The public and the media take workplace accidents for granted. The public is apathetic toward workers and safety. This is a major problem.A recent study entitled "Public Attitudes Towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety," indicates that an overwhelming percent of workers believe workplace safety is the most important issue among labor concerns.
Despite that fact, the study gave a grave picture of the public’s and the media’s response to workplace safety issues. Unless a disastrous event occurs, the study indicated that the public and media are not concerned with workplace safety issues. And even when a disaster strikes, the public often overlooks the injuries or fatalities to the workers.
What this study did not address are the underlying reasons for the public’s apathy toward workplace safety and workplace accidents.
What the public fails to understand is that:
1. most major work industries are self-policing and go essentially unregulated.It would behoove the funding agencies of this study to provide more insight into the underlying reasons of why the public and the media are apathetic toward worker safety, when in fact, worker safety is important to the heath and well-being of the public.
2. the average worker lacks serious rights and protections to a safe work environment.
3. government agencies have intimate ties to industry which influences a lack of protections for worker safety.
4. the prevalence of unsafe work practices and consequential injuries and illness are severely under reported to government agencies, providing a false appearance that workplace safety is not a significant problem.
5. many injured workers are kicked to the curb by the employer, obtaining no medical care, no compensation and are forced to become dependent on public resources.
6. the public pays when the employer should.
7. unsafe work does not only harm workers but also can harm the public and their families too...sometimes causing harm to generations to come.
8. unsafe work conditions cost the taxpayers money…lots of money.
9. unsafe work conditions are unethical.
Other references: http://www.publicwelfare.org/NewsRoom/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=79
"Workers Rate Safety Most Important Workplace Issue in New Labor Day Study"
Hmph.. This gives me something to ponder about.
ReplyDeleteDoctors who are supposed to have taken the Hippocratic oath or is it the hypocrite oath who are the ones who write the false reports and ultimately deny medical care and rate the injuries from little to none.
ReplyDeleteInsurance companies insure these so called docs to not only write FRAUDULENT reports but also insure docs who maim or kill later on down the road. A botched neck surgery turns a man into a quadriplegic and then the adjuster denies him medical treatment and then he is dead. A true very sad and true story as told to the Dept. of Ind. Relations or the Comm of Health & Safety & Workers Compensation hearings several years ago. According to Carrie Nevins, the hearing was hijacked by injured workers, a public hearing! You can read about the hijacking on the
kaiserpapers.org website.
IF someone steals, beats, mugs or kills you on the street or anywhere else, then that person will go to jail.
How is it that in the comp and medical field get to do the same " STEALING,BEATING, MUGGING OR KILLING and get away with these crimes over & over again?
Why should an employer or an insurance company get away with doing the same and it is all premeditated to increase profit, and therein lies THEIR motive! THESE ARE CRIMINAL ACTS THAT NEED TO BE PROSECUTED BY OUR LAW & ORDER OF BOTH STAT AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO ARE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY TERRORIZED BY CORPORATIONS AND THEIR INSURERS.