Prospects for Working Life Reform

Cronin J.B. , “Cause and Effect? Investigations into Aspects of Industrial Accidents in the United Kingdom,” International Labor Review, 103, 2; Feb. 1971, 99–115.

Ibid., p. 115.

Letter from John B. Cronin to Robert Sass, dated March 14, 1976.

Powell Philip Hale Mary Martin Jean , and Simon Martin , 2,000 Accidents: A Shop Floor Study of Their Causes Based on 42 Months' Continuous Observation, London: National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 1971.

Ibid.

Theo Nichols and Pete Armstrong, Safety or Profit: Industrial Accidents and the Conventional Wisdom, England: Falling Wall Press, 1973.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Carelessness and accident proneness are false accident causation theories which blame the victim, the worker, for accidents and deflect attention from unsafe conditions.

Sass Robert and Crook Glen , “Accident Proneness: Science or Non-Science?” International Journal of Health Services, 11, 1, November 2, 1981, p. 175.

Gardell Bertil and Johansson Gunn , (Eds.), Working Life: A Social Science Contribution to Work Reform, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981.

“Job Decision Latitude, Job Demands and Coronary Heart Disease,” in Machine Pacing and Occupational Stress, edited by Salvendy G. and Smith M.J. . The Proceedings of the International Conference, Purdue University, March 1981, pp. 45–55, and “Job Socialization: A Longitudinal Study of Work, Political and Leisure Activity,” New York: Columbia University, 1977 (mimeograph, and in Gardell and Johansson, Working Life).

See “Job Alienation and Well-Being,” International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 8, No.1, 1979, pp. 41–59. And “Job-Worker in Congruence: Consequences for Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 16, 1975, pp. 198–212. And “Work and General Psychological and Physical Well Being,” International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1978, pp. 415–435.

Work in America: Report of a Special Task Force to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1973.

Trist E. K. Higgin G.W. Murray H. Pollock A.B. . Organizational Choice, Tavistock, 1963.

“Coping with Job Stress — A Psychobiological Approach” in Working Life, edited by Gardell and Johansson , especially pp. 213–234 (see Reference 11).

See Revans R.W. in the United Kingdom, “Human Relations, Management and Size” in Hugh-Jones E.M. , editor, Human Relations and Modern Management, Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing, 1958, pp. 177–219.

This is developed in my article published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled “The Worker Right to Know, Participate and Refuse Hazardous Work: A Manifesto Right.”

The Workers' Compensation Board still erroneously cites studies which indicate that low.

back problems for women workers are essentially due to pregnancy. I have disputed this position in a brief prepared for presentation to the British Columbia Workers' Compensation Board entitled “Compensation for Back Ailments,” 1978 (unpublished mimeo). Standing is obviously a punishment — it hurts! For instance, if a child is naughty in school, he or she is told to “stand in the corner,” or a soldier is disciplined by standing at attention. Why? Because standing hurts.

Letter to Bob Sass, June 23, 1980.

Letter to Windsor Dominion Salt Co. Ltd., Windsor, Ontario, dated Nov. 17, 1980.

Aristotle in Book One of his Politics states that “there is in everyone by nature an impulse toward this sort of partnership” when making the distinction between slave and laborer. He states that the slave works for a single person, and the free laborer for the partnership. John Stuart Mill in his essay “On the Probable Futurity of the Laboring Classes” states the desire in labor for “partnership.”

On the contrary, the literature is replete with evidence supporting the advantages to efficiency and productivity accruing from worker participation. See, for example, Stokes Bruce , “Worker Participation, Productivity and the Quality of Working Life,” World watch Paper, 25, December 1978.

Pateman Carole , Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, p. 45.

The background leading up to the passage of this most innovative legislation stems from the development of an industrial democracy program in the 1960s. A joint labor and management committee launched a series of field experiments designed to demonstrate the viability of alternative forms of work organization based on more freedom and competence for the workers. It must be remembered that 80 percent of the Norwegian workers are organized into trade unions. See Emery F.E. and Thorsrud Einar , Form and Content in Industrial Democracy, London: Tavistock, 1969, and Emery and Thorsrud , Democracy at Work, Liden: Martin Nijhoff, 1976; and Gustavsen Bjorn and Hunnius Gerry , New Patterns of Work Reform: The Case of Norway, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1981.

See, for a fuller treatment, Gustavsen Bjorn and Hunnius Gerry , New Patterns of Work Reform: The Case of Norway, Oslo, Universitetsforlaget, 1981.

Gardell Bertil , “Psychosocial Aspects of Industrial Production Methods,” Reports from the Department of Psycholog, University of Stockholm, Supplements 47, November 1979.

In this regard, Dr. Bertil Gardell and his associates have contributed enormously to public policy matters in Scandinavia because of their empirical research pertaining to the effects of job characteristics on the well-being of workers on and off the job. For instance, Gardell has shown in his research findings that workers in low-status jobs develop very little ability to solve problems, whereas the same category of workers in better jobs do develop this ability. See his “Scandinavian Research on Stress in Working Life,” International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1982. Gardell also investigated the effect of self-determination and influence on one's work and its relationship to the underload and overload. See: Gardell B. and Frankenheuser Marianne , “Coping with Job Stress — A Psychobiological Approach” in Working Life: A Social Science Contribution to Work Reform, New York: Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1981, pp. 213–234. Clearly, the research of Swedish social scientists has contributed enormously to developments in Sweden and Norway. See Hunnius and Gustavsen , op. cit.

Russell Bertrand , History of Western Philosophy, London: Unwin Books, George Allen and Unwin Allen Ltd., 1961, p. 700.

Mill John S. , “Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform,” p. 327.