NCJ Number
160675
Date Published
1995
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the regulation of occupational safety and health summarizes its history over three periods and concludes that the results of the most recent period, the third and current wave that began in the 1970's, have been disappointing in Ontario, Canada and other jurisdictions.
Abstract
The period from the 1830's to the 1880's resulted in a regime of market regulation. The period from the 1880's to the 1970's established a weak command-and-control model of weak direct governmental regulation. The third wave combined participatory rights for workers with reforms to external enforcement to create a system of mandated partial self-regulation. Analysis of the most recent period in Ontario indicates that although workers' struggles have produced some improvement and have produced better material and ideological conditions under which future struggles can be conducted, the continuing imbalance of power between labor and capital and the strength of the dominant ideology constrain but do not determine the likelihood of significant change and improvement. Figures and reference notes