WORK CONDITIONS

Hi, my name is Seila and I am going to be talking about WORK conditions.

So , if I think about work conditions, you know what conditions completely depend on
the job that you are doing? For example, it is different if you are working in an office or
if you are working in a factory . I imagine that work conditions are probably more
difficult if you are working somewhere where you are doing manual labor as opposed
to white-collar (oficinista, administrative) work. For example, if you are doing blue-
collar work (obrero), then you are more likely to be, working hard in a sense. I thing
very often trade unions (sindicato) fight to improve work conditions for their staff and
sometimes that can be quite a challenging process. Generally when we refer to work
conditions we are probably referring to pay , it could boil down (reducirse) to
something like the chair that you sit in if you are working in office , maybe if you are
working in an office without air conditioning in a hot country, and it is impossible to
put up with (TOLERAR, AGUANTAR). Let me brainstorm some ideas work conditions…
of course, working hours. Working hours are definitey an issue in some jobs. In spain,
for example you work from nine oclock until 2 oclock, then you have free time , and
after that you work from maybe 4 until 7 or 8. Which in my opinion is a bit crazy. I
would much prefer to work form 9 to 5 which is the typical way that people working in
Britain I think probably in other countries in Europe. But yes, I mean sometimes if you
are maybe working 24 hours a day like nurses for example, they have shits (turno)
where they have to work for 24 hours straight. Now, personally that would drive me
nuts so I think something should be done, maybe the trade unions can work on that to
change working hours for nurses.
Rest periods are also really important, I think every four you should at least have a
break within those four hours, I think that no employer should make you work for five
hours straight.

Also health and safety, it is a hugely important thing… for example, you are working in
a office and there is a cable across the floor, you could trip over that cable , that is a
health and safety issue.

Also noise levels, because it is very difficult to work in noisy conditions. Again, you are
working in an office and somebody’s playing regeton all time you can’t concentrate in
those kind of conditions

Amenities (servicios, comodidades, instalaciones) , having a toilet in the place that you
work that is significant…