Health and Safety at Work. A transnational history
Abstract
The history of health and safety at work is a transnational one. It was initiated at the end of the 20th century by international networks of social reformers and has been continued since by international organisations, such as the ILO, and regional ones such as the European Union. Its legal and institutional background was built around 1900, through the diffusion of the forensic notions of “occupational diseases” and “work injuries”. In the following decades, rivalries between the ILO and other international organisations have brought about new models of action, such as “occupational medicine” or “occupational health”, which each state has interpreted in its own way. To this day, the recognition of occupational illnesses, such as musculo-skeletal disorders, demands a difficult international standardisation of medical conceptions.