Work And Labour Essay, Research Paper

Work and labors have been around everlastingly, although it did non ever work to the criterions that we are used to today. Over the old ages, many difficult working and disadvantaged people had to contend for the rights that are taken for granted today. Are safety and wellness involved with work? Is work unsafe for your wellness? I will seek to reply these inquiries by summarizing four short commentaries every bit good as adding my sentiment.

Through out history, people have put workers in danger and sometimes added elements that they thought were really assisting to protect their workers, but alternatively were really adding danger to the workers. There is no better illustration of this than that of the excavation industry. As we know, mining in deep caverns can be really unsafe, but the most harm received was even before you stepped into the mine. & # 8220 ; Dust to Dust & # 8221 ; by Charlie Angus explains this theory. There is a excavation illness that has taken many lives. It is called Silicosis. & # 8220 ; In gold mines, the silicon oxide is found in the vitreous silica veins that surround the ore. Disturbed dust onslaughts and lacerates the liner of the lung with it & # 8217 ; s jagged, crystalline borders. In the confined infinites underground, a mineworker has no pick but to breath in big sums of silicon oxide dust. The effects of long term exposure are a litany of elements related to the external respiration of this dust: silicosis, lung malignant neoplastic disease, chronic clogging lung disease, silica TB, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis and corpulminary ( right-heart failure ) . & # 8221 ; Dust to Dust. Many people were acquiring really ill, go forthing the mines and some were even deceasing due to these atrocious working conditions and diseases. The excavation company came up with, what they thought, was a solution. Before come ining the mine the mineworkers were put in a certain room where they would inhale aluminium dust that was supposed to forestall silicosis. However, this was ne’er medically proven. What they found out was that, non merely was it non to the full making its occupation, but that it might be doing another lay waste toing death called Alzheimer & # 8217 ; s. Any one is susceptible to Alzheimer & # 8217 ; s after being exposed to aluminum for a long clip. Imagine if you are inhaling it for 15 proceedingss a twenty-four hours. Although at the beginning of this century proper mine airing was considered an extortionate disbursal, it was now obvious that & # 8217 ; s what needed to be done even though the proprietors didn & # 8217 ; t think so. The workers pulled together and contend for more airing and better working conditions. What about the 100s of mineworkers who died and left households behind? & # 8220 ; They were proud adult females, ashamed to travel before the compensation board and inquire for a press release. But, unable to maintain the household together on the money they earned as dressmakers or housekeepers, they would eventually register claims, merely to be told that their hubby & # 8217 ; s decease was non work related. His decayed lungs and aggravated bosom had come non from excavation, but from coffin nails and a bad eastern European diet. & # 8221 ; Dust to Dust.

Not merely can work be bad for your physical wellness but besides your mental wellness. Every twelvemonth many people suffer depression and some even commit suicide due to workplace emphasis. & # 8220 ; Workplace Stress & # 8221 ; by Cathy Walker explains that in the twelvemonth 1989, after the sign language of the free trade understanding, four workers, all from the same General Motors works in St. Therese, committed self-destruction within a six month period. The chief workplace stresses the article gives are as follows.

& # 8221 ; Machine tempo of work-rhythm and machine control of work methods. Monotonous, insistent work, activates merely a limited portion of entire human capablenesss.

Lack of possibilities of contact with other people as portion of the ongoing work.

Piece rate and related payment systems.

Authoritarian and elaborate control of the person, be it through chief or impersonal & # 8220 ; systems & # 8221 ; ( e.g. , computer-based be aftering systems ) . & # 8221 ; Workplace Stress.

& # 8221 ; Bias in Workers Compensation Board Policies & # 8221 ; Workplace Stress.

