Occupational Diseases Occupational Diseases

Occupational Diseases

Since the beginning of industrialization of the Western World, workers have struggled for a safe and healthy work environment. Toxic chemicals, agricultural pesticides, asbestos, silica, welding rod fumes and many other harmful substances have been linked to a host of diseases and health problems, including blood disorders, pregnancy complications, lung ailments, and cancers. Moreover, family members of exposed workers may also be affected.

The fight for safety in the workplace is centuries old. It was this battle that led to organized labor. Workers began organizing as early as 800 years ago in Germany, where silver miners decided to band together to protect their health and to protect their families if they died.

Eventually, an entire medical specialty developed around the issues of safety and good health in the workplace. The 17th century Italian physician Dr. Bernardino Ramazzini is considered the father of occupational medicine. He was the first to suggest that when a doctor takes a medical history from a patient, one of the questions should be, "What is your occupation?"

"Medicine, like jurisprudence," he said, "should make a contribution to the well-being of workers." Dr. Ramazzini lived by his words. He didn't wait for patients to come to him. He ventured into the workshops and the lead mines where workers were practicing their trades.

He documented the fact that the skin of the miners was the same color as the lead they were mining. He observed that many became paralyzed from long exposure to the metal. What would Dr. Ramazzini say if he knew that 400 years later, people would still be fighting for protection from hazardous substances in the workplace?

Here in the United States, the industrial revolution created many new issues for employees seeking a safe place to work. Yet the labor movement still remained relatively small and there was little public attention on the plight of the worker until the 20th century. And then, in the first 11 years, two events occurred that sparked public outrage and eventually, reforms.

In 1904, a strike by workers in the meatpacking industry in Chicago was crushed. In response to that event, the writer and activist Upton Sinclair moved to Chicago and immersed himself in the lives of the workers. The result was his novel, The Jungle. It told in graphic detail the horrors of working conditions in meatpacking plants.

Sinclair's goal was to create public sympathy for the exploited workers. Instead, his book aroused widespread concern about the safety of the meat supply. Sinclair ironically commented at the time, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

It would be a few more years before the public really got hit in the heart and began to understand the plight of workers. And it would happen in the most tragic of circumstances.

In March of 1911, 146 workers - most of them women - died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. They were locked inside their workshops, unable to escape the flames. The Triangle fire literally changed history. It was, as described by the Department of Labor, a seminal event as significant as the "minutemen at Lexington and Concord, as John Brown at Harper's Ferry, as Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of the bus, and as Joan of Arc on the flaming stake."

There was so much public outrage after the Triangle fire that true reforms soon followed. The first workers' compensation laws were passed and industrial fire safety codes were instituted for the first time. After that, union membership surged.

Attention continued to focus on the garment industry for many years. Its workers were victims of one of the great scourges of the 20th century - the scourge of tuberculosis. Workers breathed heavy sweatshop air for 16 hours a day. And gradually, it weakened their lungs and the deadly disease took hold. To make matters worse, TB is contagious, and so workers' families were affected as well.

In those days workers were in the habit of passing the hat to collect money from fellow employees when various needs arose - when someone got sick or died. But in 1914, this tradition gave way to something more formal.

A Joint Board of Sanitary Control was formed. And its members included representatives from the unions, employers and the public. The Joint Board preached prevention and the Union's health center provided treatment. It was the first health center ever operated by a trade union in this country. And it proved to be a model for other unions to emulate.

Around this time, occupational health became a high priority for labor. Union members used job strikes as a weapon to force stronger workers' compensation laws. And in the early 1920s, the Workers' Health Bureau of America emerged. For the first time, workplace safety was being approached from a totally new perspective - that of the worker.

A new strategy for assuring safety on the job emerged during the Great Depression. A wave of litigation followed the nation's worst-ever industrial disaster at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. In 1935, hundreds of workers who were building a tunnel died from exposure to silica dust.

Usually, it takes several years for silicosis to develop. But conditions in this tunnel were so bad that workers became ill within months. In the investigation that followed, it turned out that company officials and engineers wore protective masks when they visited the tunnel. But they failed to provide masks for the workers. As a result of the flood of litigation that followed, there was an even stronger emphasis on occupational safety.

As you can see, for most of the 20th century, it took tragedy for change of any consequence to occur. That was true until 1970, when Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. As a result, we now have a national system of workplace inspectors and minimum health and safety standards for employees. Ever since its creation, OSHA has been under attack from the business community. The agency has suffered from lack of funding and weakened enforcement capacity.

But with the creation of OSHA, the law of the land is clear - working people have a right to a safe and healthy workplace. If employers try to take away this right, they face strong opposition from their employees and the labor movement. Studies have shown that unions dramatically increase enforcement of OSHA standards. And unionized shops are five times more likely to be inspected.

