Great Books for Injured Workers
This page has been setup to provide information on all the great books I have come acorss in my studies, in my interactions with others, and in my research. These great books are to help you, as injured workers and advocates of injured workers, learn about how to beat the workers compensation system, from the inside out, and learn how to fight in different ways!
Some of the books are not directly related to injured worker issues, but I felt they are still important!
Labour in Canada, Sick and Tired, Health and Safety Inequalities
Workplace Health and Safety Crimes 4th Edition
Corporate Crime, Accountability and Social Responsibility in Canada 2nd Edition
Going Public
Pain and Prejudice
Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada
Quiet No More
Unjust by Design
Though the Heavens May Fall
Please keep checking back, as I will be updating this page with many more great books.
Also, if you know of a good book yourself, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
You can let me know by simply sending me an e-mail at
fightwcb@gmail.com
Labour in Canada Sick and Tired Going Public Health and Safety Inequalities
Written by: Dr. Stephanie Premji
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Fernwood Publishing Click Here
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Chapters Indigo Click Here
Workplace Health and Safety Crimes 4th Edition
Written by: Norm Keith
I am still working on a review of this book. But just so you know, this is a legal textbook. It is used by law students and lawyers to learn and understand crimes involing workplace safety. It disucsses the WestRay Mine Diaster and what led to the WestRay Mine Act.
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Lexis Nexis Publishing Click Here
Corporate Crime, Accountability and Social Responsibility in Canada 2nd Edition
Written by: Norm Keith
I am still working on a review of this book. This is similar to the book above Workplace Health and Safety Crimes 4th Edition and written by the same author. However, it focuses more on coporate social responsibility. This is an aspect injured workers and advocates MUST use the public to force business to get them to relaize unsafe work is bad for business
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Lexis Nexis Publishing Click Here
Going Public
A Survivors Journey from grief to Action
Written by: Dr. Julie Macfarlane
In addition to creating the NSRLP, Dr. MacFarlane hosts a podcast with a focus on self-represented litigants, called Jumping off the Ivory Tower.
Jumping off the Ivory Tower has won the Canadian Law Blog Award three years in a row, in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.
To listen to the Jumping Off the Ivory Tower podcast, you can listen to here it.
You can also download it off Apple Podcasts here.
You can also downlaod it off SoundCloud here.
For her hard work and dedication for not just raising awareness, of self-represented litigants, but for also creating a new project Dr. MacFarlane was awarded the Order of Canada. To leanr about the Order of Canada go here.
This is the video of Dr. MacFarlane accepting the Order of Canada
I have been working with Dr. Macfarlane and the organization she created, the NSRLP, with my personal legal battles, for many years. As a Canadian, I can honestly say, I was VERY proud to learn of Dr. MacFarlane being awarded the Order of Canada.
When I first learned of it, I congratulated her in an e-mail and explained to her that she had brought true values to the Order of Canada. I said this, because often the award appears to be given to rich snobs who careless about the average person and their life struggles!
Not only was working as a law professor, doing an in-depth national study, creating an organization to help those in need with information, doing a podcast, and getting the Order of Canada enough for Dr. MacFarlane, she also wrote a book about her experiences with sexual assault. As pictured above entitled “Going Public”
Unfortunately, I have not had the honour of reading this book yet, as I just ordered it. I can tell you that I have no doubt it will be a riveting read. However, I will post my review here once I have read it.
Who knows, maybe one day a movie as well!
The following is a description from the publisher’s website:
It took Julie Macfarlane a lifetime to say the words out loud—the words that finally broke the calm and traveled farther than she could have imagined. In this clear-eyed account, she confronts her own silence and deeply rooted trauma to chart a remarkable course from sexual abuse victim to agent of change.
Going Public merges the worlds of personal and professional, activism and scholarship. Drawing upon decades of legal training, Macfarlane decodes the well-worn methods used by church, school, and state to silence survivors, from first reporting to cross-examination to non-disclosure agreements. At the same time, she lays bare the isolation and exhaustion of going public in her own life, as she takes her abuser to court, challenges her colleagues, and weathers a defamation lawsuit.
The result is far more than a memoir. It’s a courageous and essential blueprint for going toe-to-toe with the powers behind institutional abuse and protectionism. Macfarlane’s experiences bring her to the most important realization of her life: that no one but she can make the decision to stand up and speak about what happened to her.
