Working Disasters: The Politics of Recognition and Response (Work, Health and Environment Series) - Hardcover

Tucker, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0895033194 ISBN 13: 9780895033192

Publisher: Routledge, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Eric Tucker

From the Back Cover

IN PRAISE OF "This pathbreaking collection is essential reading for anyone interested in how governments identify, understand, and react to dangers and disasters at work. Political scientists, sociologists, and historians interested in work, labor, and the political process would also be well served by close attention to these case studies." —Charles Noble, California State University, Long Beach "Working Disasters brings together an outstanding group of scholars to analyze a diverse range of occupational health and safety catastrophes. The result is a formidable contribution to the disasters literature." —John Braithwaite, Australia National University, Canberra "The book brings together work from several fields—-sociology, law, history, criminology, and industrial relations-and presents cases that relate to a variety of occupational groups: Australian truck drivers and white-collar workers, Canadian miners, and oil rig workers in the British North Sea, among others. In exploring the politics of disaster recognition and response, Eric Tucker has performed a valuable service for all those interested in work and working conditions and in occupational health and safety." —Theo Nichols, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, U.K. "The toll of injuries and deaths in the workplace furnishes the authors of Working Disasters with the raw material for an intellectual inquiry that brings together two related but distinct strains of scholarship: the risk and disaster literatures. The starting premise is that the lamentably high incidence of harm in the workplace should be, but rarely is, treated as a disaster. The stories told here . . . beg us to ask why these risks should not be labeled as disaster-creating conditions and regulated accordingly. While sometimes chilling, the contributions are a 'good read' for anyone interested in the fate of workers across time, geographic space, and vastly different occupational settings, from offices, to trucks, to mines. It lays down a platform for future theoretical work and raises our consciousness about levels of harm that, so far, we have tolerated with apparent equanimity." —Harry Glasbeek, York University, Toronto

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0895033194
• ISBN 13: 9780895033192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328