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From International Socialism, No.68, April 1974, pp.29-30.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Safety or Profit
Theo Nicholls & Pete Armstrong
Falling Wall Press, 18p.
THIS YEAR 2,000 workers will suffer unnecessary and avoidable deaths through industrial injury and disease. If the same number of workers were killed one afternoon on a demonstration, there would be the most tremendous outburst of rage and retribution from the socialist movement Yet only in the past year or so have socialists begun to take industrial safety seriously.
As a contribution to this growing awareness, this pamphlet by two Bristol sociologists is to be welcomed.
It begins with a trenchant critique of the Robens Report, Safety and Health at Work. The authors show clearly that Robens’ ‘explanation’ of accidents in terms of ‘apathy’ is not really an explanation at all, but just follows logically from the Report’s necessary ideological shield – the denial of fundamental conflicts of interest between workers and employers.
There was, Robens argued, too much law. People had come to see safety as a matter for external regulation and were consequently careless, indifferent and ignorant themselves. Less law and ‘a more self-regulating system’ would overcome this apathy. Thus the State would progressively disengage itself from issuing statutory obligations and just issue ‘codes of practice’, leaving safety to the ‘goodwill’ of the employers.
Nicholls and Armstrong effectively shatter this glib and dangerous argument, pointing to the almost totally ineffectual law in existence and to its derisory ‘enforcement’ by the Factory Inspectorate. Less than one per cent of accidents result in prosecution, and even in these cases, the bosses on the magistrates bench sting the bosses in the dock for a murderous £40 on average. Compare this paltry amount with the £70,000 fine slapped on the Engineering Union by the Industrial Relations Court and the priorities of capitalist ‘justice’ become clear.
To put down finally the fallacy of the role of apathy in industrial accidents, the authors take the case of a large firm with ‘progressive’ management, a well-developed safety organisation and safety-conscious workers. No apathy here – just plenty of accidents. Five typical accidents are cited and, in each case, the injuries occurred through the constant pressure for production that a capitalist economy necessarily imposes upon enterprises.
The subordination of the safety of the workforce to the pursuit of profit lies at the root of the annual carnage of British industry. These incidents are recounted through the words of the workers themselves, giving this section of the pamphlet a powerful realism and impact – like that of Hugh Beynon’s Working for Ford.
They argue convincingly that Robens’ advocacy of a laissez faire approach can only give freer rein to these pressures and hence push up the accident rate at work. While the Report places great stress on the role of foremen in promoting safe working, the authors point out that foremen have deliberately distanced themselves from the only force capable of counter-acting production pressures and hence accidents – the workers themselves.
As to how workers can organise in defence of their own safety, the authors are surprisingly reticent As the Report makes gestures in the direction of ‘workers’ participation’ in safety procedures, this is an important omission. Moreover, as its proposals are likely to become law soon, this question becomes all the more vital. Nevertheless, very much worth a read at 18p.
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Last updated on 6.3.2008