Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99

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Safety Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

An exploratory study of migrant workers and safety in three European countries

Frank Guldenmund a,⇑, Bryan Cleal b, Kathryn Mearns c
a
Delft University of Technology, Safety Science Group, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, Netherlands
b
National Research Centre for the Working Environment (NFA), Lersø Parkallé 105, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
c
School of Psychology, William Guild Building, Kings College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An exploratory study was carried out in three European countries – Denmark, United Kingdom and the
Available online 6 June 2012 Netherlands – concerning the safety of migrant workers, especially those coming from Eastern European
countries. Special attention was given to the relationship between safety and the national background of
Keywords: migrant workers. Forty-four interviews with HSE experts – e.g. regulators, union representatives – in the
Migrant workers three countries, a survey using the NOSACQ-50 safety climate questionnaire and an accident data analysis
National culture using Danish data have been combined to draw a picture of the situation of migrant workers in the three
Safety climate
countries. Although much data is still anecdotal it is concluded that these workers form a vulnerable
Occupational accidents
National accident statistics
group. As long as many migrant workers remain unregistered in the country where they work and
national accident databases are not sufficiently or systematically coded, the magnitude of the migrant
worker problem remains largely elusive.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction assumptions and expectations they bring from those countries.

Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004 and 2007
entailing the addition of the so-called CEE and CEE-plus countries,1
the number of people from these countries working in the Nether-
lands, and similarly elsewhere in Europe, has grown considerably. It
is, therefore, not surprising that the number of accidents with these
new migrant workers has increased accordingly. It will first become
a matter of serious concern, however, when the number of accidents
or other anecdotal material relating to migrants actually increases dis-
proportionately. These days, rather frequently disturbing items ap-
pear in the media of drunken (Polish) truck drivers or miserably
housed migrant workers. Such stories have resulted in questions being
posed in the Dutch Parliament, especially when disconcerting peaks
also start to appear in the annual figures (in absolute numbers) that
the Dutch Labour Inspectorate produces. Such concerns provide the
background to the research reported in this paper.
The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW)
approached Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands with
a request to shed more light on the issue with regard to the work
safety of migrant workers. Another concern that was raised by the
Ministry was whether the safety of migrant workers might be
somehow related to their country of origin and the safety values,
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: f.w.guldenmund@tudelft.nl (F. Guldenmund), k.mearns@abdn.
ac.uk (K. Mearns).
1
These countries are, respectively, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia (CEE) and Bulgaria and Romania (CEE-plus); CEE
stands for Central and Eastern Europe.
Or whether it, perhaps, was a matter of adjustment, or language,
which might explain why migrant workers currently seem to be
more involved in accidents. The latter suggestion is, of course, a
subject of serious debate, since it is based on absolute numbers
and in the absence of exposure rates, it is difficult to provide more
definite statements about these numbers. This study was con-
ducted to try and shed light on these complex questions and to
give, if feasible, any policy recommendations.
In the next section we first explore the research issue somewhat
further. We then present a brief discussion of relevant previous re-
search. Then, the applied research methods, the results and conclu-
sions based on these will follow. Finally, a brief research agenda
will be drafted, which might be of some use to define more focused
research on migrant workers and safety in the next few years.
1.1. Problem definition
As has been indicated above, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs
and Employment was concerned about the factors that could affect
occupational accidents amongst migrant workers as compared to
native workers. Firstly, the Ministry was interested in whether
there was, in fact, an actual safety issue with migrant workers
and, if so, whether their nationality played a role in this, or
whether the issue revolved more around communication (i.e. lan-
guage), or education or training. In other words, is it because of a
difference in some basic values and beliefs that Central and Eastern
Europeans seem to be more involved in serious occupational
accidents, or are they, by Dutch standards, less well-educated or

0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2012.05.004
 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
trained to work safely? Or do they simply not understand the
safety instructions sufficiently to be able to work in accordance
with them?
The issues above have been narrowed down to the following
question, which has been used by the team in their subsequent re-
search: How can the recent rise in serious accidents involving foreign
workers be explained by influences arising from their nationality and
what policy changes are required to counter a further development
of accidents?2
A research team consisting of members from three European
countries, Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands, has, each in their
own country, explored that question. By carrying out the study in
three different EU countries both similarities and differences could
be uncovered, which might either strengthen the Dutch findings
or provide local best practices that could be adopted by Dutch
authorities.
Initially, the team wanted to use the research of scholar Hofst-
ede (1991, 2001) and his VSM questionnaire (Hofstede et al., 2008)
combined with a safety climate questionnaire, but dismissed it be-
cause it turned out to be quite difficult to locate comparable com-
panies in the three EU countries willing to participate in a study
with a primarily scientific objective. As a result, no attempt will
be made to compare national cultures per se. Instead it was decided
to conduct an exploratory study using three different data sources:
interviews, Danish accident data and a survey at a Dutch company
that operates throughout Europe and also has several branches in
various countries there. These research methods will be discussed
in a later section. A number of previous studies will be discussed
briefly first.
