Judgments of Legitimacy Regarding Occupational Health and Safety (From Corporate Crime: Contemporary Debates, P 284-301, 1995, Frank Pearce and Laureen Snider, eds. - See NCJ-160666)

• NCJ Number: 160677
• Author(s): V Walters; W Lewchuk; R J Richardson; L A Moran; T Haines; D Verma
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: University of Toronto Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

Interviews of managers and workers' representatives in seven unionized workplaces in Ontario, Canada in 1991 formed the basis of an analysis of definitions and attitudes regarding workplace safety hazards.

Abstract

Results revealed that both workers and managers tended to emphasize workers' culpability and individual responsibility while placing little emphasis on risks generated by the nature of the work or the social relations of production. Even in these unionized workplaces, workers had a less significant role in redefining hazards than expected, in part because they allowed management to define reasonable and unreasonable risks. The situation would probably be more extreme in nonunionized companies. Findings indicated a slow process of negotiation, in which definitions of hazards and what constitutes a real accident gradually change. When workers in a particularly weak position in the labor market, definitions may become even more limited. In other cases, they may broaden or simply change in character. Better understanding of how such change occurs are particularly relevant as labor becomes represented in all public bodies concerned with the regulation of workplace hazards. Notes