Work and labour

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Work and labour

Work and labour have been around forever, although it did not always work to the standards that we are used to today. Over the years, many hard working and deprived people had to fight for the rights that are taken for granted today. Are safety and health involved with work? Is work dangerous for your health? I will try to answer these questions by summarising four short commentaries as well as adding my opinion.

Through out history, people have put workers in danger and sometimes added elements that they thought were actually helping to protect their workers, but instead were actually adding danger to the workers. There is no better example of this than that of the mining industry. As we know, mining in deep caverns can be very dangerous, but the most damage received was even before you stepped into the mine. "Dust to Dust" by Charlie Angus explains this theory. There is a mining sickness that has taken many lives. It is called Silicosis. "In gold mines, the silica is found in the quartz veins that surround the ore. Disturbed dust attacks and lacerates the lining of the lung with it's jagged, crystalline edges. In the confined spaces underground, a miner has no choice but to breath in large amounts of silica dust. The effects of long term exposure are a litany of elements related to the breathing of this dust: silicosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease, silica tuberculosis, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis and corpulminary (right-heart failure)." Dust to Dust. Many people were getting very sick, leaving the mines and some were even dying due to these horrible working conditions and diseases. The mining company came up with, what they thought, was a solution. Before entering the mine the miners were put in a sealed room where they would inhale aluminum dust that was supposed to prevent silicosis. However, this was never medically proven. What they found out was that, not only was it not fully doing its job, but that it might be causing another devastating decease called Alzheimer's. Any one is susceptible to Alzheimer's after being exposed to aluminum for a long time. Imagine if you are inhaling it for fifteen minutes a day. Although at the beginning of this century proper mine ventilation was considered an exorbitant expense, it was now obvious that's what needed to be done even though the owners didn't think so. The workers pulled together and fought for more ventilation and better working conditions. What about the hundreds of miners who died and left families behind? "They were proud women, ashamed to go before the compensation board and ask for a handout. But, unable to keep the family together on the money they earned as seamstresses or housekeepers, they would finally file claims, only to be told that their husband's death was not work related. His rotted lungs and aggravated heart had come not from mining, but from cigarettes and a bad eastern European diet." Dust to Dust.

Not only can work be bad for your physical health but also your mental health. Every year many people suffer depression and some even commit suicide due to workplace stress. "Workplace Stress" by Cathy Walker explains that in the year 1989, after the signing of the free trade agreement, four workers, all from the same General Motors plant in St. Therese, committed suicide within a six month period. The main workplace stresses the article gives are as follows.

" ~ Machine pacing of work-rhythm and machine control of work methods. ~ Monotonous, repetitive work, activates only a limited part of total human capabilities.

~ Lack of possibilities of contact with other people as part of the on-going work.

~ Piece rate and related payment systems.

~ Authoritarian and detailed control of the individual, be it through foreman or impersonal "systems" (e.g., computer-based planning systems)." Workplace Stress.

" Bias in Workers Compensation Board Policies" Workplace Stress.

After years of untreated workplace stress companies have begun to sympathize with, and compensate the workers. There is a problem with the big compensation boards. Many believe that they are bias against blue collar workers, women and maybe racist. Examples of this are episodes where a manager or foreman has experienced stress and has been compensated for being harassed or mistreated by subordinates. But a blue collar worker, experiencing stress due to harassment by a foremen, was turned down by the board. The way companies see themselves is such that stress is more common and likely to happen with white collar workers over the more numerous blue collar workers. Such a thing is very wrong. In fact most cases of people having to leave the job or even committing suicide due to workplace stress are all ...

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Keywords: work and labour in canada, work and labour in canada critical issues, work and labour pdf, work and labour studies, work and labour difference, work and labour relations, work and labour studies mcmaster, work and labour feminism

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