The question of health and safety at work 5 Organize and survive: unions and health and safety – a case study of an engineering unionized workforce Peter Fairbrother Affiliation not known 1. The question of health and safety at work Health and safety is an integral feature of work and employment relations. T he consequences of ill-health and danger have an untold impact on workers, on their personal life, on those who enter employment settings, and on the provision of services and goods. In a variety of ways, people deal with these consequences, suffer injury or ill-health, care for the victims, take up claims on behalf of the injured, testify to dangers and worries at work, campaign for changes in legislation, and attempt to establish minimum standards of danger and hazard. Health and safety at work is also expensive. There are personal and social costs arising from the debilitating demands of stressful work situations, the dangers that are part of work, and the burden of deteriorating health. For employers, there are financial costs as a result of hazards and ill-health associated with work. To meet standards, to maintain a reasonably able workforce, employers make a balance between the costs and benefits (both financial and social) of addressing the problems of health and safety at work. For the state, health and safety at work is a major question, in the form of health care, the enforcement of standards, the effects on productivity and the provision of services. What happens and what can be done raises moral and political questions about who is responsible for these conditions and provisions and in Employee Relations, Vol. 18 No.2, 1996, pp. 5-88. © MCB University Press, 0142-5455 I would like to thank the factory employees who supported the research over a 15-year period. I would also like to thank the following people, for reading and commenting on drafts of the monograph: John Bennett, Bob Carter, Jud Cornell, Peter Gutkind, Jim Marshall, Theo Nichols, Gavin Poynter, A l Rainnie, Jeremy Waddington and A rne Wangel. In addition, Richard Lampard gave me invaluable technical advice about the presentation of quantitative data. John Berridge provided extremely helpful editorial advice. Finally, I would like to offer special thanks to Peter Caldwell who has worked with me on this project from the beginning, assisting in data collection, discussing my interpretations of the material, and reading successive drafts. The research was funded by a Nuffield Foundation Small Grants award, a University of Warwick Research and Innovation Fund award, and an Economic and Social Research Council award (No. R000232006).