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The Killing of Karen Silkwood Document generated on 09/26/2021 2:09 a.m. Relations industrielles Industrial Relations The Killing of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind the nd Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case, 2 edition by Richard Rashke, Ithaca: ILR Press, Cornell University Press, 2000, 448 pp., ISBN 0-8014-8667-X. Robert Sass Volume 56, Number 1, hiver 2001 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/000156ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/000156ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Département des relations industrielles ISSN 0034-379X (print) 1703-8138 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Sass, R. (2001). Review of [The Killing of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind nd the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case, 2 edition by Richard Rashke, Ithaca: ILR Press, Cornell University Press, 2000, 448 pp., ISBN 0-8014-8667-X.] Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 56(1), 222–225. https://doi.org/10.7202/000156ar Tous droits réservés © Département des relations industrielles de l’Université This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Laval, 2001 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 222 RELATIONS INDUSTRIELLES / INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, 2001, VOL. 56, No 1 Voir texte plus bas. The Killing of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Pluto- nium Case, 2nd edition by Richard RASHKE, Ithaca: ILR Press, Cornell University Press, 2000, 448 pp., ISBN 0-8014-8667-X. Karen Silkwood was killed on No- standing about OH&S public policy and vember 13, 1974, at 28 years of age practices. The author presents a chilling while driving to meet a reporter from the revelation about the coziness within a New York Times with documentation hazard-ridden industry of its managers, about plutonium fuel rod tampering at professional and expert arbiters, regula- the Kerr-McGee uranium and plutonium tors and haughty lawmakers. plants in Cimarron, Oklahoma. Richard Kate Bronfenbrenner petitioned for Rashke, an investigative reporter, has a a re-issue of this book on the occasion clear purpose in telling Silkwood’s of the 25th anniversary of Karen story, a story about perilous working Silkwood’s death as a testimonial to a conditions and defective products at heroic activist for reform of working Kerr-McGee and her fight against the conditions. Silkwood is now firmly em- indifference of the Nuclear Regulatory bedded in that part of the feminist tra- Commission, the U.S. Justice Depart- dition that links working and living ment, the FBI, and the Atomic Energy conditions and provides OH&S with a Control Board. class analysis that rejects the liberal Rashke’s account demystifies the trade-off between the integrity of the U.S. nuclear industry by piecing to- body and the economic considerations. gether fragments from the debris of the OH&S emerged from the feminist so- official occupational health and safety cial-work tradition of the early settle- (OH&S) establishment. The book upsets ment houses, on the model of Jane the conventional wisdom and challenges Addams and Hull House in Chicago at the taboos about OH&S in general, and the turn of the century. This tradition in so doing elevates reason and under- brought together women who were RECENSIONS / BOOK REVIEWS 223 highly significant in shaping OH&S: (p. xii). And with predictable conse- Alice Hamilton (the first industrial hy- quences. The dominant structure of K-M gienist in North America), Florence governance, a modern version of the Kelly (an early factory inspector in Illi- divine rights of kings and their preroga- nois and crusader against child labor), tive writs, deprived her of her civil rights and, later, Francis Perkins (Secretary of through surveillance, wiretapping, and Labor in the Roosevelt New Deal ad- the bugging of her apartment. Karen ministration). These women investigated lived in a feudal state, not a human com- and wrote about hazardous working munity, ruled by a violent power more conditions, child labor, and the need for massive and dominant than naive stu- workers’ compensation. dents of OH&S and industrial relations Karen Silkwood represents a contem- have yet to acknowledge. She was trou- porary expression of this tradition. In her blesome property, ultimately disposed of Foreword, Kate Bronfenbrenner refers without any “official” charge of murder to Karen as a “whistle-blower” against in America’s heartland. powerful corporations and their stable of Rashke deconstructs and reconstructs obsequious, puppet-like allies. By un- the Karen Silkwood story from 11,000 covering corruption in the economic pages of trial transcripts, 6,000 pages of realm, she made it possible for civil so- pre-trial depositions, 2,000 pages of FBI ciety to deal with it politically. This is documents, and 1,600 pages of Congres- significant for OH&S is