Every day, workers are injured, made ill, or killed on the job.
Most often, workers experience these harms individually and in
isolation. Particular occurrences rarely attract much public
attention beyond, perhaps, a small paragraph in the local
newspaper. Instead, these events are normalized. This membrane of
normalcy, however, is ruptured from time to time, especially after
a disaster. This edited collection draws together original case
studies written by leading researchers in Australia, Canada, Great
Britain, Sweden, and the United States that examine the politics of
working disasters. The essays address two fundamental questions:
what gets recognized as a work disaster? And how does the state
respond to one? In some instances, it seems self-evident that a
disaster has occurred. For example, when a mine explodes killing
tens or hundreds of workers simultaneously, the media and
politicians recognize that this is not just a personal tragedy for
the families of the victims, and that more troubling questions need
to be asked about how this could happen. In other circumstances,
however, the process that determines what gets recognized as a
disaster is much more complicated. "Working Disasters" addresses
the politics of recognition in case studies of the long-haul
trucking industry, repetitive strain injuries, and lung disease in
miners. Once it has recognized that a working disaster has
occurred, the state typically goes beyond its routine responses to
the daily toll of work-related deaths and injuries. Inquiries may
be initiated to review the adequacy of regulatory systems and laws
may be amended. Sometimes disasters produce meaningful change, but
often they do not. In this text, the politics of response is
considered in studies of a factory fire, the loss of an offshore
oilrig, lung disease among miners, a mine explosion, and the
prosecution of health and safety offences. This book will be of use
to occupational health and safety activists and professionals;
academics and upper-year students in: industrial relations, labour
studies, labour history, law, political science, and sociology.
General
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