2. Research into migrant workers and safety
Research into migrant workers and safety can be divided into
two separate areas: (a) research that focuses on the relationship
between migrant workers and safety and, (b) research into the
relationship between national culture and safety. The first type of
research is epidemiological in nature and the authors often make
extensive use of large national or even international databases
(e.g. Hämäläinen, 2009), sometimes in combination with field
studies (e.g. Azaroff et al., 2003). The second type of research is of-
ten based on one or more questionnaires, part of which aims to
identify the national cultural values of the respondent, which are
then combined with various safety indicators. In brief: many stud-
ies of the first type – the epidemiological studies – show that mi-
grants are relatively more involved in accidents than their local
colleagues, and that these accidents are also often more serious
in nature (e.g. Ahonen and Benavides, 2006; Carangan et al.,
2004; Carballo et al., 2008; Corvalan et al., 1994; Elders et al.,
2004; Smith and Mustard, 2009). However, the reverse can also
be true (e.g. Sinclair et al., 2006), or no significant difference is
found in safety performance between migrant and local workers
(e.g. Nuwayhid et al., 2003; Salminen et al., 2009).
Publications on migrant workers and safety in the Netherlands
are relatively sparse. In the 1970s a number of publications ap-
peared in ‘de Veiligheid’ (Dutch for ‘Safety’) (Anon., 1972, 1973;
Janssen, 1973). In these papers an important point was already
being made: namely, that exposure data are missing in publica-
tions on accidents involving migrant workers. So while it may be
the case that, relatively speaking, they are involved in more acci-
dents, it may very well also be the case that migrant workers carry
out more dangerous work, and thus are exposed to higher risks.
Accident data on migrants, it is argued, should be compared with
2
The second part of the research question, i.e. the policy recommendations, will be
disregarded in this paper. Instead, at the end of the paper a short research agenda will
be drafted.
93
similar data from the country of their origin (Janssen, 1973). More
recently, Lindhout (2010) reviewed the level of difficulty of Dutch
(safety) instructions and the literacy required to understand these.
He argues that illiteracy is an underestimated problem for safety in
industry in both the Netherlands and abroad.
To sum up, concern for the safety and wellbeing of migrant
workers seems warranted, a notion that was also expressed at a
European symposium on the subject held in Brussels in January
2010. This symposium was chaired by Professor Sonja McKay,
who some years previously had led a fairly extensive study for
the UK HSE (Health and Safety Executive) amongst 200 migrants
(McKay et al., 2006). This study summarises the conclusions of sev-
eral other studies succinctly (McKay et al., 2006, p. v):
 Migrant workers usually are for a relatively short period of time
present in the country where they work.
 They also have little or no knowledge of the safety and health
provisions in this country.
 Their experiences with these provisions may vary (greatly).
 The motivation of migrant workers is usually to earn in a short
time as much money as possible.
 Their ability to interact with other employees and/or supervisors
to communicate risk and safety effectively are quite limited.
 Migrant workers are often not given the opportunity to follow a
safety training course. When the possibility for training exists,
they have great difficulty in understanding the training when
it is not supplied in their native language.
 There is often much negligence on the part of employers to ver-
ify the job skills of migrant workers and their language skills.
 The working relationship and responsibilities for Health &
Safety between the migrant worker and his employer are
unclear, particularly where migrants work through an employ-
ment agency or labour brokers or are self-employed.
 Finally, workers have insufficient knowledge about their rights
in the area of H & S, how they could make their concerns known
and through which channels this should take place.
The second type of research, social scientific research on safety
and national culture, is much more scarce. In most of these cases,
the cultural framework of Hofstede (1991, 2001) is used along with
the accompanying questionnaire (latest version: Hofstede et al.,
2008). The initial version of Hofstede’s framework had four dimen-
sions: Power Distance (PD), individualism (IND), Masculinity
(MASC) and Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) (Hofstede, 1980).
These four dimensions relate to a number of fundamental ques-
tions that, Hofstede (2001) argues, any society has to resolve: (1)
How should society settle and shape the (inevitable) differences
between people? e.g. differences in power, knowledge, wealth, po-
sition, etc.; (2) How does the individual relate to the (larger)
group? e.g. groups such as the (extended) family, the organisation,
society; (3) What are the specific roles for men and women in soci-
ety and how do the sexes relate to each other?; (4) How to resolve
emotional tensions, especially those resulting from an unfamiliar-
ity with novel situations.
According to Hofstede, these issues are resolved differently in
different countries. For example, in the Netherlands the Power Dis-
tance Index is relatively low, which results in a rather egalitarian
society. The Masculinity Index is quite low too, which makes the
Dutch a less competitive and rather caring people, where you also
better not stick your head too far above the corn field (Dutch
expression denoting that one should not deviate too much from
the common mean). The Individuality Index is high, though, and
the coherence between people based on e.g. (extended) family
relations is low. Lastly, the Uncertainty Avoidance Index is neither
high nor low, and the tolerance of Dutchmen for new situations is
generally moderate.
