Major Occupational Diseases. Worker’s Compensation Laws

Asbestos was one of the leading causes of occupational death in the twentieth century, with fatality rates still in the range of three thousand per year and continuing to rise as of 2000. Asbestosis and asbestos-related lung cancers were diagnosed as early as 1899 and were considered preventable as early as the 1930s by British occupational health expert Thomas Legge.

Occupational lung cancer is linked to inhaling carcinogens such as asbestos, coal, and petroleum-related compounds in the workplace. In the United States in 1998 about 17,315 lung cancer deaths were attributable to occupational lung cancer, according to the American Lung Association.

Byssinosis (brown lung disease) is a chronic condition severely impairing lung functions. It is caused by dusts from processing hemp, flax, and cotton. Between 1979 and 1996 byssinosis caused only 120 U.S. deaths, but an estimated 35,000 textile workers were disabled.

Black lung disease, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, is caused by inhaling coal dust. An estimated 4.5 percent of coal miners are affected, according to the American Lung Association. Between 1979 and 1996 in the United States, 14,156 deaths were attributed to black lung disease.

Silicosis results from exposure to silica in mines, foundries, blasting operations, and manufacturing operations involving materials such as stone, clay, and glass. Between 1979 and 1996 in the United States, 2,694 deaths were attributed to silicosis. About 1.6 million workers may have been exposed to silica dust, and almost sixty thousand may suffer from some degree of silicosis, according to the American Lung Association.

Worker’s Compensation Laws. Before worker's compensation acts were passed in Europe and various states in the United States, injured workers had to present claims against employers to unsympathetic courts. Usually the claims were denied under common law theories that presumably treated workers and factory owners as equals. A theory of “contributory negligence," developed in the 1830s in England, held it that if an employee's action causes an injury, a factory owner is not responsible. In most cases, even a manager would be considered an employee.

Worker's compensation bills, which guaranteed wages and health benefits to workers who were injured on the job, were passed in Germany in 1884 and Britain in 1897. In the United States, Maryland passed the first state worker's compensation law in 1902. It was declared unconstitutional by a state court.

After the Triangle factory fire, New York State passed a worker's compensation act, but it, too, was struck down by state courts who said that imposing strict liability on a business would deprive it of property without due process.

Taking the workers' side against conservative judges, former President Teddy Roosevelt said these decisions “have been such as almost to bar the path to . industrial, economic and social reform. By such decisions they add immensely to the strength of the Socialist Party, they perpetuate misery, they increase unrest and discontent" (Gersuny 1981, 102).