An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance
Smart regulation, better regulation, responsive regulation, business-friendly regulation and voluntary ‘self-regulation’ have their origins deeply embedded in UK policies in the 20th century. Their aim generally is to reduce workplace regulatory obligations on employers. This can overtly or covertly...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9564749/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36232071 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912771 |
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author | Watterson, Andrew Beck, Matthias |
author_facet | Watterson, Andrew Beck, Matthias |
author_sort | Watterson, Andrew |
collection | PubMed |
description | Smart regulation, better regulation, responsive regulation, business-friendly regulation and voluntary ‘self-regulation’ have their origins deeply embedded in UK policies in the 20th century. Their aim generally is to reduce workplace regulatory obligations on employers. This can overtly or covertly undermine efforts to improve working conditions. In the UK, the historical control and regulation of beryllium (a toxic metal used in industry) illustrates this problem, and as we illustrate through an exploratory analysis of original archival material and official publications. Soft touch regulation of the metal beryllium was developed within the UK semiconductor industry when tighter controls were proposed in the 1960s and 1970s. Historical industry, government and science responses to health and safety information about beryllium provide important lessons for current debates on occupational health and safety. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9564749 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95647492022-10-15 An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance Watterson, Andrew Beck, Matthias Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Smart regulation, better regulation, responsive regulation, business-friendly regulation and voluntary ‘self-regulation’ have their origins deeply embedded in UK policies in the 20th century. Their aim generally is to reduce workplace regulatory obligations on employers. This can overtly or covertly undermine efforts to improve working conditions. In the UK, the historical control and regulation of beryllium (a toxic metal used in industry) illustrates this problem, and as we illustrate through an exploratory analysis of original archival material and official publications. Soft touch regulation of the metal beryllium was developed within the UK semiconductor industry when tighter controls were proposed in the 1960s and 1970s. Historical industry, government and science responses to health and safety information about beryllium provide important lessons for current debates on occupational health and safety. MDPI 2022-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9564749/ /pubmed/36232071 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912771 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Watterson, Andrew Beck, Matthias An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title | An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title_full | An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title_fullStr | An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title_full_unstemmed | An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title_short | An Exploratory Study of Beryllium and UK Soft Touch Regulation: An Enduring Example of Weaknesses of UK Occupational Health and Safety Governance |
title_sort | exploratory study of beryllium and uk soft touch regulation: an enduring example of weaknesses of uk occupational health and safety governance |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9564749/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36232071 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912771 |
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