'My way or the highway': managerial prerogative, the labour process and workplace health.
ABSTRACT This paper, based on a study of the impact of workplace stressors on the health of bus operators, argues that occupational illness and injury are produced by the labour process. Further, the extraction and obfuscation of surplus value that occurs through the process ensures that working-class...

Blinded by statistics: don't be fooled by injury statistics. They don't tell the whole story.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Summary * The Baker panel found that the Texas City incident happened in part because BP had failed to develop a corporate safety culture that put a priority on process safety, the management of extreme risks associated with working with highly dangerous compounds....

Occupational health and safety needs employees and unions.
Over the past month most Australians, and many people from around the world, were focused on the rescue effort to free the two trapped miners in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. We all shared the relief when they were finally rescued unharmed, while remembering that at the same site, two workers, Larry...

Women's experience of the workers compensation system.
Introduction Published literature revealed that not only has occupational health and safety issues for women been neglected but studies of workers' compensation and workplace injuries and diseases have largely ignored women's experiences (Bale 1989; Cameron 1994; Cooper & Faulks 1999; Quinlan 1996; and Shackelford, Farley, & Vines...

Disability, dysfunction, or deception: explaining acquired occupational disability.
Abstract Acquired disability following trauma is an area that is in dire need of discussion and explanation. Unless an expert is fully informed of the multitude of pre- and post-injury medical and psychosocial dynamics that surround an individual's claim of occupational disability, he or she may not...

Bracing for EMPAQ; business group launches benchmarking-standards initiative designed to improve absence and disability management programs.
When Ascension Health Inc. wanted to compare how quickly its employees returned to work after an injury, the company took what seemed to be a logical approach. First, the company grouped injuries with a similar diagnosis, such as back strain. Then it compared how long workers were...

President's FY 2008 Budget Request for Department of Labor's OSHA Will Increase Federal Enforcement and Compliance Assistance.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Edwin G. Foulke Jr., assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), today announced that President Bush has requested $490.3 million for OSHA in fiscal year 2008. The request represents an increase of nearly $18 million over the FY 2007...

Pitfalls in diagnosis of occupational lung disease for purposes of compensation - one physician's perspective.
I. SUMMARY Occupational caused lung disease (OLD) is almost always compensable, either by application to workers' compensation agencies or by a civil lawsuit. For this reason the diagnosis usually comes under close scrutiny. Several pitfalls can occur when a physician diagnoses a patient as having lung disease...

Aftermath: using research to understand the social and economic consequences of workplace injury and illness.
Abstract Evaluation research, when assessing something like the impact of workplace illness and injury, often isolates one area or perspective to study, such as clinical, functional, psychological or financial outcomes. Any attempt to identify, separate and quantify the impact of policies is made more challenging by interconnected...

Playing it safely: Liberty Mutual's Research Institute for Safety--celebrating its 50th birthday this month--has been at the forefront of the battle against occupational injuries in the United States. In the next 50 years, it will continue to flex its muscles around the world.
Off the beaten path in suburban Massachusetts, there is a serene patch of land located in the town of Hopkinton. It's a sleepy, verdant setting where one might expect to find a sprawling ranch or maybe a dairy farm full of heifers grazing in the midday sun. ...