94 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
Writing or talking in this way about an entire people is strange:
about exactly what Dutchman are we talking and does s/he actu-
ally exist? Hofstede’s research is entirely questionnaire-based
and the values he reports are averages. In addition, he argues that
the cultural aspects PD, IND, MASC and UAI are normally distrib-
uted within a country, so a wide range of values with a certain
probability will occur in a particular country (Hofstede, 2001).
Hofstede’s model and approach is not entirely uncontroversial,
see e.g. McSweeney (2002) and Baskerville-Morley (2003), but this
is not the place for this rather vehement discourse. Finally, it
should be noted that it is at least remarkable that Hofstede is
hardly referenced to in the sociological or anthropological litera-
ture (McSweeney, 2002; Baskerville-Morley, 2003), presumably
because his ideas about national culture are not considered to be
tenable in these disciplines.
Returning to the study of national culture and safety, Helmreich
and Merritt (1998) examined this relationship with 15,454 pilots
from 23 countries and found significant correlations of the dimen-
sions PD, IND and UAI with different attitudes, including relation-
ships with respect to authority, rules and procedures and
automation. They proposed that the position of pilots on one or
more of these dimensions could influence their behaviour. An inter-
esting study in this context is a comparison between Danish and
Swedish workers working together on the same bridge, but where
the Danes almost had four times more accidents resulting in ab-
sence from work than the Swedes (Spangenberg et al., 2003). Based
on Hofstede’s framework this is at least remarkable because Swedes
and Danes are comparable according to his framework. However,
there are major national and organizational differences in e.g. train-
ing and compensation benefits, which ensure that workers from
these countries will exhibit different behaviour regarding absentee-
ism. Situational circumstances are therefore more decisive than na-
tional culture. Such a conclusion can also be drawn based on
research of Mearns et al. (2004), Mearns and Yule (2009) and Høivik
et al. (2009). All research teams found that the perceptions of work-
ers of the situation around safety on their oil platform or at their
worksite determined their safety performance more than their (na-
tional) cultural background. Also for this reason, it was finally
decided not to use Hofstede’s measures in this study.
3. Research methods
In this study we used the following research methods: inter-
views, a self-administered questionnaire and limited accident data
analysis. Next, these methods will each be discussed briefly in this
order.
3.1. Interviews
The interviews in this study were carried out using a protocol
based on the problem solving cycle. This cycle comes in various
guises, but these are all built around the well-known PDCA or
Deming Cycle (Deming, 1993). The version we used, consists of
six steps:
1. Problem recognition and description.
2. Problem analysis, i.e. causes.
3. Prioritisation.
4. Solution generation (i.e. technical, human, organizational,
societal).
5. Choice of solution.
6. Implementation.
After the last step follows a control step, that can set a new
cycle in motion: monitoring and evaluating effectiveness (of the
implemented solution). These six steps again can be sorted under
three main headings, namely: problem recognition/description
(step 1), problem analysis (steps 2 and 3) and problem solving/
implementation (steps 4–6).
In the three participating countries interviews were conducted
with inspectors (construction, agriculture and industry), safety
managers (construction and industry) and trade unionists (con-
struction and agriculture). These individuals were contacted be-
cause it was felt they could provide the best overview of the
state of safety for migrant workers in their respective countries
and would give this overview from different perspectives. All indi-
viduals participated voluntarily. The questions in the protocols
have, therefore, been adapted slightly to the specific perspective
of the interviewee.
3.2. Questionnaire
The self-administered questionnaire used in this study was the
NOSACQ-50. This questionnaire has been developed and tested
extensively in various industries in Scandinavia (Kines et al., 2011).
It is a safety climate questionnaire, through which the perception
of respondents of various aspects of safety within an organisation is
determined (Guldenmund, 2007). This questionnaire was chosen be-
cause it measured constructs that could be of interest to our study, i.e.
perceptions of management, worker and co-worker commitment to
safety and it is reported as reliable and valid for predicting safety
motivation, perceived safety level and self-rated safety behaviour.
It has been used to identify differences in safety climate within and
between different companies, industries and countries. It has also
been translated into native languages. The questionnaire has 50
questions, divided into seven scales. These scales are:
1. Management safety priority, commitment, and
competence.
2. Management safety empowerment.
3. Management safety justice.
4. Workers’ safety commitment.
5. Workers’ safety priority and risk non-acceptance.
6. Safety communication, learning, and trust in co-workers
safety competence.
7. Trust in the efficacy of safety systems.
The first three scales concern the perceptions of (safety) man-
agement of the organisation, the other four scales those with re-
gard to the employees. Answers to questions can be given on a
four-point scale: strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly
agree. Respondents are thus compelled to take a particular position
on each question. A high score on the questionnaire scale is indic-
ative of a positive response.
Next to the 50 climate questions, a few demographic questions
are asked in the questionnaire: country of birth, sex and whether
the respondent holds a (senior) management position.
3.3. Accidents
To determine whether there actually is a problem with migrant
workers’ occupational safety, it was decided to consult (national)
accident data. In each of the participating countries government
agencies collect both accident data as well as migration numbers.
