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Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on March 11, 2008
Social History of Medicine 2008 21(1):67-86; doi:10.1093/shm/hkm112
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

Workplace Accidents and Early Safety Policies in Spain, 1900–1932

Javier Silvestre*

* Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/ Doctor Cerrada 1–3, 50005, Zaragoza, Spain. E-mail: javisil{at}unizar.es


  Abstract

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, workplace accidents came to be perceived as a serious public health problem. Preventive safety policies were implemented in industrialising nations. The impact of these policies, however, has received little attention. This article shows that early safety policies in Spain failed and, as a result, workplace safety tended to deteriorate. It confirms that legal regulation of safety standards and factory inspection, the strategy that became predominant in Europe, had little effect on reducing accidents. The International Labour Organization proposed supplementing legislation with further strategies that were well established in the USA, namely the use of workers' compensation programmes as an economic incentive for employers to invest in safety, and cooperation between employers and labour through the so-called Safety First movement. This article, however, argues that these strategies were difficult to adopt in Spain.

Keywords: workplace accidents; industrialising Spain; International Labour Organization recommendations; safety standards and factory inspection; workers' compensation; unions and workers


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