The price for wealth is illness and accidents

The story about the Danish working environment and work-related illnesses

This spring, the press reported that hundreds of employees at a windmill production plant had been exposed to styrene, a cancer-causing poison, while working. This scandal showed that work-related illnesses and accidents have not disappeared, which is why it is important that politicians and the two sides of industry keep focussing on the area. This is the conclusion in a new book about the history of industrial safety, written by Professor Kurt Jacobsen.

50,000 accidents annually

”The results are impressive, but my guess is that we will never go out of business”.

The quote is from the year 2000. A doctor with a degree in industrial medicine concludes a life-long effort to eliminate work-related accidents and illnesses.

The annual statistics back him up. Despite the long-term effort, almost 50,000 accidents in Danish workplaces are registered. Add to this 15,000 cases of work-related illness.

A Sisyphean task

- It turns out that it is a Sisyphean task to work with working environment and work-related illness, says Professor Kurt Jacobsen, author of the new book ’Velfærdens Pris – Arbejderbeskyttelse og arbejdsmiljø gennem 150 år’ (The price for wealth - industrial safety and working environment through 150 years).

Work-related accidents and illnesses are a permanent problem, which we have to confront constantly. Otherwise we will become snowed under. We are facing the very fundamental problem that new technology means new types of injuries and accidents.

In simplified terms, we have gone from the fact that workers were injured by the large machines of the industry to the greatest challenge of the present: mental attrition in the knowledge-intensive companies.

Political awareness varies (too) much 

The problem - or working with the problem - is further complicated by the fact that the political awareness varies too much. The consideration of the companies' financial situation, competitive power and the national economy in general means that industrial safety and working environment are given a lower priority from time to time. 

Others in fact point out that this area simply does not generate enough votes.

Therefore the industrial safety efforts and precautionary measures are suffering in times of financial hardship - and the result is that the resources decrease.

Historically seen, the initiatives and efforts have been varying. Kurt Jacobsen  especially calls attention to the 1930's - when the Danish prime minister was called Stauning - as the period with the most positive impact on the following efforts in the area.

Even then, the government broke with the notion that the company is the villain and the employee is the victim in terms of working environment. 

The responsibility was instead divided between the employer and the employee, so that a personal responsibility to wear the dust mask upon request was placed with the employee.

However, the connection between industrial medicine research and the Working Environment Authority is seen as a sharp tactical move towards the development of an organisational structure that the Danish working environment has benefited from since then.