Latent disease enables employers to shift compensation burden onto retired workers.
Evidence
Silicosis takes many years to develop. Symptoms may not appear until after a worker has retired. Corporations ignored the progressive nature of the disease and required workers to demonstrate an inability to work before they could be compensated. Using this criterion of disability, the industry absolved itself of responsibility for the health of workers who had retired, many of them due to the progressing silicosis itself: “The committee points out that since silicosis may be present without any demonstrable symptoms, silicosis per se should not carry with it a liability for compensation, but rather liability should attach only when the disease results in wage loss” (U.S. Department of Labor, 1937). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1796
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims