Millions continue to die every year, yet the media largely ignores this global tragedy, writes Tom Hodgkinson

This week the International Labour Organisation, an offshoot of the UN, reported that nearly three million people die every year from work. Over three quarters of these fatalities, the ILO says, relate to work-related conditions like respiratory diseases, neoplasms and circulatory diseases. Another 330,000 people are killed each year in work accidents. Farming is the most dangerous sector: it kills 200,000 people annually through fatal injuries.

The top “occupational risk factor” identified by the ILO was “exposure to long working hours” (defined as over 55 hours per week) which was responsible for 744,924 deaths.

This story went widely unreported. Why? It’s such a mind-blowingly huge number. Just pause to think through the enormity of the figure. To put it in perspective: jobs kill 47 times the number of people who lose their lives to war and terrorism each year, and ten times the number killed by drugs and alcohol combined.

And for all those millions who are killed by work, many more millions are non-fatally injured: the ILO reckons this figure is around 395 million. Those of you who have read about the Oxycontin scandal in the States will know that society’s response to, say, an Appalachian miner’s severe back pain, was to give him or her an addictive opioid and suggest they get back to work ASAP, thus making even more money for the feudal overlords through drug sales. The human solution would be to give the injured miner time off and improve the conditions so miners in future didn’t get injured.

By any logical reasoning we should be declaring a worldwide war on work. Work should be made safer, hours should be reduced, and hit squads of UN officials should be swooping on unsafe workplaces and fining the greedy mill owners who profit from misery, pain and death.

The UK’s working environments are relatively safe. Cambridge University’s Professor Brendan Burchell, an expert on work and promoter of four day week trials, said that workplace deaths are 2% of what they were 100 years ago. But this is partly because the dangerous jobs have been exported overseas. And Burchell stressed that work in the UK still causes premature death.

“Nowadays a lot of people in the UK will be dying prematurely of stress-related illnesses in their 60s and 70s – people who could have lived good lives into their 80s. A lot of that pressure is caused by over-work and low quality jobs where people are treated with disrespect by bosses, colleagues and customers.”

Economist Guy Standing said: “We need to stop making a fetish of jobs.”

Truly, idling saves lives.

Please send me your stories of work-related accidents and fatalities.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts.

Sir: I’ve not sent anything to you before, but am compelled to write due to your article about work killing people. I live in the States (Oregon to be precise), where we are still reeling from an administration dedicated to greed and money as the Highest Good. Long before that, but well after the dinosaur era, I once joined the army. My experience may not count, as one has a much stronger inkling of death as a distinct possibility in such a job. They have you sign a plethora of forms in something akin to a mortality conga line, designating where your body goes, what if there is owed monies, etc. So, it is not secretive. But when I made it out alive, I assumed all that nonsense was moot; though I kept experiencing a pesky temporary paralysis problem. The good news is, I would get a warning via my brain turning into a satellite in an untethered orbit, so getting out from behind the wheel or simply finding a place to land that wouldn’t leave a mark, were both possible and essential. When I could get to an ER (travel is dreadfully difficult and increases the odds of others dying), I was repeatedly diagnosed with stroke, despite my advising them of the frequency of said strokes with full recovery in between.

I finally filed a claim believing there was a connection between my service and my condition (especially since I was once hospitalized for it while still in–I am nothing if not clever). It was denied several times, so I went online to see if other military folks knew what I was missing. Turns out my base had already made top billing in an expose by a News Magazine TV show called, Sixty Minutes. If I was able to rap, I’d try to list all the chemicals that were leached into the soil and aquifers in a fun way, but I am hopelessly white and it would be an insult to both rappers and the chemicals. The army is not required to notify current or former soldiers that there was/is a problem. The shortlist reads, White Phosphorus, Agent Orange, Mustard Gas, Sarin, Ionized radiation, Cobalt 60, Cesium 137, uranium, plutonium– I don’t wish to belabor the point–you get the picture. They were required to post a public service announcement. After a list of chemicals that reads like preparation for the battle of Dunkirk, there is a caveat at the bottom: “Likely in small quantities.” You have to love the government–only they could list enough poisons to kill Rasputin, the entire Romanov family, plus every Bolshevik alive, then find a ‘bright side.’ Is there anyone who wants “a little” plutonium with their morning coffee? I personally think not, but admit to prejudice on the matter.

Many women who served there had multiple miscarriages, others had rheumatological and neurological disorders in abnormally high numbers. Many more bases were contaminated with a fire retardant material, another with lead in the water–it’s all too common. When economics trump humanity, it is the poor who take the greatest brunt, so that CEOs can buy that desirable fourth home. But it is the workers who build those homes, mill the lumber, mine the rock, pave the streets, and fight the wars. At the rate they’re being dismissively treated, a revolution of some sort, surely will manifest, else we’ll all perish in a world of asphalt and greed. Tyranny comes in more forms than a singular despot.
Ciel, Oregon

Sir: It wasn’t the full resignation I had pondered, but I recently asked for the month of January off from work (cold January, the Saint Monday of months?). I’m not sure how much I’ll get but I’m glad I asked anyhow, maybe the start of something for me. Thanks for the wisdom.
Brian

Sir: I think Prof Burchell’s view is far too sanguine. What has been happening in the USA and Britain is an epidemic of stress and burnout in jobs, leading to rising morbidity and a decline in the secular trend of growing life expectancy. The ILO report does not inlcude that sort of longer term damage.
Guy Standing

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