Regulation and Risk - Occupational Health and Safety on the Railways

This book provides industry professionals and regulatory agencies with an in-depth empirical study of how British Railways responded to occupational health and safety legislation. Regulating risks in modern societies increasingly involves governments guiding and co-opting corporate risk management systems. This book examines the feasibility of this with reference to occupational health and safety on Britain's railways. It raises important questions about how workplace risks are managed and what influence the law can have in this. These issues are especially significant in the wake of major rail disasters and in the face of the increasing popularity of risk-based approaches to corporate governance. Content: Front Matter • List of Figures • List of Charts • List of Tables • List of Abbreviations • List of Statutes • Preface • Table of Contents •Introduction: Setting the Scene Introduction 1. Concepts and Orientations •Part I. The Railway Industry: Regulation and Risk 2. The Railway Industry in Britain 3. The Railway Industry and Risk •Part II. Regulatory Objectives 4. The Law: Regulatory Objectives and the Social Dimensions of Knowledge 5. The Railway Inspectorate: Regulatory Objectives and the Social Dimensions of Knowledge •Part III. The Impact of Regulation: The Management of Risk 6. Industry Enforced Self-Regulation 7. Participative Regulation? 8. The Communication of Risk: Information about Health and Safety •Part IV. Constitutive Regulation? Risk and Compliance 9. Understandings of Risk and Uncertainty 10. Risk-Taking and Compliance •Part V. Postscript 11. Privatization and the Safety Cascade •Part VI. Conclusion 12. Constituting and Controlling Risk Management: The Regulation of Economic Life Appendices • References Index Regulating the risks associated with economic activities is a feature of modern societies and one in which the state increasingly seeks to co-opt the regulatory powers of corporations. This study examines the impact of a system of enforced self-regulation on the corporate life of British Railways. It uses this case study of occupational health and safety regulation to focus on broader theoretical and empirical discussions of regulation, risk, and corporate activities. A central organizing perspective of this book is that regulation is a form of risk management. It examines how workplace risks in modern societies are managed by businesses and the individuals within them and considers what influence the law has in this. The tensions between the constitutive and controlling aspects of regulatory law are analyzed with reference to in-depth empirical data about corporate and individual compliance and non-compliance. Related concerns about the social control of organizational and economic life are explored and their policy and theoretical implications examined This study examines the impact of a system of enforced self-regulation on the corporate life of British Railways. The book raises important questions about how workplace risks are managed and what influence the law can have