Beyond Production: A Sociological Study of Occupational Hazards and Their Impact on the Health of Workers at a Car Plant in Tangier

This article presents a field study conducted in a car plant in the city of Tangier, aimed at exploring risk factors for workers in the automotive industry. Based on a sample of 294 workers, the study revealed that 46.3% suffer from stress and psychological pressure, mainly due to repetitive tasks and strict productivity targets.

Physical and mental health problems such as sleep disorders (34.4%), muscle spasms (16.3%) and migraines (15%) were also identified. The main physical risks were noise (37.4%), heat (25.9%) and air pollution (22.4%). A further 28.6% of workers reported a lack of workspace and 27.2% a lack of maintenance of tools and machinery.

Production pressure is a stress factor and also has a significant impact on workers' performance, with 80.3% of those questioned explaining that each team has to produce between 400 and 500 cars.

It should be noted that the study revealed that 61.9% of workers resorted to drugs to cope with stress at work. According to the participants, certain jobs such as sheet metal work have a higher rate of accidents at work (66%), followed by logistics (16.3%), and it is important to note that 79.6% of these accidents occur at night.

As far as night work is concerned, workers indicated that bonuses motivate them to work at night despite its negative impact on their health (87.8%).