Profit over Life: Industrial Disasters and Implications for Labor and Gender

Abstract

The history of the industrial revolution in England in the late 18th century reveals the inhuman life of the working-class people. It is the nascent picture of class struggle between employer and workers from which a powerful group reaps benefit exploiting the powerless. A similar trend of exploitation is still rampant in today’s context, although the nature, extent and severity may have changed. With the expansion of world markets, the participation of marginalized women in the production industry is overwhelming; however, at the same time, salaries have seen tremendous erosion, something which Moghadam refers to as the process of “female proletarianization” (Moghadam, 1999). Workers are deprived in all spheres of life. From dawn to dusk, they work hard for their survival but receive minimum returns for their toils and struggles. The most woeful situation of all is the workplace, which remains a hazardous and unsafe cesspool. Frequent industrial accidents cause innumerable deaths and physical disability. Survivors often face a difficult strain due to a lack of treatment, medicines and other familial needs (Daily Amardesh, 2014). Physical disability forces them to be dependent on others for their livelihood. Psychologically they become depressed and as a consequence, intolerable trauma and the inability of maintaining the costs of treatment ultimately forces some of them to even commit suicide.