Australian Left Review
Article Title
History of the Sydney Workers Health Movement
Abstract
Workers' struggle to win safe and healthy work places is a struggle as long as Industrialisation itself. For example, underground miners earlier this century went through many strikes often in response to deaths on the job. Safety issues have tended to predominate in the pre-seventies period mainly because of the immediate, and often horrific, effects of accidents. However, over the past decade, health issues have become of more concern for a number of reasons, not the least being the Increased incidence ot cancer in workers exposed to carcinogens such as asbestos In the boom years of the '50s and '60s. In this article, Ben Bartlett looks at the development of the workers' health movement over the past decade, mainly focussing on the movement in Sydney.