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This chapter argues that international labor and human rights jurisprudence fails to give adequate protection to the right to refuse unsafe work. The right to refuse is not adequately protected through either the freedom of association standards or the occupational safety and health standards. Workers' protest and activism against hazardous work receives limited protection in the global model for national labor policies. The right to refuse faces a very high threshold for securing protection under global occupational safety and health standards. As a result, international labor standards, as a body of worker protection, reinforce the market contours of the modern employment relationship. Unquestioned is a world of employee subservience, undignified but mandatory employer loyalty obligations, and the logic of arbitrary management charges of insubordination and disloyalty.

This chapter argues that international labor and human rights jurisprudence fails to give adequate protection to the right to refuse unsafe work. The right to refuse is not adequately protected through either the freedom of association standards or the occupational safety and health standards. Workers' protest and activism against hazardous work receives limited protection in the global model for national labor policies. The right to refuse faces a very high threshold for securing protection under global occupational safety and health standards. As a result, international labor standards, as a body of worker protection, reinforce the market contours of the modern employment relationship. Unquestioned is a world of employee subservience, undignified but mandatory employer loyalty obligations, and the logic of arbitrary management charges of insubordination and disloyalty.

This chapter reviews Anglo-American labor history to illustrate that the right to refuse unsafe work has been a struggle to decide who is empowered to define it. The right to refuse was protected as early as the Jellico Agreement of 1893, which covered eight Appalachian mines and was at the time “one of the most advanced agreements of any miners in the country.” It allowed a miner “to refuse to work if he thought the mine was dangerous through failure of the bosses to supply enough support timber.” After the enactment of the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and adoption of Wagner Act principles in Canada in the 1940s, the right to refuse unsafe work gained ground as a viable subject of collective bargaining in North America. Collective labor agreements would become the only way to circumvent the strict common laws on the termination of employment that had commodified workers in the United States and Canada.

International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 155 concerning Occupational Health and Safety in the Working Environment was adopted in Geneva by the International Labour Conference at its 67th session in 1981. Fifty-nine member states were a party to the treaty as of August 2012. This chapter examines how the restrictive refusal rights model advocated in Convention No. 155 works in practice. As two leading liberal market economies, Canada and the United States offer a strong litmus test for workers' rights under Convention No. 155. Available evidence from Canadian labor relations scholarship as well as documentation of U.S. work refusal investigations demonstrate that limited legal protection of the right to refuse unsafe work as a standalone labor and employment policy represents nothing more than a failed approach, and in turn a false consensus in global worker health and safety policy. It is ultimately neither in society's interest nor in a worker's interest. This model of worker protection instead serves employer interests.

International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 155 concerning Occupational Health and Safety in the Working Environment was adopted in Geneva by the International Labour Conference at its 67th session in 1981. Fifty-nine member states were a party to the treaty as of August 2012. This chapter examines how the restrictive refusal rights model advocated in Convention No. 155 works in practice. As two leading liberal market economies, Canada and the United States offer a strong litmus test for workers' rights under Convention No. 155. Available evidence from Canadian labor relations scholarship as well as documentation of U.S. work refusal investigations demonstrate that limited legal protection of the right to refuse unsafe work as a standalone labor and employment policy represents nothing more than a failed approach, and in turn a false consensus in global worker health and safety policy. It is ultimately neither in society's interest nor in a worker's interest. This model of worker protection instead serves employer interests.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book is about the history of the right to refuse unsafe work under international labor standards. It details how workers lost the right to refuse under international labor and human rights norms. It takes an in-depth look at how our global society has decided to resolve—and failed to resolve—the protection of any fundamental human right to refuse unsafe work. Around the world, every society and government must decide how to protect, or not to protect, each worker from retaliation and termination. This involves not just drafting a progressive antidiscrimination law; it also involves the regulating of work and employment relations on a more fundamental level. Ultimately, the right to refuse unsafe work is a moral question for society. If society crafts institutions, laws, and regulations that expose workers to hostile supervisors and managers without effective recourse, a moral choice has been made. Such a moral choice finds it acceptable that workers are forced to choose between their physical health and safety or their economic livelihood and basic subsistence.

This chapter reviews Anglo-American labor history to illustrate that the right to refuse unsafe work has been a struggle to decide who is empowered to define it. The right to refuse was protected as early as the Jellico Agreement of 1893, which covered eight Appalachian mines and was at the time “one of the most advanced agreements of any miners in the country.” It allowed a miner “to refuse to work if he thought the mine was dangerous through failure of the bosses to supply enough support timber.” After the enactment of the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act) and adoption of Wagner Act principles in Canada in the 1940s, the right to refuse unsafe work gained ground as a viable subject of collective bargaining in North America. Collective labor agreements would become the only way to circumvent the strict common laws on the termination of employment that had commodified workers in the United States and Canada.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book is about the history of the right to refuse unsafe work under international labor standards. It details how workers lost the right to refuse under international labor and human rights norms. It takes an in-depth look at how our global society has decided to resolve—and failed to resolve—the protection of any fundamental human right to refuse unsafe work. Around the world, every society and government must decide how to protect, or not to protect, each worker from retaliation and termination. This involves not just drafting a progressive antidiscrimination law; it also involves the regulating of work and employment relations on a more fundamental level. Ultimately, the right to refuse unsafe work is a moral question for society. If society crafts institutions, laws, and regulations that expose workers to hostile supervisors and managers without effective recourse, a moral choice has been made. Such a moral choice finds it acceptable that workers are forced to choose between their physical health and safety or their economic livelihood and basic subsistence.