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A message to the labor movement: stop and think!

R Sass1

  • 1College of Commerce, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

International Journal of Health Services : Planning, Administration, Evaluation
|January 1, 1996
PubMed
Summary

North American trade unions face instrumentalization and marginalization by political regimes and liberal elites. A new strategy is needed to reform workplace health and safety, moving beyond current limitations.

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Area of Science:

  • Labor Studies
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

Background:

  • Political regimes in North America, including social-democratic parties, have objectified and instrumentalized trade unions and workers.
  • Government policies are characterized by means-end non-thinking, marginalizing ordinary workers and lacking a vision for an ethical community.
  • Liberal elites and policymakers demonstrate contempt for democratic initiatives and worker solidarity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To critique the current state of trade unions and occupational health and safety (OHS) activism in North America.
  • To identify the complicity of OHS activists and professionals with dominant ideologies and regulatory bodies.
  • To propose the foundation of a new strategy for OHS reforms that challenges liberal public policy.

Main Methods:

  • Critical analysis of political and economic structures impacting labor.
  • Examination of the role of trade unions and OHS activists within the existing establishment.
  • Conceptual exploration of phenomenology and labor tradition for strategic reconstruction.

Main Results:

  • Trade unions and OHS activists are on the defensive, failing to reassess strategies for workplace health and safety reforms.
  • OHS activists and professionals are complicit with dominant ideologies, accommodating government regulators and employer interests.
  • Existing liberal public policy-making leads to the atrophy of alternative options for workers.

Conclusions:

  • A new strategy for OHS reform is necessary, moving beyond current limitations and complicity.
  • This strategy requires a rudimentary phenomenology of moral judgment to inform ethical decision-making.
  • Reconstructing labor tradition is essential for challenging oppressive social structures and fostering solidarity.

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