms, which arise from the natural world and are unrelated to human actions. Today, however, we are increasingly confronted with more types of "manufactured risk: that which creates the impact of our own knowledge and technology on nature". Many of the environmental and health risks that contemporary societies face are examples of manufactured risk: they are the result of our own intervention in nature. It is noted, for example, that the emergence of COVID-19 may have its origin in the modification of the environment. Human beings have modified natural habitats, causing wild animals to be displaced from their natural habitats and come into contact with humans, causing the emergence of new diseases.

One of the consequences of the acceleration of industrial and technological development has been the constant expansion of human interventions in nature. Few aspects of the natural environment remain untouched by man: urbanization, industrial production and pollution, large-scale agricultural projects, the construction of dams and hydroelectric power plants, and nuclear power programs are some of the means through which the human being influences the environment that surrounds him. Collectively, the result of such processes has been widespread environmental destruction, the causes of it is imprecise and the consequences are difficult to calculate, says Giddens.⁷

In our globalizing world, ecological risk takes on multiple costumes. Concern about global warming has been on the rise for years among the scientific community; the temperature of the Earth has increased due to the accumulation of harmful gases in the atmosphere. Giddens⁷ says that if the polar ice caps continue to melt at the current rate, sea levels will rise and these will threaten the lower land masses and their populations.

Projection into the future

In the risk society, the past loses its determining force for the present. In its place, the future appears as the cause of the present action, that is, something non-existent, fictitious and socially constructed. This is a consequence of the fact that today the risks put us in action for a future that must be avoided.

In the same way, when Giddens affirms that "Modernity is a culture of risk",⁶ he is indicating that the concept of risk is fundamental to the way in which both profane performers and technical specialists organize the social world. In this sense, "risk awareness" infiltrates almost all of our actions, to assess to what extent projects are likely to differ from the expected results. Thus, the notion of risk acquires great relevance in late modernity for a society that says goodbye to the past, to the traditional ways of doing things, and opens itself to a problematic future.

The realm of subpolitics

In the context of the risk society, new delimitations between science and politics also emerge. Originally, the project of industrial society rested on the differentiation between the political-administrative system and the technical-economic system. During the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, this political demarcation scheme was established and prevailed (understood as the institutions of the political system: parliament, government, political parties), which also presupposed the functioning of the non-political (productive circle industry, economy, technology and science).

In the course of the last two decades, reflexive modernization destroys the presuppositions of this separation between the political and the non-political. This change in the demarcation of politics is the product of two opposite processes: on the one hand, the loss of function of the political system, and on the other, the emergence of an apolitical, non-democratic social change under the motto of "progress" scientific. In this sense, the decisions that have repercussions shaping society are less and less linked to the political system and parliamentary democracy, and more and more to the non-political sphere of science, technology and the economy. Therefore, social change is removed from the rules of political control and its justification and is delegated to the freedom of business investment and scientific research.

The central idea formulated by Beck is that scientific-technical development ceases to be a non-political sphere, depending on the scope of its potential for transformation and its capacity to cause damage. "To the extent that the profiles of a new society no longer correspond to the debates in parliament or to the decisions of the executive power, but to changes in microelectronics, nuclear technology or human genetics, the instances that until that moment have politically neutralized the modernization process".⁴ At the same time, the changes that science develops in the social fabric remain outside the parliamentary demands for legitimation. Thus, technical and economic development falls between the category of the political and the non-political. It becomes a third sphere and acquires the ambiguous status of something subpolitical in which the scope of the social changes unleashed is inversely proportional to its legitimacy".⁴

In short, risk management is the main feature of the global order. Risk becomes essential for several reasons. As science and technology develop, new risk situations are created, different from those of previous times. Although science and technology provide us with many benefits, at the same time, they create risks that are difficult to gauge. In this sense, nobody knows exactly, for example, what are the risks involved in the production of genetically modified foods.

Beck⁴ is not saying that the contemporary world is riskier than that of previous times, but rather that the nature of the risks we must face is changing. At present, as we have already pointed out, the risks come less from natural hazards than from the uncertainties created by our own social development and that of science and technology.

Beck agrees with Habermas that the new society does not herald the end of attempts at social and political reform, but rather, on the contrary, new forms of activism emerge within it. The appearance of a new field of "subpolitics" is observed, in which the activities of groups and organizations -ecologists, consumers or defense of human rights- that operate outside the formal mechanisms of democratic politics are developed. Responsibility for risk management should not be left solely in the hands of politicians or scientists: other groups of citizens must be brought in. However, the groups and movements that develop in the field of subpolitics can have a great influence on traditional political mechanisms. For example, the responsibility to defend the environment, which was previously only the responsibility of environmentalists, has now become part of the conventional political framework.⁷

 The trend towards a global political system

Giddens⁷ points out that, as globalization advances, it seems to us that the current political structures and models are not well equipped to manage a world full of risks, inequalities and challenges that go beyond national borders. Each of the governments, on its own, lacks the capacity to prevent the spread of Covid-19, deal with the effects of global warming or regulate unstable financial markets. In view of this governmental "deficit", there are those who demand new forms of global government that can deal with global problems from a global perspective (examples of this are the United Nations or the European Union). The trend towards a global political system and more efficient regulatory institutions is not out of place at a time when global interdependence and rapid change bring us all together in unprecedented ways.

Job insecurity

The labor market is undergoing profound changes in the process of transition from a manufacturing economy to one focused on services. The widespread introduction of information technologies isalso causing changes in the structure adopted by the organizations themselves, in the type of management they use and in how tasks are delegated and carried out. Workers in many different types of occupation experience job insecurity, a phenomenon that has become the main topic of debate within the sociology of work.