Initially, when OSHA started regulating work settings, its focus was on rules that governed employers. But over time, there was a shift to regulating manufacturers who make equipment, machinery and products used in the workplace. Because of limitations placed on federal regulators, the legal profession has stepped in and filed cases against companies that make faulty equipment and defective products used in the workplace and great strides have been made on behalf of the American worker.

Herbert Abrams, in his "Short History of Occupational Health," said, "It is important to recognize that throughout the often tragic history of worker health and disease, the worker played a primary role as the basis for every significant improvement in legislation, factory inspection, compensation, correction and prevention."

Abrams went on to say that "labor unrest, protests, strikes, lawsuits and catastrophes were vital catalysts to obtaining action. Organized labor has been the essential factor central to most workplace health and safety improvements - from the industrial revolution to the present."

Today, workers are facing unprecedented challenges. Globalization, an onslaught of mergers, and the push to make operations both "lean and mean" are putting new pressures on the workplace. Employers aren't saying, "Take it or leave it" during negotiations. They're saying "take it or we leave you." And they outsource to a country where wages are lower and where labor is not as strong.

The workers who take these outsourced jobs are part of the worldwide labor pool that is increasingly being tapped by employers. And what happens to them impacts the working conditions of every worker - everywhere.

The New York-based Labor Institute has an ominous way of describing this reality. Regressive pressures on pay and working conditions are the direct result of the "four horsemen of the workplace" - downsizing, globalization, automation, and an increase in the use of temporary workers.

The British multinational company Cape PLC mined asbestos in South Africa, and moved into South Africa after deciding that the costs for labor and asbestos disease compensation were too much in the UK. The result? Seventy-five hundred sick and dying workers. It took a five-year legal battle, but finally a meager settlement was reached. Each injured worker got only a few thousand dollars to compensate for the loss of their health - and in some cases, the loss of their lives.

Clearly, globalization threatens the advances labor has made in employment protections. At the same time, it brings new meaning to labor's belief that "an injury to one is an injury to all."

The South Africa story brings into sharp focus the reality that asbestos is the new scourge of the modern workplace. For decades, the legal profession has been working hand-in-hand with labor to protect and compensate workers. The enormity of this legal battle is staggering. More than 600,000 people have filed claims for compensation for asbestos-related injuries in the U.S. And business has had to pay out more than $54 billion because of its negligence. Some experts predict that as many as 2-point-4 million additional claims will be filed, and business will have to pay an additional $210 billion.

To address this catastrophe, Congress has been working on creating an asbestos trust fund to pay claims from injured workers. Such a trust fund would ease the flood of asbestos lawsuits in the court system. But legislation has stalled on the issue of how much money should be available in the fund. The highest figure mentioned has been $145 billion.

Asbestos is one of the major hazards workers have faced. The devastating effects of asbestos have been understood for quite some time. More than 30 years ago, the late physician and scientist Dr. Irving Selikoff described the lethal dust of asbestos as " a hidden time bomb."

"The seeds of cancer," he said, "are planted in the workplace. and by the time an agent is discovered and under control, millions of workers may have been exposed."

Dr. Selikoff wisely pointed out that it will take cooperation from government agencies, industry, unions, and environmental groups to reduce the risks. Perhaps those in the legal profession should be added to the list. There is no doubt that because of legal professional's insistence that industry take responsibility for its actions, asbestos is no longer used in product manufacturing and in construction. Because of litigation, a safer workplace exists for employees who must deal with asbestos. Companies are finding that they're going to have to do the right thing by their workers - or they're going to pay a heavy price.

As we move into the 21st century and come to terms with the realities of an aging population, the role of labor unions is expanding. Unions are becoming a source of support and information for men and women who have completed their work years and have entered retirement. The health and welfare of these individuals remains a vital concern to union leadership - and rightfully so.

The legal profession has proudly worked alongside unions to make the workplace safer. Over the years, litigation has been the catalyst for such precautions as placing guards on dangerous machines, warning bells on equipment when it backs up, and stricter OSHA regulations on asbestos. Because of lawsuits, companies have been forced to address these issues. Because of lawsuits, workers are better able to do their jobs without compromising their health and safety.

Progress hasn't come easily. It's taken tremendous unity on the part of the working people of America to achieve the gains we've seen so far. Today we take for granted the benefits that unions fought so hard to achieve - benefits like vacations with pay, pensions, holidays, and the right to a safe and clean place to work.

State and Federal government need to continue to play a leading role in the fight for workplace safety. And Congress cannot be allowed to erode legislation that protects workers.

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