Death by consensus:

Framing and blaming: construction of workplace injuries by legislators in Alberta, Canada

BACKGROUND

Legislators in the Canadian province of Alberta have successfully resisted pressure to increase state injury-prevention efforts.

OBJECTIVES

This study seeks to identify the narratives used by legislators to manage political pressure for increased injury-prevention efforts.

METHODS

Narrative analysis of legislative transcripts from 2000 to 2012.

RESULTS

Three narratives are identified in the data: (1) injuries are caused by ignorance and inattention, (2) workplaces are safe and getting safer, and (3) risk is inevitable and mitigation is (too) expensive. Each narrative has 2-4 subcomponents.

CONCLUSIONS

The consistency of the messages delivered by legislators over time suggests an intentional effort to frame workplace injury in ways that manage political pressure for greater state efforts to prevent workplace injuries while maintaining the government's legitimacy. The narratives used by legislators draw on widely held beliefs about workplace injuries, including the careless worker myth and the notion that safety pays.

Diverging Trends in Worker Health and Safety Protection and Participation in Canada, 1985-2000

Despite the comprehensiveness of neo-liberal restructuring in Canada, it has not proceeded uniformly in its timing or outcomes across regulatory fields and political jurisdictions. The example of occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation is instructive. This article compares recent OHS developments in five Canadian jurisdictions, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and the Federal jurisdiction. It finds that despite the adoption of a common model by all jurisdictions, there has recently been considerable divergence in the way that the elements of worker participation and protection have been combined. Modified power resource theory is used to explain a portion of this divergence.