Warning: capitalism can harm your health

Part of the socialist case against capitalism is that in a society based on ruthless competition the control of economic costs will always take priority over the needs of human beings. Therefore plans to cut government and business costs by weakening health and safety regulations are of little surprise to socialists.

The government gave notice of its intentions last November when in the Queen’s Speech it announced a Deregulation Bill which many feared was directly aimed at diluting some of the Health and Safety laws. This Deregulation Bill would give government departments and ministers the power to abolish laws by parliamentary order (Labour Research, January 1994).

At the beginning of this year it was announced that the Health and Safety Executive, the body responsible for enforcing health and safety standards, was to make 230 cuts in jobs over the next two years because the government has reduced its grant. Its budget has been cut by £5 million for the period 1994-95. In 1995-96 it will get only £192 million which is £10 million less than it asked for. In the coal-mining industry the pit deputies union NACODS failed in an attempt in the High Court to prevent the introduction of new mine safety regulations which will weaken safety standards in the pits. The Management and Administration of Safety and Health in Mines Regulations Act of 1993 takes away the role of pit supervisors to monitor safety at pits. This role will now be given to safety inspectors who will have no legal powers and can be overruled by management (Labour Research, February 1994).

Lower standards
Despite improvement in conditions for most workers since the early stages of capitalist industrial production, many workers still suffer illness, injury and even loss of life due to avoidable accidents at work or through diseases directly related to their working environment. Statistics for 1993 show that 430 workers were killed through their employment and there were 88,536 injuries reported to the enforcing authorities (Labour Research, January 1994).

An example of the type of dangers still facing workers in their employment concerns people working with or coming into contact with asbestos.

The effects of inhaling asbestos dust have been known for decades. Asbestos causes asbestosis, a disabling and ultimately fatal scarring of the lungs, lung cancer which is almost always fatal, and mesothelioma, a painful and fatal cancer of the lining of the lung or stomach. Amongst the workers most affected are miners, dockers, those involved in the manufacturing of asbestos products, building workers using products containing asbestos and those who work in or maintain buildings which contain decorating asbestos products. It has been estimated by the Department of Employment that some six million tonnes of the three main types of the product crocidolite blue asbestos, amosite brown asbestos and chrysotile white asbestos had been imported into the UK by 1986.

The widespread use of asbestos left a legacy of almost 3,000 people dying of asbestos-related cancer last year. Asbestos is responsible for more cancers than any other industrial substance. According to recent research by Professor Peto of the Institute of Cancer Research and the Health and Safety Executive, death rates due to mesothelioma alone will increase from around 1,000 in 1991 to between 2,500 and 3,000 a year. As usual under a system designed to meet profit rather than human need, the victims of these avoidable diseases are very often not properly compensated particularly where they have been exposed to asbestos contained in the buildings they work in.

Obstacles to compensation
Various obstacles are put in the way of claiming so-called benefits. To be able to claim compensation workers have to have worked in certain prescribed industries. This generally means they would have to have had some direct contact with the substance via actual asbestos materials or the machinery or appliances used in the manufacture of asbestos products. Under these limitations for claiming compensation it is estimated that 43 percent of mesothelioma victims actually die before they receive their benefit (Labour Research, March 1994).

Despite all the evidence about the health hazards from working with asbestos there are few signs of a complete ban on all types of the substance. In fact William Bernard, president of the American asbestos workers’ union, at a recent conference on construction safety in the USA, gave the following warning:

“Asbestos manufacturers are once again on the assault. They are arguing that a particular type of asbestos chrysotile is not hazardous to health. They are asking the European Community and World Health Organisation to allow it to be used again, especially for use in third world countries” (Labour Research, March 1994).

The fact that workers still suffer illness, injury and death through their employment is yet another indictment of a system of production for profit. It is also an indictment of the failure of reformism. Not only have years of reformist political parties and trade unions campaigning on such issues failed to resolve the problems, at present we are seeing moves designed to weaken already inadequate health and safety legislation.

Profits first
As with other issues reformism cannot succeed as it fails to get to the root cause of the problem — a social system where human well-being must take secondary place to controlling economic cost for the sake of profit. The failure of reformism can also be seen by the fact that in arguing for, in this case, better health and safety provisions reformists accept a capitalist agenda. The TUC, for example argue for better health and safety on the basis that in the long run it will prove “cost effective”. The TUC points out that an analysis of the costs and benefits of legislation such as those prepared by the Health and Safety Executive have shown the legislation involved to be “cost positive”.

The economic cost benefit argument may or may not be correct but this is not the point. From the point of the majority of us who have to sell our ability to work to an employer in order to live, and so the potential victims of the profit system, our health and lives must come first and to hell with profit. In the short-term the best way to protect our health and ultimately our lives is to organise collectively and effectively at the point of production in order to assert our own interests as against those of our employer. This factor is more important than arguing for improved health and safety legislation.

Ultimately this issue proves once again that the real choice facing us is a society’ based on profit which dominates our lives at present as against that of one based on human need for which we need to organise to bring about. As with so many other issues capitalism has proved that it cannot safeguard our health and life in the production process. If capitalism cannot afford the economic cost of health and safety our answer must be that we cannot afford capitalism.
RAY CARR