Work, Health, and Environment: Old Problems, New Solutions

This is an indispensable collection on the crisis of worker health and safety in the United States. This collection offers an all-important lesson for the labor movement: that problems of occupational health and safety are not merely technical problems but rather problems relating to workers' lack of control over the organization of capitalist production.
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"A must-read' for anyone--scholar or activist--who is concerned about the degrading and dangerous work conditions in which millions of Americans toil every day, and who also needs to know what we can do to change it." -Daniel Faber, author of Environment Under Fire

"This book helps to create the conversations, sometimes the arguments, we need to translate environmental concern into clean production, and worker health and safety into a lived reality." -Eve Spangler, Boston College

"An outstanding book that incisively describes key occupational and environmental health problems and offers options for policy and action....A highly valuable volume for students, and for individuals and organizations involved with any aspect of occupational and environmental health." -Barry S. Levy, President, American Public Health Association ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Levenstein, PhD, Professor of Work Environment Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, is editor of New Solutions: A Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Policy. An economist and leading researcher on social factors in occupational health, especially occupational lung diseases, he has been active in worker and community health and safety education in the United States and abroad.

John Wooding, PhD, is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Chair of the Department of Regional Economic and Social Development. His research interests include occupational safety and health regulation, regulatory politics, and the politics of environmentalism. He serves on the editorial boards of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism and New Solutions.
EXCERPT. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Foreword, Anthony Mazzocchi
I. The Political Economy of the Work Environment
1. The Political Economy of Occupational Disease, Charles Levenstein and Dominick J. Tuminaro
2. The Changing Structure of Work in the United States: Part 1 The Impact on Income and Benefits, Sarah Kuhn and John Wooding
3. The Changing Structure of Work in the United States: Part 2 The Implications for Health and Welfare, Sarah Kuhn and John Wooding
II. Regulation and Public Policy
A. Issues in Regulation
4. OSHA at 20: Regulatory Strategy and Institutional Structure in the Work Environment, Charles Noble
5. Undermining the Protections for Coal Miners, James L. Weeks
6. The Myth of Injury Prevention Incentives in Workers' Compensation Insurance, Geoffrey C. Beckwith
B. Case Studies: Industrial Disease
7. The Occupational Lead Standard: A Goal Unachieved, A Process in Need of Repair, Ellen K. Silbergeld, Philip J. Landrigan, John R. Froines, and Richard M. Pfeffer
8. Multiple Chemical Sensitivities: Development of Public Policy in the Face of Scientific Uncertainty, Mark R. Cullen
9. New Cancer Theories: Policy Implications for Cancer Prevention, Joel Swartz and Richard Clapp
10. Job Stress and Heart Disease: Evidence and Strategies for Prevention, Paul A. Landisbergis, Susan J. Schurman, Barbara A. Israel, Peter L. Schnall, Margrit K. Hugentobler, Janet Cahill, and Dean Baker
11. Sexual Harassment: A Health Hazard for Women Workers, Renee Goldsmith Kasinsky
C. The Use of Science in Policymaking
12. Why Focus on Risk Assessment?, Robert Ginsburg
13. The Risks of Risk Assessment, Ellen Silbergeld
14. Quantitative Risk Assessment and the Illusion of Safety, Robert Ginsburg
15. Risk Assessment and Occupational Health: Overview and Recommendations, C. Mark Smith, Karl T. Kelsy, and David C. Christiani
16. The Risk Wars: Assessing Risk Assessment, Daniel Wartenburg and Caron Chess
17. Alternatives to Risk Assessment: The Example of Dioxin, Mary H. O'Brien
18. Playing Industrial Hygiene to Win, Eileen Senn Tarlau
III. Social Conflict and the Politics of Health and Safety
A. Worker and Community Struggles
19. Citizens as Regulators of Local Polluters and Toxics Users, Sanford J. Lewis
20. Involving the Community Inside the Factory Walls, Elise Pechter Morse and Joan N. Parker
21. Fighting Environmental Racism, Louis Head and Michael Guerrero
22. Environment for Cooperation: Building Worker Community Coalitions, Millie Buchanan and Gerry Scoppettuolo
23. Texans United Score Historic Victory Against an Ammonia Facility in Houston, Jim Baldauf
B. The Struggle for Occupational Health Clinics
24. Organizing for a Statewide Network of Occupational Disease Diagnostic Centers, Dominick J. Tuminaro
25. The Occupational Health Clinical Center Network in New York State: Achievements, Prospects, and Complaints, Michael Lax
26. Community Occupational Health Clinics in the Free Market, Peter Dillard
C. Programs for Change
27. Reforming OSHA: Modest Proposals for Major Change, David Weil
28. A Women's Occupational Health Agenda for the 1990s, Susan Klitzman, Barbara Silverstein, Laura Punnett, and Amy Mock
29. Pollution Prevention and Income Protection: Fighting with Empty Hands A Challenge to Labor, Lin Kaatz Chary
30. Accepting the Challenge: A Response to Chary, Michael Merrill
31. Toxics Use Reduction and Pollution Prevention, Ken Geiser
IV. Conclusion: Work Environment, Health, and Democracy
32. Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation, Richard L. Grossman and Frank T. Adams
33. Determinants of Health: A Progressive Political Platform, Milton Terris
34. Women Changing the Times: An Italian Proposal to Address the Goals and Organization of Work, Margaret M. Quinn and Eva Buiatti
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