Legal precedent also protected employers, and so accidents were considered part of the work process.Įarly in the 20th century, several factors caused a shift of responsibility for safety from workers to employers.
Departing from English common law, 19th-century American courts developed the assumed risk doctrine, holding that agreeing to employment meant that workers in a free market had consented to assume all potential hazards of the job. Under American law, work and risk always have had a close relationship. Still, fatalities in high-rise casinos on the Las Vegas Strip brought up an uncomfortable question: How had the American workplace become so profoundly dangerous all over again? But since the Hoover Dam’s construction in the 1930s, workers have benefitted from the federal Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of 1970, so that accidents are no longer considered a part of the job, and employers and the government are morally and legally obligated to protect them. The news reminded many of the Hoover Dam, a project known for its treacherous working conditions and a death count so high that it spawned myths that workers had been buried alive in the concrete.