It is important to have both types of data available to assess
whether migrants are relatively more involved in occupational
accidents. In all cases, these will be rough estimates, because the
relevant databases are rather unreliable with regard to these as-
pects: not all pertinent accidents are reported (see e.g. Pransky
et al., 2002, for a possible solution), and not all migrant workers in-
form the relevant authorities of their presence in a certain country
 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
(see e.g. Weltevrede et al., 2009, on how such numbers could be
estimated).
4. Results
Under the separate headings of ‘Approach’, ‘Sample’ and ‘Re-
sults’, various outcomes of the research methods – interview,
self-administered questionnaire and accident analysis – outlined
in the previous section will be discussed.
4.1. Approach
4.1.1. Interviews
The researchers approached their local network for potential
candidates for the interviews; experience with migrant workers
was a condition for inclusion. The researchers effectively worked
with the principle of ‘saturation’, i.e. when some observations
started to repeat themselves regularly, it was decided that the sub-
ject with this relevant group of interviewees was sufficiently ex-
plored and that no new information will be collected. In that
case interviews stopped with the group.
Many of the interviews have been conducted ‘face to face’ (36).
In eight cases, the interview was held by telephone. All interviews
were conducted following the aforementioned ‘problem solving
cycle’ and afterwards elaborated in English under the three main
headings of the cycle as described above and presented for verifi-
cation to the interviewee. After the interviewee formally confirmed
the report, the researcher added it to his or her interview database
for further analysis. Interviews lasted between one and two hours.
The interview reports were then combined into three different
files – inspectors, safety managers and trade unionists – and within
each of these the content was grouped under the three main head-
ings, problem recognition, problem analysis and problem solving/
implementation. This provided the researchers with a full over-
view of what had been said by each group of interviewees under
each of the main headings.
4.1.2. Questionnaire
A Dutch logistics company with offices throughout much of
Europe was willing to participate in the survey, as it fitted their
need for a current snapshot of their safety climate. For this study,
the questionnaire was administered solely through the Internet
and the questions have therefore been imported into a web
application.
This also opened the possibility of forcing the respondent to
actually fill in all the questions, but it was finally decided not to
do so. Respondents could therefore also decide to partially com-
plete the questionnaire or not at all.
All employees of the company received a letter from Delft Uni-
versity of Technology containing a URL and a login code. In the
Netherlands these letters were mailed to the home addresses of
the employees and outside the Netherlands these letters were is-
sued to the employees via the company itself. The employee could
then look up the website, fill in the login code and a welcome
screen appeared. All operations were subsequently recorded.
Afterwards the login codes could be combined with various
information about the employees of the company, such as age, gen-
der, function, number of years in service and both nationality and
mother tongue. In addition, all functions were coded according to
the following scheme: blue-collar worker, white-collar worker
(i.e. office workers) and business suit worker (i.e. management).3
3
The safety manager, who was quite familiar with all the functions within the
company, provided these labels.
95
4.1.3. Accident data
The relevant authorities in each of the three researchers’ coun-
tries were approached with a request to make their accident data
over the period 2004–2008 or 2009 available for this research pro-
ject. In the UK these data turned out not to be coded by the nation-
ality of the victim, so this information could not be used for the
purpose of this study. Also the Dutch data were insufficiently
coded and unreliable for further analysis. The Danish data, how-
ever, were found to be suitable for further analysis and were made
available by the agencies to the researcher.
Subsequently, two Danish databases have been consulted.
Because in Denmark, every citizen is assigned a unique number
and this number is used when entering data into any database, it
is possible to join the data from the databases. In one database acci-
dent data are stored. These are accidents involving 1 day of absence
(24 h) or more, which must be reported according to Danish law.
The other database stores accident compensation claims. It is re-
corded how long (in weeks) after an accident at work a worker re-
ceives a benefit. For this study, the limit has been put at 4 weeks or
longer to get a sufficient amount of claims. It goes without saying
that these are also the more serious accidents.
4.2. Sample
4.2.1. Interviews
The professions of the interviewees in the three participating
countries are given in Table 1. A total of 44 interviews were
conducted.
An attempt was made to carry out at least 15 interviews per
country, but this was only successful in one case. Nevertheless,
the researcher in each of the countries had the impression that a
certain saturation point in data collection has been achieved.
4.2.2. Questionnaire
The logistics company that cooperated in the questionnaire sur-
vey had at the time of the survey a total of 1000 employees; 327 of
them completed their questionnaires either in whole or in part,
representing a response rate of 32.7%. The overall response rate
by country is shown in the table below (Table 2, row ‘Total’).
To be able to compare the questionnaire data across countries,
only the blue-collar workers, i.e. the work floor, in the dataset were
selected as the basis for the comparison between nations. This was
a group of 186 people spread over 8 countries, who in each country
carried out the same work according to similar procedures (Table
2, row ‘Work floor’).
