Absolute And Relative Disparities Of Worker Injuries Essay

In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser talks about the working conditions of fast food meat slaughterhouses. In the chapter “The Most Dangerous Job,” one of the workers, who despised his job, gave Schlosser an opportunity to walk through a slaughterhouse. As the author was progressed backwards through the slaughterhouse, he noticed how all the workers were sitting very close to each other with steel protective vests and knives. The workers were mainly young Latina women, who worked swiftly, accurately, while trying not to fall behind. Eric Schlosser explains how working in the slaughterhouses is the most dangerous profession – these poor working conditions and horrible treatment of employees in the plants are beyond

Management in healthcare institutions obtains presentations that pertain to workers’ injuries and illness costs. The figures acquire adequate support from the management provided that the data cites credible and the right references. However, researchers lack adequate hard data and research backing to defend direct and indirect cost ratios that they frequently utilize in relation to the safety-related literature.

When looking at injury, there are two particular groups who tend to be at a higher risk. One being people living in rural and remote areas and the other being people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. A large proportion of injury cases come from people living in rural or remote areas. This may be because of the jobs that usually come with

If you are injured on the job, you may be eligible for workers' compensation. For a long term injury, you may be eligible for disability, but in either case, it usually ends with this type of payment. However, there are certain situations when you may be able to file a lawsuit because of your injury. The following are four of these possible situations.

Perhaps the most common misfortune involving slaughterhouse workers is on the job accidents. Many workers, according to the article, will "[agree] not to report an injury, [so that] a supervisor will...shift him

Instead of these managers looking out for their workers, they try to hide the injuries, and will give injured employees easier jobs until they are healed, if they agree to not visit the doctor. They feel the need to hide minor injuries because "a supervisor must meet production goals, keep the number of recorded injuries low, and most importantly, keep the meat flowing down the line without interruption" (Schlosser 175). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for inspecting meatpacking plants and making sure they are operating and functioning properly. The old OSHA policy was that, there were 1,300 inspectors and over 5 million workplaces to be looked at. The employers would expect an inspection about every 80 years (Schlosser 179). Now, for an inspection to even be done, the factories injury rate must be higher than the national average. There is a slim chance of that happening because the records are kept by the companies' officials, since the have direct control on the number of injury reports. Schlosser brings up an interesting statement about OSHA's policy when he says they "did indeed reduce the number of recorded injuries in meatpacking plants. It did not, however, reduce the number of people getting hurt. It merely encouraged companies, in the words of a subsequent congressional investigation, "to understate

It is understood that manual workers endure more work related injuries than non-manual workers. Recent studies to support this claim come from Clapp et al (2005) who indicate that a probable 12 of cancer deaths are workplace related, also, Meldrumm (2005) found that working conditions cause up to 20 of lung cancer deaths (Holborn, Burrage and Langley, 2009).

The impact of workplace injury is wide reaching because when hazards of physical and psychological type affect a worker, the impact is not only on the person, but also on the life, the family and of course on the future plans,as well as high

1. Janet works as a branch manager for a large banking firm. Her job requires her to travel by personal vehicle to different branch offices several times each week. Janet has lower back problems from a result of a skiing accident many years ago, which is further aggravated by long periods of sitting while driving. Janet was returning from the branch office to the home office on Thursday afternoon when another driver struck her car from behind. A physician examined Janet and determined that the accident aggravated her pre-existing back injury. The physician ordered Janet to remain off work for at least two weeks.

During the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s, millions of workers lost their jobs or were forced to accept reductions of pay. The “tramp” became a familiar figure on the social landscape as thousands of men took to the roads in search of work. Many industrial workers labored sixty-hour weeks with no pensions, compensation for injuries, or protections against unemployment. Although American workers received higher wages than their counterparts in Europe, they also experienced more dangerous working conditions. Between 1880 and 1900, an average of 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accidents, the highest rate in the industrial world. Most strikes for higher wages failed, as employers found it easy to call on the unemployed to take the strikers’

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), often referred to as the "OSH Act," was enacted in 1970 by President Richard M. Nixon. Its purpose is to assure safe and healthful working conditions for men and women (EPA, 2006). The Act is administered and enforced at the national level by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a division of the US Department of Labor. The application of the OSH Act in the current employment climate will be discussed as it applies to a variety of industries; considerations that are most applicable to the specific type of industry will be discussed initially, and those that are equally important regardless of the type of business will complete the section. Finally, this paper will discuss how the

Federal data on fatal occupational injuries indicates that agriculture is the most dangerous industry open to young workers. In 2012, two-thirds of children under 18 who died from occupational injuries were agricultural workers, and there were more than

According to the Bureau of Labor, statistics indicate that more than 4.1 million people were hurt or injured on-the-job in 2006 and 5,488 were killed in 2007 (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2010, p. 511). Laws and regulatory requirements are currently in place to standardize and promote workplace safety. Organizations with extensive safety programs have reduced number of accidents, decreased workers’ compensation claims and lawsuits and lesser accident-related expenditures (Gomez-Mejia, et al, 2010, p. 511). This paper discusses the effects of legal, safety and regulatory requirements in

works loose medical insurance or in most cases their jobs. This goes to the extreme with cases like this one; Duana Million. Schlosser shows the pressure that IBP puts on its employees to sign the weaver, with the story of Duana Millin, who due to a hammer mill accident both hands were crushed, and IBP medical case manger urged Millin to sign the wavier with a pen held in his mouth (Schlosser). One of the founders of IBP AD Anderson, talked about the assembly-line style of slaughter system that he helped created saying “ We’ve tried to take the skill out of every step.” The labouers work in high risk low skill environments, they gain no benefit from their jobs other than their low wages, most of them are doing this because its their means of survival, it is their only option. This big companies hire these people that are in a desperate position, that’s what allows them to act in the way they do because they will have people to work for them regardless. These workers don’t work in necessarily the best conditions, they don’t have good health care if any, there wages are minimal and on top of all

When you think about farming what comes to mind? Do you think about older gentlemen on tractors, or young boys helping there father feed the family herd. Maybe you even think about thousands of acres of corn land in Iowa. Whatever it is I can assure you farming is the nation’s most important and noblest profession. Today farming is seen as a dangerous profession, that’s not necessarily the case, it is true that many people are injured and even killed on farms each year. In 2012 alone three hundred and seventy-four farmers and farm workers lost there lives due to work related injuries, and every day a staggering one hundred and sixty-seven agriculture workers suffer a work related injury (CDC 2012). But why so many? The simple answer is that when it comes to farm safety many people are ignorant. I myself am guilty of not using the proper safety equipment or even removing a safety shield to make things run more efficient. I think we have it hardwired in our brains that bad things only happen to other people, and nothing bad could happen to ourselves, that’s not the case. I think that if farmers will take the time to slow down and be more careful and think things through we will cut down drastically on injuries. If you think about it many farmers are constantly stressed, they simply don’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish all the tasks at hand so they begin to rush which causes shortcuts to be made which can potentially lead to injury or death.