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A History of Occupational Health and Safety: From 1905 to the Present by Michelle Follette Turk

2019; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 93; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bhm.2019.0015

1086-3176

Gerald Markowitz,

Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

Reviewed by: A History of Occupational Health and Safety: From 1905 to the Present by Michelle Follette Turk Gerald Markowitz Michelle Follette Turk. A History of Occupational Health and Safety: From 1905 to the Present. Wilber S. Shepperson Series in Nevada History. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2018. xii + 356 pp. Ill. $44.95 (978–1–943859–70–2). Michelle Follette Turk’s book makes a major contribution to the history of public health and occupational health by focusing on a specific location—the area around Las Vegas, Nevada—from the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. The author explores the often contentious, and always complicated, relationship among workers, “place,” and health. The study is divided into three periods that encompass separate “occupational health regimes.” The first is from the beginning of industrialization in Nevada at the dawn of the twentieth century to the end of World War II; the second spans the period from the end of World War II to the 1970s; and the third focuses on the post-OSHA years up through the present. Like much of occupational health history, this is not a story of linear progress, but one that demonstrates that “Nevada consistently failed to protect its workers throughout the century and continuously suffered large-scale workplace disasters” (p. 18). Further, although large scale disasters may have led to short-term reforms, these efforts were often eventually abandoned. The first period encompassed the building and operation of railroads, the construction of the Hoover Dam, and the short-lived manufacture of magnesium [End Page 132] during World War II. The construction of the dam was particularly problematic. In addition to the horrendously hot weather at the site in the summer and inadequate medical facilities, in the early 1930s there was an average of four to sixteen accidents per day that required a visit to the doctor or a hospital. One of the major contractors, “Six Companies,” resorted to deceit and denial to hide the mass poisonings of workers. In the underground workplaces, idling trucks emitted deadly levels of carbon monoxide, but the company, instead of reporting these deaths as being work-related, listed them as caused by “pneumonia.” The author notes that as a result of workers’ filing lawsuits against the company demanding compensation for their illnesses, and the New Deal’s Department of Labor’s actions on behalf of workers, major reforms not only improved conditions in Nevada, but also resulted in changes in the way that other dams were constructed in the future. The second period was dominated by the establishment of the Nevada Test Site after World War II, only sixty-five miles from downtown Las Vegas, that was the site of almost one thousand atomic bomb tests. Despite the fact that the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense, and private contractors knew that workers, civilians, and soldiers would experience “repeated low-level” radiation as a result of these tests, “the AEC authorised the contamination of civilian employees and atomic veterans, the surrounding community, and the environment with radioactive materials” (p. 227). As Turk observes, this history demonstrates that “it is virtually impossible for an industry to self-regulate” (p. 228). The third period focuses on the construction and work life of the Las Vegas Strip. Among the occupational hazards discussed are the deaths and injuries resulting from the building of the giant hotels. In addition hotel workers suffered from a variety of respiratory problems and frequent threat of violence. There is not, however, much attention played in the book to the back problems and other musculoskeletal disorders that have been documented recently in the hotel industry.1 Turk demonstrates that although the service industry workers faced dangers much like industrial workers, the risks “were harder to define and interpret” (p. 15) and thus easier to ignore. In all of these case studies Turk does an excellent job of providing the political, economic, and social background of the various industries she examines. The book also furnishes excellent analyses of how occupational health issues in Nevada relate to general issues of public health and health care in that state, and to more general trends in occupational health in the United...