Introduction

The British factory acts and the equivalent measures that were taken by the vast majority of the European and the Antipodean countries stopped short of introducing a truly rigorous system of state regulation of health and safety conditions at the workplace.

By default, employers have essentially been allowed to enjoy the luxury of what is sometimes described as ‘self-regulation’. Workers still die in significant numbers in a significant range of industries. Yet, in all probability better safety measures would have brought down both the death toll, and the incidence of disabling work injuries. Not all firms ignore ethical principles, but we know that a few bad apples can set the rot in the apple cart. Unless practically all competing business enterprises invest in substantial health and safety measures, competitive market pressures may stop more conscientious firms from increasing health and safety standards in their workplaces.

There is no shortage of examples of tragedies occurring at high-risk workplaces. All too often, firms that are singularly focused on profit also keep their employees in the dark about health hazards even when the firm's own managers are well aware of the problem.

Toxic chemicals in the workplace and beyond

Unfortunately, a major yet subtle obstacle to changing this state of affairs is the manner in which public cognition functions when risk is not at the forefront of our human attention. If we would ask ourselves whether as a society we sense the workplace health and safety issue in its full urgency, the answer I believe would have to be that we don’t. We could empathise with the workers who are badly injured or killed in workplace accidents, and we do. But since most of us, our own family members and close friends are not subjected to high health and safety risks in their workplaces, this issue ends up being given much less weight than it requires.

This also tends to be the lot of minority groups: the unemployed, for instance. If every citizen had one unemployed person within their immediate family or among their close friends, unemployment would have a better chance of becoming an urgent issue on our social and political agenda. What I’m trying to say is this: unemployment is primarily concentrated in a few suburbs. Additionally, some demographic categories of households are far more heavily affected by it than others.