4.2.3. Accident data
The Danish data covered the period from 2003 to 2006. These
data concern workers who have been living and working during
these years in Denmark. A further distinction is made between
Danes, Immigrants and Descendants. Danes have at least one
parent born in Denmark and they also hold a Danish passport.
For Immigrants this is not the case. Finally, Descendants are born
in Denmark but do not have parents who were born there or have
a Danish citizenship.
Table 1
Respondents by country and by group.
Country Inspector Safety manager Trade union Other Total
Denmark 5 6 3 Na 14
Great Britain 4 6 1 Na 11
Netherlands 6 6 3 4 19
Total 15 18 7 4 44
NB: Na = not applicable.
96 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
Table 2
Response per country on the NOSACQ-50 of all respondents (row ‘Total’) and the work
floor.
RU NL BE GB HU DE TR PL FR ES IT Tot.
Total 6 138 18 27 27 43 4 26 7 27 4 327
Work – 59 10 21 19 34 – 21 5 17 – 186
floor
4.3. Results
4.3.1. Interviews
Below only the general findings per country are reported.
In Denmark the interviewees without exception indicated that
there is a problem with migrant workers4 and safety in the country.
However, the nature and scale of the problem is far less clear. Part of
the problem lies in the fact that much of the work that migrants car-
ry out is not officially registered. There is a virtually unknown group
of employees who participate informally in Danish economy and
where serious violations of their occupational safety rights are prob-
ably quite common. Because of this, it is difficult to provide focussed
recommendations to improve their situation.
Knowledge and communication are considered to be the biggest
problems with migrant workers. Their qualifications are not di-
rectly comparable and the interviewees perceived that some of
the qualifications of migrants do not comply with Danish stan-
dards. Many migrant workers have a distrust of government agen-
cies like the labour inspection, which is considered to be the strong
arm of the law rather than a service dealing with the protection of
the rights of workers.
Language is considered to be a major obstacle, especially in
activities where close coordination and collaboration is required.
Translators are hired to bridge the communication gap, but espe-
cially technical terms appear to be a stumbling block. In the case
of large groups of migrants where only one worker has some com-
mand of the local language, it remains unclear whether the mes-
sage of managers is adequately and fully conveyed.
Interviewees express that there should be a better cooperation be-
tween the various governmental agencies that now deal with mi-
grant workers. Meanwhile, a register has been opened in 2008 –
RUT; register for foreign service providers – where foreign companies
must register if they want to operate on the Danish market. Through
this the Danish government tries to get a better grip on foreign
employment agencies providing work for their fellow-countrymen.
Attempts to improve the occupational safety of migrants will be
hampered by the fact that they have complied in their, often tem-
porary, fate. They are therefore willing to accept (much) lower
standards of safety, if there is sufficient economic benefit to be
gained from it. Nevertheless, it is a matter for the relevant author-
ities to protect them from the worst forms of exploitation.
In the United Kingdom, migrant workers are usually considered a
vulnerable group and they appear to be involved more in accidents
in construction, although sufficient and well-coded data are
missing to really substantiate this common perception. There are
several reasons for this put forward by the interviewees: communi-
cation, confusion and uncertainty about what is expected or
demanded from migrant workers, as well as their competence
and qualifications, and ‘cultural’ factors.
Communication is indeed an important factor. Although many
workers have learned to speak English, problems still arise
frequently in understanding, e.g. because of dialects or jargon.
4
The word ’migrant’ cannot directly be translated into Danish. However, when the
researcher began to explain which workers were signified by the term, the
interviewees immediately associated the term with Eastern Europeans. In Denmark
these are mainly migrants from Poland and Lithuania.
Safety managers should therefore put more effort into conveying
their message clearly and fully to migrant workers. Inexperienced
workers should receive special attention in addition to the care
that such workers already deserve. Workers are regularly over-
qualified for the work they do and they underestimate the risks
that it might entail (see also McKay et al., 2006).
There are also differences between migrant workers in how
they best can be instructed. In the UK, many instructions are more
implicit and concise but some migrants, e.g. Indian, expect more
explicit, step-by-step instructions.
According to the interviewees there are apparent national dif-
ferences in particular values. Is a Bulgarian truck driver equally
competent as a British driver, for instance? Are people used to
wear personal protective equipment when carrying out their work
and what is the quality of the equipment they use? Migrants there-
fore need some time to familiarise themselves with the norms of
the country they work in.5
Following the Chinese cockle-pickers tragedy a few years ago
the UK HSE has become more attentive to inspecting and advising
workers. Many migrant workers harbour a certain distrust against
governmental agencies, a finding that has also been observed in
the other two countries. They must learn that safety is a right
and not a privilege only for the local people. To establish more con-
fidence in the agency, the HSE has temporarily appointed a group
of Polish, Indian and Romanian field representatives, to localise
new migrant workers and provide more information about the
HSE and the role it plays in maintaining and improving occupa-
tional safety. In addition, the HSE has launched a website in over
20 languages, where much information is made available for free.
