Rees, J V (1986) Reforming the workplace: A study of self-regulation in occupational safety. PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Abstract
This study is about government regulation and its reform. Beginning in 1979, the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (CAL/OSHA) tested a new regulatory policy, the Cooperative Compliance Program (CCP), at seven large-scale construction projects. The CCP is a three-way arrangement involving CAL/OSHA, construction unions, and construction companies with exemplary in-house safety programs. The CCP's key feature is a jobsite labor-management safety committee that assumes many regulatory responsibilities, thus allowing CAL/OSHA to cease routine compliance inspections. The program's keynote is self-regulation. First, the study focuses on the policymaking level to determine the CCP's origins--what made regulatory reform happen. The analysis gives special attention to OSHA's administrative development, including the role played by industrial and construction unions in that development, especially their contrasting approaches to occupational safety regulation and its reform. Second, the study examines what it takes to effectively assume responsibility for occupational safety, and participate in the CCP, by detailing the development of two corporate safety programs regarded as among the very best in the construction industry. In doing so, the analysis considers the evolution and interplay of law (the Occupational Safety and Health Act), economic incentives (the workers' compensation system), and professionalism (safety engineering). Finally, the study focuses on the CCP's implementation, which, by all accounts, has been a success. Analyzing why, the study examines the labor-management safety committees operation at the seven jobsites as well as CAL/OSHA's role in monitoring the program.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | compliance; government; monitoring; policy; professionalism; regulation; safety |
| Index terms: | program, construction project, evolution, self-regulation, regulation, safety programs, professionalism, compliance, routine, economic incentive, construction company, monitoring, occupational safety and health, compensation, construction industry, occupational safety, implementation, safety engineering, government regulation, inspection |
| Subjects: | sociology, occupational health and safety management, political science, industry analysis, software systems, professional development, dispute resolution, control systems, behavioral psychology, quality assurance, production management, health safety and environment, economic analysis, contractual arrangements, environmental science, organization |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Project Management, Sustainability, Procurement, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Business Strategy, Information Management, Research Practice, Governance, Digital Applications, Organizational Design, Site Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here