Job Safety and Contract Workers in the Petrochemical Industry
Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society Volume 34, Issue 1, pages 40–57, January 1995
Posted: 18 Jan 2014
Date Written: January 1955
Abstract
The legal rules for assigning liability for the costs of accidents penalize petrochemical plants that exercise direct control over contract employees. Evidence from diverse sources indicates that these liability rules lead plant management to give primary responsibility for the safety training and supervision of contract employees to contractors. However, analysis of the determinants of accidents suggests that host plants offer more effective safety training and supervision than do contractors. It follows that accident rates in the petrochemical industry would be reduced if liability rules were altered so that host plants had greater incentives to take primary responsibility for the safety training and supervision of contract workers.
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