Olsen, Richard, Ph.D. (1993) Worker participation, and the management of health and safety in Britain and Germany. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the participation of worker representatives in the management of
health and safety at workplace level in Britain and Germany. Case studies were carried out in
both the public and private sectors, largely based on semi-structured interviews with key
personnel in the regulation of safety, but also involving the analysis of company and sectoral
information on accident prevention, the observation of meetings and information briefings at
various organisational levels, and the use of questionnaires in two cases. The main aims of
the research have been to illuminate the tensions inherent in attempts to guarantee safe
workplaces and to prevent accidents through analysis of the functions and contributions that
worker representatives, union officials and managers make within formal and informal
practices of involvement and participation. The reason behind a cross-national perspective
lay in the similarities that exist in the regulation of health and safety, and the radical
differences in the structures of trade union and workplace representation that exist in the two
countries.
I found that employment in the public and private sectors embodies different conceptions of
both the extent and quality of work pressure. Within this, capital intensive workplaces are
more likely to obscure fundamental tensions between the pursuit of profit and the provision
of safe working conditions. The role of management is of central importance in screening and
shaping the particular way in which involvement (statutory/non-statutory; formal/informal) in
safety regulation takes place. In each workplace, formal mechanisms for participation were
marginalised, albeit in different ways. Furthermore, I found that extensions to the basic floor
of rights in the regulation of health and safety were dependent on a range of factors external
to the specific nature of protective legislation itself. In particular, the control of work, and the
pace of work especially, seems to act as a critical factor in the relationship between hazard
generation/prevention on the one hand, and forms of participation and involvement in safety
regulation on the other.
I argue in the thesis that safety regulation is inherently a collective issue. The research shows
the different ways in which disaggregative factors obstruct the expression of collective
interests in health and safety management. Both management and workers are heterogeneous
groups, onto which it is difficult to apply simple notions of interest. In addition, forms of
collective regulation of workplace safety must co-exist with the highly individualised context
in which accidents, and the blame for accidents, take place. Furthermore, effective
participation in safety management depends on the degree to which safety can be made
t1visible 11 alongside more traditional industrial relations agenda items such as pay. Finally, I
argue that the mutually reinforcing relationship between the two channels of worker
representation in Germany has been overstated in the existing literature, with this research
pointing to a more clear-cut separation of functions between the two bodies, and to the
existence of an imbalance in the legitimacy of the two bodies in safety participation at
workplace level. Furthermore, cumulative-type relationships in the regulation of safety
appear to depend more on the particular working, organisational and sectoral environment in
which management takes place in each country, than on the formal legislative provisions for
participation that separate Germany from Britain.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Industrial safety -- Great Britain, Industrial safety -- Germany, Management -- Employee participation -- Great Britain, Management -- Employee participation -- Germany
Official Date:	May 1993
Dates:	Date Event May 1993 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Industrial and Business Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Terry, Michael, 1948- ; Hyman, Richard
Sponsors:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
Extent:	v, 336 leaves
Language:	eng

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