Dangerous working conditions

The rational options available to labor and management are in part functions of their relative power. The cost that workers can impose on the firm if they resist dangerous working conditions depends on their role within the production process - their skill, thdr opportunity for discretionary judgment, and the extent to which their consent must be... 

Interestingly, dangerous working conditions play no role in the preference for representation of unionized women. It would seem that unorganized women in risky jobs place their hope in unionization, but they lose this faith once they see from the inside the inability or unwillingness of most unions to challenge these conditions. 

Health and safety were absent from the list of priorities in the early decades of the synthetic dyes industry. Practical experience in the primitive working conditions of the time [64] no doubt made workers aware of the more obvious dangers, such as corrosive acids, flammable solvents and potentially explosive nitro compounds. Accidents must have occurred frequently, reminding victims and supervisors alike of the penalties suffered if hazardous chemicals were handled carelessly. 

Toscano, Guy A. Dangerous Jobs in Fatal Workplace Injuries in 1995 A Collection of Data and Analysis, Report 913, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics April 1997, Washington, D.C., pp. 38—4I. This excerpt appeared in Compensation and Working Conditions, Summer 1997. ... 

What is meant by compliance Compliance with a MAK value meant that the value was not exceeded (allowing for the exemptions mentioned above for peak exposures etc.). Compliance with TRK values meant that they should not be exceeded and that working conditions should ensure a concentration significantly below the established value. To ensure this, the employer has an obligation to assess and evaluate the concentration of dangerous substances at the workplace (TRGS 402 ). The assessment and evaluation is divided into four steps ... 

The Inspectorate may stipulate die manner in which general provisions and technical regulations of the Working Conditions Act must be complied with in practice and may order the cessation of dangerous activities (right of summary enforcement). Apart from this, employees themselves are also entitled to discontinue an activity in cases of imminent serious danger where it is not possible for ttie Inspectorate to act on the matter in time. In such cases the employee concerned must then infinm the lasrp i tonite of what has happened. 

All modern X-ray diffraction equipment features built-in safeguards that minimize the operator s risk of exposure to radiation under normal working conditions. However, the use of this equipment can be dangerous because of both the nature of the radiation itself and the high voltage used by the equipment to generate the X-rays. X-radiation can kill even very brief exposure to the direct X-ray beam can cause permanent skin damage. Because the effect of exposure to shortwave radiation of any form is cumulative, extreme care must be taken to avoid all exposure. 

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