We Offer Ourselves as Evidence

?Judkins makes an important contribution to understanding the complex puzzle of oocupational health issues from the workers' often-unheard viewpoint, using a sociological and historical approach. The focus is on retired and disable workers and others in the Black Lung and Brown Lung Associations who organized and fought in the 1970s for recognition and compensation of their work-related diseases. A secondary goal was prevention of the diseases in the future. Judkins blends primary and secondary sources with his own observations and readings in the resource mobilisation' approach to understanding the dynamics and tactics of the assoications. He argues that even though occupational health and safety and workers' compensation laws existed, little happened to benefit workers until disabled and ill workers offered themselves as evidence to legislators to reject or dispute company positions (denying the work-disease links) and prevailing opinions of the medical establishment about the definitions of disease. The references are plentiful and the bibliography very useful. An important resource for students of occupational health, government process, sociology, and industrial relations.?-Choice