After old ages of untreated workplace emphasis companies have begun to sympathise with, and counterbalance the workers. There is a job with the large compensation boards. Many believe that they are bias against bluish collar workers, adult females and possibly racialist. Examples of this are episodes where a director or chief has experienced emphasis and has been compensated for being harassed or mistreated by subord

inates. But a bluish neckband worker, sing emphasis due to harassment by a chiefs, was turned down by the board. The manner companies see themselves is such that emphasis is more common and likely to go on with white collar workers over the more legion bluish collar workers. Such a thing is really incorrect. In fact most instances of people holding to go forth the occupation or even perpetrating self-destruction due to workplace emphasis are all bluish collar workers. There has ever been emphasis in our lives and ever will be. Workplace emphasis is the worst sort over societal emphasis or place emphasis because at the workplace is where you have the least control. ” The lone echt solution to the job of workplace emphasis would be to let workers some control over their lives at the workplace.” Workplace Stress.

& # 8220 ; Madness at Work, A Call For Compassion & # 8221 ; , is an article written by Jane Caron. Jane suffers from a really sad unwellness called frenzied depression. Jane writes about how she has dealt with her unwellness and how it has effected her life at place and at the workplace. Her narrative is a sad one, but true. One of the prima causes of frenzied depression is workplace emphasis or losing a occupation. Jane explains the difficult times she went through with her household and at work before her unwellness was recognized and treated. After 12 old ages of depression she was back to normal and could acquire on with her life. She writes that her agony wasn & # 8217 ; T over. Now she had a new agony do cover with. She had to cover with the changeless stigma that surrounds mental unwellness. Jane writes of coworkers being scared of her and being made merriment of. & # 8220 ; WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE THE REJECTION OF THE MENTALLY ILL IS COMMONPLACE & # 8221 ; Madness at Work. She explains it as such that merely brainsick people have mental unwellness and it & # 8217 ; s non for normal people. Well, she goes on to state & # 8220 ; I was alleged normal before I got ill and normal afterward & # 8221 ; . Jane still works and has to cover with the on-going stigma attached to holding a mental unwellness, but she has started plans through her foreman and brotherhood to assist educate her colleagues so that one twenty-four hours employees with mental unwellness will be treated no otherwise so those with other wellness jobs.

Throughout the work force, even today, there are workers working in unsafe conditions. Why is that, when we have all these labors Torahs and brotherhoods that are supposed to protect the workers?

& # 8220 ; Workers & # 8217 ; Use and Knowledge of the Internal Responsibility System: Limits to Participation in Occupational Health and Safety & # 8221 ; , is a survey by Vivienne Walters and Ted Haines. They compare surveies that have already been made with some they make on there ain to see merely how much the proprietors are playing by the regulations. Do the workers know their rights, and if they do, they say anything when they feel they are being girls treated? They besides studied to see merely how many people think that their occupation is bad for their wellness. Their surveies were drawn from six workplaces in a extremely industrialised country in southern Ontario. They came up with some really interesting consequences. 85 % felt that their work might harm their wellness. 57 % had already harmed their wellness or seen person else experience something. 63 % claimed they had missed work due to work related accidents or illness. These consequences were flooring but even more so are these. Of all the workers showing a wellness and safety concern, 29 % did nil about it. 9 % had merely discussed it with colleagues and a flooring 41 % say they refused to work for wellness and safety grounds.

This is a quotation mark I found to be absurd. & # 8220 ; An over caput hoist fell and hit me. I was away for three months. When I went back it had been put back and fallen once more so I refused to work under it. They gave me another occupation and found person else to make it. It fell on him. Now person else works under it. & # 8221 ; This company is brainsick. It should be investigated by the labour board.

So many workers still work in unsafe conditions. Some because they don & # 8217 ; Ts know their rights, but most because, even though there are organisations to protect them, they are still afraid of losing their occupation.

In decision, I have summarised four articles and commented on two inquiries. Is at that place safety and wellness at work, and is work unsafe for your wellness? My reply is NO, non if you know your rights, are non afraid to move on them, and demand the needful control of your work to keep low emphasis and safety degrees.