Rodrigo Finkelstein

The Constitutive Role of Occupational Safety in Chile: the Unintended Consequences of an Ideological Symbolic Content Rodrigo Finkelstein

The Constitutive Role of Occupational Safety in Chile. Based on a non-technological perspective of mass communication, which conceives modern social practices as relevant disseminators of massive symbolic content, this book examines the social practice of occupational safety carried out in Chile by the Mutual Accidents Insurance Associations (Mutuals). Following a constructivist and critical approach, this study explores the Mutuals? symbolic content in its constitutive function of shaping occupational safety at the work site and its unintended consequences upon workers? safety and health. Findings suggest Mutuals? symbolic content deprive workers? safety and health by: a) excluding risk strategies round productive processes, b) subordinating safety decisions to the power of capital, c) predominantly targeting safety interventions to the workers? psyche, d) denying workers? participation in safety administration decisions, e) diminishing workers? sense of value, f) rejecting social organization of the labor process as an objective for safety strategies and g) facilitating occupational safety services to operate as a system of control.