A Socio-Legal Ethnography of the Right to Refuse Dangerous Work

Abstract

The right to refuse unsafe work and the 'internal responsibility system' represent a fundamental shift in ideology over how workplace health and safety is governed. Using qualitative data, I provide a grounded critique of this shift and demonstrate that the right to refuse is continually evolving through its everyday application; the local definition of what constitutes risk is constantly being negotiated. Even when workers do not formally use this right to deal with a hazard they still, nonetheless, engage in the local construction of how this safety right is conceptualized, defined, and exercised.

Keywords: safety culture, legal rights, risk, ethnography, regulation, compliance, organizations, individual responsibility, legal consciousness, safety voice, speaking up