This paper is concerned with a specific human right – the right to work in a safe environment.
It sets out a case for developing a new form of account of health and safety in
any organisational setting. It draws upon the theoretical insights of Pierre Bourdieu taking
inspiration from his assertion that in order to understand the “logic” of the worlds we live
in we need to immerse ourselves into the particularity of an empirical reality. In this case
the paper, analyses a preventable industrial disaster which occurred in Glasgow, Scotland
which killed nine people1 and injured 33 others. The paper unearths the underlying structures
of symbolic violence of the UK State, the Health and Safety Executive and capital with
respect to health and safety at work in the case. While dealing with one specific country
(Scotland) and arguably an anomalous event we contend that Bourdieu’s objective of constructing
a special case of what is possible can equally be used to question health and safety
regimes and other forms of symbolic violence across the globe.