Accidents at work

1
Accidents at work?

• Mike Keating 2007

2
Workplace injury as accident

• Accidents a loaded term c/f Fate i.e.
  unpredictable non - preventable
• Part of risk in hazardous industries
• Part of the price we pay for progress
• Therefore No Criminal Blame

3
(i) Individual explanations

• Individualistic some quality of susceptibility
  inherent in the personality of the victims
  (Nichols 1995)
• e.g. Accident Prone Personality
• This view has been recently given a makeover by
  Beck (1992) who argues that we are returning to
  an age of anxiety in which individuals tend to
  focus their explanations upon themselves
• "...social problems are increasingly perceived in
  terms of psychological dispositions as personal
  inadequacies, guilt feelings, anxieties,
  conflicts and neuroses. There emerges,
  paradoxically, a new immediacy of individual and
  society, a direct relation between crisis and
  sickness. Social crises appear as individual
  crises, which are no longer ( or are only
  indirectly ) perceived in terms of their
  rootedness in the social realm."

4
(ii) Cultural explanations

• Mary Douglas (1990) - anthropological approach to
  risk taking and argued that individuals become
  more careless of their personal safety under
  cultural pressures from their peers
• "The person who never thought of himself as a
  risk taker, in the unfolding drama of his
  personal life, and under the threat of the
  community's censure, finds himself declaring a
  commitment to high risk"
• The apathy or incompetance of the worker and
  (his) attitudes to hazards risk taking at
  work are to be found in the macho culture of the
  building site, mine factory floor.
• See Bellaby (1990) and Andriessen (1978)

5
(iii) Structural a political economy model

• i) ii) A powerful ideology of denial which
  obscures corporate responsibility
• Box, Pierce etcpolitical economy model
• Industrial Accidents are predictable and
  preventable and are certainly not random in
  occurrence. This leads to the possibility that
  accidents may be blamed upon employers who are
  negligent or put their workers at risk and as
  such should be treated as corporate crimes.

6
Victimisation

• i) Globally 200,000 per year are killed at work
  see WHO, ILO etc
• ii) Nationally figures vary between 250 - 400
  deaths per year and around 30,000 serious
  injuries
• BUT
• At least 5x this (Slapper Tombs, 1999)
• According to Bergman (1991) 70 were preventable
  and 54 management were primarily responsible
• Bergman(1998) suggests that 20 should have been
  referred to CPS, but a systematic bias in the
  CJS allows these cases to be dismissed as
  accidents rather than unlawful killing from
  the outset.
• See www.corporateaccountability.org

7
Simon Jones a case study

• Simon Jones was killed on 24th April 1998, aged
  24, on his first day as a casual worker at
  Shoreham dock - another victim of our growing
  casual labour economy. He was sent to work
  unloading cargo inside a ship - one of the most
  dangerous jobs in the country - with only a few
  minutes "training". Within hours of starting work
  his head was almost severed by the grab of a
  crane.
• http//www.simonjones.org.uk/

8
The Social Construction of corporate killing
a brief history

• Early protection by Master Servant relationship
  Old Testament Noblesse Oblige
• Replaced by the power of the corporate body
  with no mind and no existence no soul to damn
  and no body to kick.
• During the 19th Century the rapid growth of
  industry saw deaths as a necessary evil .

9
In Civil Law

• No doctrine of negligence protected
  corporations who avoided expensive claims for
  compensation
• i) Volunteering for work accepting the risk as
  part of the job
• ii) Contributory negligence any hint of worker
  carelessness
• Iii) Common employment any blame for injury
  attaching to co-worker

10
In Criminal Law

• A corporation is not indictable but the
  particular members are
• Lord Holt 1701
• The first attempts to regulate workers welfare
  through statutory law came in the 1830s 40s
  Factory Acts but these were about hours of work
  and protecting children only 5 used for HS
• They were openly flouted
• Few Inspectors
• Law to be used only against wilful persistent
  offenders
• Corporations could not be found guilty of
  charges requiring intent because corporations
  have no mind (mens rea) and therefore cannot be
  guilty of intentional law breaking.
• Fines from 1 - 20

11
The Robens Report after.

• See Carson the conventionalisation of factory
  crime and the notions of compliance self
  regulation.
• This ambiguous approach becomes the thread which
  ran through the 1972 Robens Report and the 1974
  HSAW
• These inadequacies, along with the structure of
  HS legislation have created a vicious circle of
  decriminalisation so that corporate criminal
  conduct is not viewed as real crime.
• Bergman (19914)

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High profile cases in the 1980s

• Kings Cross (31)
• Piper Alpha (167)
• Herald of Free Enterprise (187)
• Clapham (35)
• Marchioness (51)
• 471 in total led to calls for changes in the
  law
• especially following the failure of the case
  against P O

13
Labour Govt still to deliver

• Corporate Killing a new offence which can lead
  to the prosecution of a company where it can be
  shown that an accidental death can be traced to
  management failure which fell below what could
  reasonably be expected of the company
• When an individual is killed as a result of the
  acts or omissions of a company or other corporate
  body
• (199965)
• Also 2 individual offences
• Reckless killing - where someone takes a
  conscious risk with the lives of others. (Max -
  life imprisonment).
• Killing by gross carelessness - where lives
  are put at risk through foolish but unconscious
  action.
• These suggestions were put forward in 1996 but
  have still to be enforced.
• The Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Bill
  (before the Lords 2007) specifically avoids the
  Senior Manager Test in favour of unlimited
  fines on companies.