IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v30y2009i1p9-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intended or Unintended Consequences? A Critical Reappraisal of the Safety First Movement and its Non-Union Safety Committees

Author

Listed:
  • Lucy Taksa

    (University of New South Wales)

Abstract

For the most part, the extensive literature produced on joint labour—management safety committees since the 1970s has neglected historical antecedents. To provide insights from the past, this article focuses on America's early 20th-century Safety First Movement, which sought to reduce accidents through the adoption of non-union safety committees and re-engineering techniques, based on various aspects of scientific management. By assessing the relationship between these `soft' and `hard' dimensions of Safety First, this article demonstrates that the two were united in practical terms not only in the US but also in Britain and Australia. This fusion, it is argued, provided a means of obtaining workers' consent for organizational and workplace changes and overcoming prevailing resistance to the methods associated with scientific management. In doing so, it emphasizes the value of focusing on management goals and anticipated consequences of employee participation and representation.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucy Taksa, 2009. "Intended or Unintended Consequences? A Critical Reappraisal of the Safety First Movement and its Non-Union Safety Committees," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 30(1), pages 9-36, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:9-36
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X08099432
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X08099432
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X08099432?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:9-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.