The notion of "sick workplace syndrome" is appropriate to describe the poor working conditions of many public organizations and to explain the health problems of public workers. In this paper, a case study in a public institution was carried out; its organization and its work design process were described. The results show that: this Public Institution "suffers from" a "sick workplace syndrome", i.e., there are a high prevalence of musculo-skeletal disorders, many organizational failings and lack of control by local managers; the organizational problems are associated to the limitations of the work design process due to the lack of knowledge in industrial engineering and public administration, lack of support by specific design services and small latitude to hire new workers.
Organization; public sector; sick workplace syndrome; work design; occupational illness
