A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE WORK-ENVIRONMENT

The author looks at work environment matters from the perspective of p ublic policy-making and the policy instruments used to deal with workp lace health and safety: standard setting; joint health and safety comm ittees; compliance, enforcement, and prosecution; workers' compensatio n as an economic incentive; and collective bargaining. While regarding all as necessary, the author considers them as separately and collect ively, fundamentally flawed and therefore insufficient, because libera l public policy-making itself is problematic. He proposes an alternati ve way of thinking about this subject from the perspective of the ''po litics of meaning.''