Work and labour

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

download word file, 6 pages 3.0

Work and labour have been around forever, although it did not always work to the standards that we are used to today. Over the years, many hard working and deprived people had to fight for the rights that are taken for granted today. Are safety and health involved with work? Is work dangerous for your health? I will try to answer these questions by summarising four short commentaries as well as adding my opinion.

Through out history, people have put workers in danger and sometimes added elements that they thought were actually helping to protect their workers, but instead were actually adding danger to the workers. There is no better example of this than that of the mining industry. As we know, mining in deep caverns can be very dangerous, but the most damage received was even before you stepped into the mine. "Dust to Dust" by Charlie Angus explains this theory.

There is a mining sickness that has taken many lives. It is called Silicosis. "In gold mines, the silica is found in the quartz veins that surround the ore. Disturbed dust attacks and lacerates the lining of the lung with it's jagged, crystalline edges. In the confined spaces underground, a miner has no choice but to breath in large amounts of silica dust. The effects of long term exposure are a litany of elements related to the breathing of this dust: silicosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease, silica tuberculosis, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis and corpulminary (right-heart failure)." Dust to Dust. Many people were getting very sick, leaving the mines and some were even dying due to these horrible working conditions and diseases. The mining company came up with, what they thought, was a solution. Before entering the mine the miners were put in a sealed room where they...