In the Netherlands, the interviewees also consider migrant
workers to be a vulnerable group of employees. Because they gen-
erally do not speak Dutch, they cannot fully communicate with
their Dutch colleagues or supervisors. This means that they are
not able to express their concerns, report any incidents and cannot
discuss procedures or refuse to undertake unsafe work. This prob-
lem occurs rather more persistently in construction and agricul-
ture. Moreover, because of this language problem, they do not
sufficiently understand instructions or fully appreciate the risks
of some tasks.
Some interviewees note that workers, either at, or outside work,
often interact with each other and little with the Dutch. Because of
this isolation, their understanding of Dutch language is not in-
creased or encouraged (see also Weltevrede et al., 2009).
At (small) sites, safety information and advice for migrant
workers is usually absent or, at least, insufficient. In agriculture
the situation is perhaps even worse, and supervision on migrant
workers is generally lacking.
Safety standards in the migrant workers’ countries of origin are
often lower than in the Netherlands, the interviewees argue,
although the (European) legislation might be similar. This is re-
flected in the (use of) personal protection equipment, its quality
and the materials they use, for example, to secure scaffolding. This
is also reflected in the requirements they demand of work in the
Netherlands.
By contrast, interviewees find migrants working in the
(petro-)chemical industry usually indistinguishable from Dutch
employees based on their competencies. Nevertheless, employers
also hardly check the qualifications of these migrant workers.
Inspectors indicate that they also do this far too little. According
to observations made by some interviewees migrant workers easily
acquire the required certificates.
Migrant workers are primarily here to make money and often
5
A list of the most important considerations for employers is currently available at
the HSE website, http://www.hse.gov.uk/migrantworkers/employer/protecting.pdf.
 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99 97

Table 3
Comparative tests (ANOVA) between countries (individual countries and grouped countries) of the seven scales of the NOSACQ-50 and their average score.

Scale F-score for High-low F-score for grouped High

countries score countries score
Scale 1 – management safety priority, commitment, and competence F(7,178) = 4.4415*** FR–BE F(1,184) = 3.8936* Migrant
Scale 2 – management safety empowerment F(7,177) = 5.7902*** PL–BE F(1,183) = 12.8302** Migrant
Scale 3 – management safety justice F(7,176) = 2.1748* FR–NL F(1,182) = 0.4490 (n.s.) Migrant
Scale 4 – workers’ safety commitment F(7,177) = 2.2353* FR–DE F(1,183) = 2.3436 (n.s.) Migrant
Scale 5 – workers’ safety priority and risk non-acceptance F(7,177) = 1.0416 (n.s.) ES–NL F(1,183) = 0.0045 (n.s.) Migrant
Scale 6 – safety communication, learning, and trust in co-workers safety competence F(7,177) = 1.0416* FR–NL F(1,183) = 0.3449 (n.s.) Migrant
Scale 7 – trust in the efficacy of safety systems F(7,177) = 5.0502*** ES–BE F(1,183) = 0.1619 (n.s.) Migrant
Overall safety climate score F(7,178) = 3.7730** ES–NL F(1,184) = 2.7076 (n.s.) Migrant

NB: ns = not significant.

*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .0001.

not to do this in a safe and healthy way. This characteristic makes
them vulnerable to exploitation by some employers; especially
those who try to find the boundaries of the law. Moreover,
migrants do not want to lose their jobs, and thereby lose face with
their countrymen when they return home empty-handed. There-
fore, they make the best of their situation, even if they work under
bad conditions and are housed equally poorly.
The interviewees agreed that all migrant workers should master a
certain level of Dutch, or otherwise English, to be able to read and
understand the safety instructions, and to be able to warn their col-
leagues in case of impending danger – or vice versa, to be warned by
them. Migrant workers who carry out hazardous work should own
an industrial language certificate indicating that they master pertinent
technical and non-technical terms next to their (European) safety
passport, as well as additional annotations for different competencies.
4.3.2. Questionnaire
As mentioned above, for the analysis a particular part of the data
set has been used; only the ‘blue collar workers’ in the various coun-
tries have been compared on their questionnaire scores. For the
comparison we used the average scale scores, not the scores on indi-
vidual questions. Two types of comparisons have been made using
ANOVA: (1) between countries; (2) between aggregate groups of
countries, one being the group of countries from which migrants
come – in our dataset these were Hungary, HU and Poland, PL – ver-
sus the group of other countries (Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Ger-
many, France and Spain). The statistical significances of these
comparisons are shown in Table 3.
In the first column of Table 3, the seven underlying scales are
mentioned. In addition to these scales, the average score on all items
is calculated: this is called the Overall safety climate score (last row).
The second column of the table shows the results of the comparative
test (ANOVA) between the countries listed in Table 2, bottom row. In
the third column, the countries with the highest and lowest score on
the scale are given. By looking at column two and three it can be seen
that most significant results reported in column two cannot be as-
cribed to a difference between a migrant worker’s country versus a
non-migrant worker’s country, i.e. the highest and lowest score
are usually from a non-migrant country. The fourth column shows
the result of the comparison (ANOVA) between grouped countries,
i.e. the group of migrant workers’ countries (HU and PL in our case)
and the group of non-migrant workers’ countries (NL, BE, GB, DE, FR,
ES). Finally in the last column, it is indicated whether the group of
either migrant countries (Migrant) or non-migrant (non-Migrant)
countries scores highest on any of the scales.
