The political economy of workplace injury in Canada / Bob Barnetson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barnetson, Bob, 1970- author.

Series:

Labour across borders series.

Labour Across Borders Series, 1922-3560

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Industrial safety--Economic aspects--Canada.

Industrial safety.

Industrial safety--Political aspects--Canada.

Industrial hygiene--Economic aspects--Canada.

Industrial hygiene.

Industrial accidents--Canada--Costs.

Industrial accidents.

Occupational diseases--Canada--Costs.

Occupational diseases.

Workers' compensation--Canada.

Workers' compensation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (268 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Athabasca University Press 2010

Edmonton, Alberta : AU Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Workplace injuries are common, avoidable, and unacceptable. The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada reveals how employers and governments engage in ineffective injury prevention efforts, intervening only when necessary to maintain the standard legitimacy. Dr. Bob Barnetson sheds light on this faulty system, highlighting the way in which employers create dangerous work environments yet pour billions of dollars into compensation and treatment. Examining this dynamic clarifies the way in which production costs are passed on to workers in the form of workplace injuries.

Contents:

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Perspectives on workplace injury

Purpose of this book

Preventing workplace injury

Compensating workplace injury

Major conclusions

One Employment Relationships in Canada

Employment in a capitalist economy

The labour market and the wage-rate bargain

The labour process and the wage-effort bargain

Power and rules in employment

The common law

Changing definitions of work

Workplace safety and the profit motive

Compensation through the courts

Alternatives to litigation

Do employers intentionally transfer costs?

Conclusion

Two Preventing Workplace Injury

Development of occupational health and safety in Canada

Perspectives on risk

Market model of occupational health and safety

Inevitability and the careless worker

The social construction of accidents

Pressure for state regulation

The Factory Acts

Injury compensation

Why workers' compensation?

Partial self-regulation

Hoggs Hollow and Elliot Lake

The external responsibility system

The internal responsibility system

Canada's OHS system today

Duties and obligations

Health and safety standards

External responsibility system

Internal system and the three rights

Partnership model and incentives

Three Critique of OHS in Canada

Recognizing injury and hazards

How many injuries?

Who gets hurt affects injury recognition

The type of injury and its cost also affect recognition

Employers may impede injury recognition

The social construction of injury and hazards

Employer tactics in contesting injury recognition

Perpetuating the careless worker myth

Identifying occupational cancer

Preventing occupational cancer

Constructing cancer as a non-issue.

Conceptual models of injury

Limits to the biomedical model

Regulating workplace hazards

Approaches to regulation

Limits on regulation

Knowledge is power?

Joint health and safety committees

The right to refuse

Employer responses to refusals

Refusal as a weak right

Effectiveness of the internal system

Exposure levels and threshold limit values

Are exposure levels safe?

Why do exposure levels always go down?

Inspections and inspectors

Bias in inspections

The effect of orders

Prosecution and fines

Partnerships and the mantra of "safety pays"

Creating evidence of safe workplaces

Disabling injury rate and severity

Measures as conceptual technologies

Why use inadequate measures?

Four Political Economy of Preventing Workplace Injury

Why regulate ineffectively?

Context of state action

Regulation of workplace injury

Inadequate standards

Regulation of hazards in the workplace

Ignorant and reckless?

Social sanction of workplace injury

Ineffective penalties

How is this legitimized?

Injury in the new economy

Work intensification

Precarious employment increases risks

What do intensification and precarious employment tell us?

Five Compensation of Workplace Injury

Workers' compensation in Canada

Overview of workers' compensation

Development of workers' compensation in Canada

Workers' compensation as a compromise

Injury recognition revisited

Determining compensability

"Arises and occurs"

Balance of probabilities and presumptions

Politics of injury recognition

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders and causation

Occupational diseases

Limiting liability: Psychological injuries

Chronic pain syndrome

Conclusion.

Six Worker Benefits and Claims Management

Earnings-loss benefits

Deeming earnings

Permanent disabilities and the dual-award system

Other benefits

Vocational rehabilitation and early return to work

Is early return to work a good idea?

The political economy of ERTW

Medical services

Fatalities

Funding workers' compensation

Employer premiums

Rising premiums

Moral hazard

Experience-rating schemes

Effect of experience rating on injury frequency

Effect of experience rating on injury duration

Rationale for experience rating

Seven Managing Workers via Injury Compensation

Claim adjudication and administration

Impeding a shared understanding

Mobilizing workers

Role of trade unions

Appeals

Internal reviews and external appeals

How appeal processes advantage employers

Adversarialism in appeals

Political economy of appeals

Impact on workers

Privatization and abolishment

Argument for returning to tort

Operation of tort-based compensation

Comparing tort and workers' compensation

Privatization

Impact of privatization

Who chooses the insurer?

Cost savings under privatization

Economic globalization as an explanation

Managing worker demands

Precarious employment

Precarious work

Precarious work and worker-related injuries

Precarious work and workers' compensation

Implications of precarious work for workers' compensation

Eight Conclusion

Why are workers injured on the job?

Why don't government injury-prevention efforts work?

Do governments actually prioritize profit over safety?

Why don't workers call "hooey" on this approach?

Can workers protect themselves?

Do safety incentives reduce injuries?

But how does government legitimize prioritizing profit over safety?.

Who benefits from injury compensation? And how?

How does compensation legitimize limiting employer liability?

Occupational disease as a microcosm

So what?

Are workers our most valuable resource?

Is there really no such thing as an accident?

The political economy of workplace injury

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9786612852077

9781282852075

1282852078

9781926836010

1926836014

OCLC:

671386896