not on the po- sional transcripts. The information and litical agenda in either the U.S. or the menacing tone in these documents Canada and remains a blind spot in the obstruct any attempt to fictionalize education of managers, in the curricu- Karen’s story, and we see the banality lum of business schools, and in the study of so many bureaucrats: comfortable and of industrial relations. educated people who want us to forget Regrettably, “whistle-blowing” has that this young woman was forced off acquired a pejorative meaning for many the road and killed in order to prevent that diminishes its significance in OH&S. her meeting with the Times reporter Yet it is the last resort for OH&S ac- about plutonium fuel rod tampering at tivists under present conditions. As Kerr-McGee. Bronfenbrenner, herself an acknowl- Rashke’s account of the massive edged OH&S activist, states: “Today’s documentation on the Silkwood case heroes take on business and government stands up to critical review and reveals at a time when capital has never been the widespread superficiality of the more globally connected and more ef- OH&S establishment and its distortion fective in advancing its interests at the of the facts: a collusion between the cor- expense of workers and communities. porate elite, regulators, and their varied With ever-expanding free trade legisla- and diverse professionals and experts tion placing multi-national investment that permitted both the corporate elite interests above national sovereignty, the and regulators to adopt a posture of citizens of every nation are vulnerable “neutrality.” The book also penetrates to the dismantling or outright disregard below the surface of practices that en- of workplace... protection legislation. able the collusive OH&S establishment Multi- national corporations have even to fashion the thinking and practices that more sophisticated leverage against shape OH&S policy instruments: stand- those who dare to challenge them” ard setting, enforcement and compli- (p. x). ance, and prosecution—the ultimate Karen Silkwood’s defiance is, ac- sanction. cording to Bronfenbrenner, “our first The book is divided into several line of defense against corporate power” parts: The Killing, Investigations, 224 RELATIONS INDUSTRIELLES / INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, 2001, VOL. 56, No 1 Courts, Trial, and an additional section Justice Department, and the Nuclear updating the 1981 edition, entitled “The Regulatory Commission. Legacy.” “The Courts” documents and as- “The Killing” provides essential sesses the role of the legal establishment background information on work envi- in workplace health and safety. The ronment matters in a high-risk industry. reader will be reminded of the movie The fundamental trade-off between the Civil Action or perhaps the appalling integrity of the body and the economic isocyanate poisoning of thousands of imperative reveals the politics of OH&S, Indians by the Union Carbide plant in the privileged status given to production Bhopal on December 3, 1973. Both the and the impotency of workers and un- Silkwood and the Bhopal “cases” were ions in shaping a work environment settled out of court without the respec- more congenial to human needs. Talk of tive corporations assuming any respon- “worker rights” in this area is but noise. sibility or guilt whatsoever. Why did the Health and safety cost money, and eco- plaintiffs agree to settlements? Victims nomics always wins. need money! Karen’s parents were forced to accept a $1.38 million settle- In “The Investigation,” Rashke de- ment in January 1985 even though a scribes the uphill battle to extricate in- court had awarded them $10 million. formation from various government Kerr-McGee, of course, was appealing agencies. This lengthy section focuses and would continue to appeal this deci- on the frustrated attempts to get even sion, forcing the out-of-court settlement. public information that would allow the Silkwood estate to sue Kerr-McGee for In “The Trial,” the reader is struck negligence in Karen’s contamination by by K-M’s defense: deny, deny, deny, plutonium, an ultra-hazardous material. then virulently attack. The company at- The difficulties encompass company tacked Karen’s character, accusing her dismissals, political payoffs, and the in- of poisoning herself in order to embar- volvement of secret intelligence agen- rass the company. This Kafkaesque cies, special pro-nuclear interest groups defense reads like a grotesque satire, or and influence pedlars, senators, and sun- something in the realm of cold, dark fan- dry politicians and judges. Rashke’s ac- tasy. count will remind students of industrial relations of an earlier anti-union period, Gerry Spence, the Silkwood lawyer, replete as it is with examples of coer- questioned the company’s defense of cion, espionage, cover-ups, and illegal conventional wisdom on the theory and wiretapping—even the bugging of Tony practice of OH&S.
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