4.3.3. Accident data
Several analyses were carried out on the available Danish data.
We suffice here with providing only the main results.
 Data on 2003–2006 show that in the analysis period Immi-
grants (217) have more accidents per 10,000 workers than
Danes (181) and Descendants (156) (for terminology, see
above). This finding applies to both men and women, but to a
lesser extent for women (respectively 148, 127 and 91). In con-
trast, Descendants have on average fewer accidents than Danes.
 The analysis of the data on compensation claims shows a simi-
lar pattern, but the numbers are substantially smaller, relatively
more Immigrants enjoy a compensation resulting from an acci-
dent than Danes or Descendants. The immigration figures show
that the number of migrants into the Danish labour market
from CEE-countries has grown substantially since 2004. This
increase pertains especially to men, but the number of women
migrants has also increased since 2004.
 A breakdown of these numbers shows that these are primarily
Polish migrants and, to a lesser extent, Lithuanians and
Latvians.
 The number of accidents involving migrant workers from the
CEE-countries has also increased to an extent corresponding
to their growth. However, these are quite small numbers (<30
accidents).
 The number of disability benefits for these groups has remained
virtually unchanged over the analysis period.
5. Conclusions
Migrant workers are a vulnerable group of workers. This is clear
both from interviews with experts from three European countries
and from Danish accident data when combined with data on ben-
efits following an accident. Workforce responses to a safety climate
questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) showed statistically significant differ-
ences on two scales between groups of migrant and non-migrant
workers; these scales were related to the perception of manage-
ment of the organisation where migrant workers evaluated man-
agement more positively than non-migrants.
The perception of experts that migrants are a vulnerable group
of workers is, however, quite difficult to further substantiate with
quantitative data, at least in Britain and the Netherlands. In these
countries the available data are either not differentiated or insuffi-
ciently differentiated to be able to make such judgments. More-
over, in all three European countries an exposure measure for
occupational risks is lacking to convert these figures to comparable
ratios. Whether more accidents happen to migrants cannot be
established on the basis of these data.
This and other studies do not indicate that cultural influences
play a decisive role, although these influences may sometimes ex-
plain certain behaviour of migrants, for example, in a higher level
of compliance. A deference to authority may have influenced the
migrant workers’ (comparatively) positive scores on the ‘Manage-
ment safety, commitment and competence’ and ‘Management
98 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
safety empowerment’ scales. Conversely, the migrant workers may
also have been comparing their experiences of working with man-
agers in their new country of employment with managers from
their native country, where the issue of power may have been
practiced more overtly.
The behaviour and therefore also the vulnerability of migrants
might be better argued on situational grounds.
 Migrants generally have inadequate understanding of the
language of the country in which they work; moreover their
general levels of literacy, even in their own language, are some-
times quite poor. They do not, therefore, understand the safety
instructions sufficiently and they thus rely upon their experi-
ence and the standards of the country of their origin, which
are, according to most interviewees’ estimates, often lower than
those in the country where they work.
 At small projects in construction and agriculture safety instruc-
tions are usually only available in the local language so any
transfer of rules is often oral and incomplete or absent. More-
over, there are no or insufficient checks in place to assess
whether a newcomer has understood the instructions. The lat-
ter is probably the case at many other workplaces.
 Migrant workers often come for a limited time to a particular
country, for example to carry out seasonal work (e.g. agriculture)
or within a particular project (e.g. construction). They are
primarily concerned with making money. They certainly do
not want to go home empty-handed and therefore settle for sub-
optimal working conditions and do not complain about these.
 There are a significant proportion of incoming employees who
are not registered officially as working migrants. The size of this
group and the nature of the risks they are exposed to are not
known. Virtually all information is anecdotal.
6. A provisional agenda for research on migrant workers and
occupational safety
A particular concern for the safety and wellbeing of migrant
workers seems to be appropriate. There are several reasons why
they could face unsafe and hazardous working conditions, includ-
ing inadequate supervision or protection. The extent of this is cur-
rently just guesswork and coloured by anecdotes. To achieve a
more reliable and complete picture of the safety, health and well-
being of migrants, valid data are needed. The two main guiding
questions are:
1. What data are needed? and
2. How can valid data be obtained?
This will be primarily data about and from migrant workers.
The data about migrant workers are collected by different agen-
cies and these sources should be combined in most cases in order
to get reasonable estimates, see Weltevrede et al. (2009) for a fea-
sible approach. More challenging are the accident data collected by
the local authorities concerned with occupational safety. Here a
few practices can still be improved. Importantly, an exposure mea-
sure for occupational hazards should be developed, perhaps by
including an additional classification of the nature of the work of
the victim in the reporting system. Unfortunately, the official dat-
abases all suffer from underreporting, and this might even more
serious in the case of occupational accidents with migrants. The
Danish data show that migrant workers do not claim more disabil-
ity benefits during a period where their absolute numbers in-
creased. This could simply mean that they are transported back
to their home country in case of a disabling work accident.