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Between the Lines click here ISBN 9781771134750
To purchase an Ebook from Between the Lines click here ISBN 9781771134767
Pain and Prejudice
What Science Can Learn about Work from the People Who Do It
Written by:Karen Messing
In 1978, when workers at a nearby phosphate refinery learned that the ore they processed was contaminated with radioactive dust, Karen Messing, then a new professor of molecular genetics, was called in to help. Unsure of what to do with her discovery that exposure to the radiation was harming the workers and their families, Messing contacted senior colleagues but they wouldn’t help. Neither the refinery company nor the scientific community was interested in the scary results of her chromosome studies. Over the next decades Messing encountered many more cases of workers around the world—factory workers, cleaners, checkout clerks, bank tellers, food servers, nurses, teachers—suffering and in pain without any help from the very scientists and occupational health experts whose work was supposed to make their lives easier. Arguing that rules for scientific practice can make it hard to see what really makes workers sick, in Pain and Prejudice Messing tells the story of how she went from looking at test tubes to listening to workers.
To purchase a paperback copy of the book from Between the Lines click here
To purchase an Ebook from Between the Lines click here
This book is also available electronically from your local library using Overdrive.
Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada
Written by:Bob Barnetson
The following is from the publishers website:
Workplace injuries are common, avoidable, and unacceptable. The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada reveals how employers and governments engage in ineffective injury prevention efforts, intervening only when necessary to maintain the standard legitimacy. Barnetson sheds light on this faulty system, highlighting the way in which employers create dangerous work environments while they pour billions of dollars into compensation and treatment. Examining this dynamic clarifies the way in which production costs are passed on to workers in the form of workplace injuries.
https://www.aupress.ca/books/120178-political-economy-of-workplace-injury-in-canada/
I beleive you can read the book online for free.
Quiet No More
New Political Activism in Canada and Around the Globe
Written by:Joel D. Harden
The following is from the publishers website:
Spontaneous and creative protest movements have burst onto the political stage in Canada and around the world. Joel D. Harden, an activist, writer, and educator, offers a ground-level account of the most important of these recent expressions of large-scale political engagement, mostly by young people. Based on first-hand accounts from many of the participants and organizers, Harden describes key events and turning-points -- in Canada and beyond -- from the viewpoint of a committed insider.
Harden believes that these new bottom-up movements are the most challenging and effective agent of political change on the scene today, galvanizing people to express their views actively in the streets and parks or in their workplaces. The political and corporate power structure has been shaken by these challenges, sometimes enough to generate real political change.
Political analysts, journalists and academics have not yet come to terms with this new activism. Harden briefly reviews theories that fail to capture its essence and those that come close to getting it. In a concluding chapter addressed to students and participants in these social movements he offers his own take on a "movement-relevant" theory informed by his own considerable experience as a widely respected Canadian activist.
This book offers new thinking about how ordinary citizens -- particularly young people -- have started to take back power in our democracy and change the world.
Binding: Paperback, 264 pages
Publication Date: 18th September 2013
ISBN: 9781459405073
Format: 9in x 6in
Binding: Electronic book text
Publication Date: 18th September 2013
ISBN: 9781459405080
Format: EPUB
To purchase at Amazon Books click here
To purchase the book at Chapters Indigo click here
If you can not afford to buy this book you can check your local library and check out a physical or e-reader copy.
Unjust by Design
Canada's Administrative Justice System
Written by:Ron Ellis
I have not had a chance to provide a review of this book. This too is a legal textbook used by law students and lawyers to better understand Canada's administrative justice system. I will say that it explains Canada's administrative justice system and hwo it is very unfair. This is what Canada's workers compensation system falls under. It is a very deep and detailed book, but you will start to understand the injustice with injured workers!
To learn more about the book and the author check out his website here https://administrativejusticereform.ca/unjust-by-design/
To purchase at UBC Press click here
Though the Heavens May Fall
The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery
Written by:Steven M. Wise
I have not had a chance to provide a review of this book. This book talks about the legal doctrine of though the heavens may fall justice shall be done. It simply means that a judge MUST not worry what might happen when making a deicison and make the decision based solely on evidence, facts, and law. This first mention of thsi doctrine was in the case of slavery in Enlgand in the late 1770's. It was the judge's response to the slave owners who cried that economic chaos would result if the slaves in Engalnd were freed.
I am surprised a movie has never been made about this book!
It reminds me somewhat of the plight of injured workers within our court system. Of how judges repeatedly ignore the evidence, facts, and law. In place of their concerns of so called "economic chaos"! It is commonly refered to as making the "floodgate arguement" You may hear decision makers especially judges using this reaosning to justify their decision not to grant you yoru releif.
"They will say something to the effect of "if I agree to do it for you, then others will want it too!"
To purchase at Amazon books click here