Precarization in labour processes of safety professionals and strategies against precarization

Occupational safety profession emerged as a new occupation in Turkey only in the 2000s. The Occupational Health and Safety Law enacted in 2012 made appointment of occupational safety specialists mandatory for many workplaces. After this law, occupational safety has become a common profession. This study aims to examine the precariousness experienced by occupational safety experts in their labour process. For this purpose, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty experts who had experience in different sectors. It is observed that occupational safety specialists work in three different arrangements: full-time work in a firm, full-time work in a subcontracting firm that provides occupational safety services to other companies or work on a freelance basis with temporary contracts with more than one company. Firstly, the occupational safety specialists' experiences of precarity in the labour processes under these three different types of employment are discussed comparatively. The labour processes of the specialists were evaleated based on four criteria, namely job insecurity, organizational insecurity, social insecurity and income insecurity. The second aim of the study is to reveal the different strategies that occupational safety specialists use against precarity. In this context, based on interview findings, it was observed that occupational safety specialists mainly apply to individual and collective strategies. Individual strategies comprise of career strategies and implicit resistance strategies. Career strategies enable the specialists to protect themselves from precariousness through professional development. On the other hand, implicit resistance strategies aimto preserve professional autonomy in the labour process. In addition, collective strategies consist of professional organization options. Specialists follow two different collective strategies: professional associations and unionization. However, specialists face many barriers when they iv want to use collective strategies. Therefore, this study elaborates on why specialists prefer certain strategies but not others against precariousness and how that reflects on labour processes. Keywords: Safety professionals, labour process, resistance, control, organization