Psychosocial workload and stress in the workers' representative.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health Psychology
• Industrial Relations
• Sociology of Work

Background:

• Investigates psychosocial stress and strain among works council members within the IG Metal trade union in Germany.
• Compares this group to administrative employees (leadership and non-leadership roles) and a national reference value.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess and compare the psychosocial work factors experienced by works council members.
• To identify specific areas of higher stress and strain in this occupational group.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the German standard version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) with 87 items across 25 aspects.
• Compared results from 309 works council members (full-time and voluntary) against administrative employees (N=4780) and general population data (N=35,000).
• Statistical analysis included t-tests, ANOVA, and multiple comparisons with significance set at p<0.05 and a 5-point mean deviation.

Main Results:

• Works council members reported significantly higher strain and stress in emotional demands, work-privacy conflict, role conflicts, mobbing, cognitive stress symptoms, and burnout.
• Perceived lower quality of leadership, social support, sense of community, and general health compared to reference groups.
• Favorable findings included higher influence at work and quantity of social relations.

Conclusions:

• Works council members generally perceive psychosocial demands as more exhausting than other employee groups.
• Extended responsibilities and potentially inadequate training for managerial tasks may contribute to this increased strain.
• Findings highlight the need for better support and training for works council members to mitigate occupational stress.