Understanding the Impact of Mine Health and Safety Programs: Controlling and Taking Risks

Abstract

This article uses a labour process approach to understand the impact of formal health and safety programs on day-to-day risk-taking within an underground mining company. While the analysis recognizes the critical role of market conditions and institutional relations in shaping the appli cation of worker participation programs and other health and safety mechanisms, it also emphasizes a detailed examination of the politics and ideologies which characterize everyday social relations in the mine as workers, supervisors, and managers work out the terms and conditions of risk taking. The contradictory and shifting natures of worker and em ployer interests in health and safety are also recognized as critical factors.