Moreover, accident statistics from migrant workers should at
least be compared with similar statistics from their country of
origin to explore if something unusual is taking place when they
are working abroad. At any rate, the current official national occu-
pational accident statistics should not only be enriched but also
supplemented with additional data, preferably from migrant
workers.
Yet, data from migrants are equally difficult to obtain, see e.g.
Korf et al. (2009), Weltevrede et al. (2009) and McKay et al.
(2006) for particular useful suggestions on how to locate and ap-
proach people entering the local job market from abroad. The main
challenge here will be to collect representative data, so more gen-
eral statements can be made about (groups of) migrant workers.
Obtaining data from migrant workers through self-adminis-
tered questionnaires will run into similar difficulties, i.e. how to lo-
cate the workers and how to get them to participate. However,
when large datasets obtained with a similar questionnaire admin-
istered in multiple countries are available, making comparisons
across countries and between professions still seems like an inter-
esting option to us. The purpose of such analyses would not be to
find ‘accident prone cultures’, but rather to explore the way work-
ers with different national backgrounds approach safety and per-
ceive the people who should support them with this, i.e.
managers and safety professionals. Unfortunately, the aim of ques-
tionnaire designers is often to develop a questionnaire that is valid
across professions or nations, i.e. a questionnaire that ‘works’ both
in Denmark and Poland or Italy in the same way. Different scores
are interpreted not in terms of the nationality of the respondent
but rather in the way that safety is perceived at a particular loca-
tion, usually ignoring any influences of the respondents’ national
background. When more is known about the way in which differ-
ent migrant workers approach safety and its direct supporters (i.e.
supervisors, first-line managers), these very supporters can be
trained in using other strategies with different migrant workers
in getting the same results, as is already more common at educa-
tional institutes enrolling multiple nationalities.
What became considerably more clear to us during this study is
that the initial interest expressed by the Dutch Ministry, i.e. explor-
ing a possible relationship between the national background of mi-
grant workers and accidents is, for various reasons, quite difficult
to account for in a convincing way. One needs multiple, quite rich
sources of data to be able to construct a persuasive line of reason-
ing. As is the case with other issues concerning possible cultural
influences, disentangling the background, the context and the
product of social acts is a challenging task, which is perhaps also
more ‘academic’ than ‘real’. Neither rich accident data nor sociolog-
ical or anthropological ‘thick descriptions’ carry with them the fi-
nal answer to the Ministry’s initial concern.
Moreover, collecting valid and reliable data on migrants and
accidents without looking at the context in which these data are
generated and get significance does not seem like a passable exer-
cise. We might get a good impression of the size and scale of the
problem, but not why it exists and how it is, possibly, sustained.
Furthermore, such data also can be misinterpreted or even misused
by advocates of more restrictive policies regarding migrant work-
ers. The research agenda therefore has to be expanded with re-
search into the mechanisms underlying migration flows in Europe
and why migrants look for work in North and Western Europe with-
out having the formal paperwork. An European project with these
and several other research aims has been carried out between
2007 and 2009 under the heading of ‘Undocumented Worker Tran-
sitions’ (UWT) (2009), McKay et al. (2009). Obviously, any future re-
search on migrant workers and (occupational) safety and the
accompanying agenda should build on the results from this Euro-
pean project, which was carried out in seven EU member states.
Meanwhile, it does not hurt to gather good practices at, for in-
stance, companies or government agencies, as they already have
provided different ‘waves’ of migrants with jobs. The UK Health
 F. Guldenmund et al. / Safety Science 52 (2013) 92–99
and Safety Executive, for example, how been running a systematic
and well-advertised campaign to inform Polish and other migrant
construction workers about on-site health and safety (see http://
www.hse.gov.uk/press/2009/e09077.htm). Another HSE website
(see http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/languages/index.htm)
reinforces the message to construction workers that in UK health
and safety law, all workers are protected, even if they are not work-
ing in the country legally. This is an important point because
migrant workers believe that if they report an accident or injury
to government authorities, they will be sent back to their own
country, especially if they are in the UK illegally. Polish, Chinese
and other national outreach workers have been recruited to sup-
port migrant workers of various nationalities within the UK con-
struction sector. Such innovative practices should be adopted
more widely across Europe, because although valid and reliable
data on the subject seem to be lacking, the interview and other
data collected from the current exploratory study indicate that
protecting the health and safety of migrant workers in Europe is
a key priority if unnecessary deaths and injuries are to be avoided.
Acknowledgements
This research project has been financed by the Dutch Ministry
of Social Affairs and Employment, Case No. 5140-11485. We are in-
debted to Joy Oh for his help in setting up this study. The authors
also wish to thank the various experts for their valuable time,
observations and comments. Two anonymous reviewers helped
us dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
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