With the platform work modality, a process of growth of this form of work began, boosted by a context of increased unemployment and labor informality.

Work on platforms, also called platformized or uberized, can be divided into two modalities, the first corresponds to those jobs in which geolocation is used, delivery platforms, transport of goods or people. The other modality is characterized by a global distribution of tasks, it is the so-called home office or teleworking.

The phenomenon of working on platforms is associated with a process of job insecurity, which includes very low salary levels, high job turnover, little control of working conditions, lack of labor protection in terms of rights, high informality, among others.

There is currently the potential for the expansion of this form of work towards other types of employment, a  generalization in the use of platform technologies, which is already happening in other countries with the platformization of doctors, domestic service, lawyers, among others. The end of work for life, high levels of unemployment, the precariousness of platform work, accentuated by the pandemic generated by COVID-19, mark the characteristics of the world ofwork in the third decade of the 21st century.

Risk management in organizations

The analyzes of Beck, Giddens and Luhmann illustrate how risk is associated with profound changes in social relations, in the forms of authority and in the relations between science, technology and society. This theoretical influence had an impact on different domains, such as police security, strategic surveillance, laboratory protection, political crisis forecasting, environmental security, etc. The discussion revolves around whether it is possible to reduce risk, or whether a "zero risk" society is feasible.⁸

In the second half of the eighties, the concept of risk is absorbed by management theory. This theory maintains that absolute security does not exist, which leads to the need to carry out an evaluation and quantification of the different risks in a given situation. "Assessment methods aim to quantify the probabilities of occurrence of accidents or catastrophes, glimpsing the scenarios of probable accidents and quantifying the probabilities that they affect goods and people".⁸

Pucci⁹ distinguishes between two micro theories linked to risk management:

1. The model of the conquest of security;
2. The theory of high-risk organizations.

The first of these theories maintains that the risk can be controlled in scientific terms, and for this it is necessary to develop safety systems (count accidents and analyze their causes to minimize their occurrence). Guided by technical rationality, this theory maintains that the sum of partial securities increases the security of the system. Finding out the causes of accidents will be crucial to implement policies to prevent them.

"The presence of areas of insecurity in organizations has as a consequence the identification of permanent risks in their functioning. Perrow showed how certain social systems inevitably induce the presence of risks, due to their own structure. In each social system, the presence of these systemic risks is an indicator of the risk culture of said system".⁸ This approach can be transferred to the analysis of organizations, to identify the existence of systemic risks in their daily operations. Perrow argued that the more decentralized decisions are, the less likely an organization is to develop systemic risks. However, his vision is pessimistic insofar as he does not believe that absolute security can be achieved.⁸

The theory of high-risk organizations, for its part, criticizes the previous model for considering it "mechanical", since it starts from the idea that certainties can be built. High-risk theories maintain that certainties cannot be built, but that we must focus on reducing uncertainty. Analysis of the causes of accidents makes no sense for this theory. An accident is caused by a concatenation of actions ("domino" effect), for this reason the analysis of causality does not make sense, accidents must be analyzed as an event to be reduced. They also maintain that the sum of partial security measures does not increase the complete security of the system. For example, as Pucci's study entitled "Risk situations and actors' logic. The case of the Hospital de Clínicas" shows, the measure of closing the escape doors of the Hospital was adopted as security against the risk of robberies. , and that generated an additional risk in the event of a fire. This demonstrates how a technology to avoid risks can generate risks elsewhere in the system. This idea that risk is not totally eliminated leads this theory to promote the selection of risks that the organization should focus on.

On the other hand, trust inside and outside the organization has to do with managing authority structures (more or less rigidity). The theory holds that greater horizontality (greater openness of the structure) around decision-making generates greater trust based on the relationship between lay and technical knowledge.

Safety theory holds that in order to avoid risk, workers had to internalize certain safety rules and obey them. In the high-risk theory, on the other hand, the worker must develop competencies and autonomous capacity to build informal norms of risk identification, to the extent that it involves specific situations and uncertainties. This has to do with what Mary Douglas called "risk culture", which has to do with the way in which the different work segments of the organization develop their risk culture consisting of contingent values and linked to specific situations. High-risk organizations behave in this way, those called "post-Fordists", whose authority is more horizontal and their structure more adaptable to specific situations.

Finally, to empirically illustrate these theoretical concepts, we will mention below some of the conclusions reached by Pucci, Trajtenberg, Levin and Bianchi in their study on risk thresholds in the Uruguayan construction industry. In the first place, these authors define "trade culture" as that which guides the attitudes of construction workers and is based on the experience of a work activity in which risk is a stable and permanent component.¹⁰

These cultures do not constitute novel responses to new risk conditions, but rather traditional attitudes adapted to an essentially risky activity. The new forms of work organization have changed some of the risk components, but in essence it continues to maintain several of the characteristics that have traditionally defined the sector. In this sense, the permanence of this "craft culture" does not imply that the worker's attitude towards risks in work processes is more adequate. On the contrary, this "culture of trade" is opposed to the development of a new "culture of risk".

"The paradox that arises is that the disqualification processes understood as loss of the traditional trade culture of construction workers can be a positive factor for the development of this new "culture of risk".

For this, formal or workplace training is only one ingredient to be considered: the development of communication spaces that allow a fluid exchange between technical knowledge and practical knowledge, the legitimacy of authority relations, that allow the development of spaces of trust, and the ability to build practical rules of conduct that allow the development of preventive routines adapted to risk situations".^10–13

None.

There are no conflicting interests declared by the authors.

None.

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3. Volkoff S. Statistics on working conditions and environment. Work and Society Association. Buenos Aires. Chapter IV: "The recognition of the relationship between work and health". 1993. p. 141–173.
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