Legal Protection against Retaliatory Firing Improves Workplace Safety

By:

Johnson, Matthew S

Contributor(s):

Material type:

Continuing resourcePublication details: The Review of Economics and Statistics; 2024Description: 1236-1253ISSN:

0034-6535

Subject(s):

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Summary: Workplace safety policies are designed to ensure that employers internalize the costs of injuries, but employers can undermine these policies with threats of dismissal. We show that statesâ€™ adoption of the public policy exception to at-will employmentâ€”an exception forbidding employers from firing workers for filing workersâ€™ compensation claims or for whistleblowingâ€”led to a substantial reduction in injuries. The widespread adoption of the public policy exception explains 14% of the decline in fatal injury rates between 1979 and 1994. Statutory protections from retaliatory firing also improved safety, but only when employers faced sufficiently strong penalties for violating them.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Vol info	Status	Date due	Barcode
Article Index	Dr VKRV Rao Library		Vol. 106, No. 5	Not for loan		AI849

Workplace safety policies are designed to ensure that employers internalize the costs of injuries, but employers can undermine these policies with threats of dismissal. We show that statesâ€™ adoption of the public policy exception to at-will employmentâ€”an exception forbidding employers from firing workers for filing workersâ€™ compensation claims or for whistleblowingâ€”led to a substantial reduction in injuries. The widespread adoption of the public policy exception explains 14% of the decline in fatal injury rates between 1979 and 1994. Statutory protections from retaliatory firing also improved safety, but only when employers faced sufficiently strong penalties for violating them.

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.