Still Dying for a Living

A shrewd and revealing interrogation of corporate criminal liability in the wake of one of the most devastating workplace disasters in Canadian history.

Still Dying for a Living investigates the state’s (in)ability to develop effective legal strategies for holding corporations accountable for serious injury and death in the workplace.

Steven Bittle is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa.

Steve Tombs, Professor of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Science, John Moores University, Liverpool, UK:
Steven Bittle’s text is remarkable for being both a forensic dissection of a specific piece of legislation – the Westray Bill – within the context of a specific social issue, corporate manslaughter, while at the same time offering a broader analysis of the ways in which power is exercised in contemporary capitalist economies. Still Dying for a Living is a painstakingly researched and powerfully argued key to understanding our anti-regulatory times. Its analysis and conclusions span national borders and legal cultures.

Harry Glasbeek is a professor emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and the author of Wealth by Stealth: Corporate Crime, Corporate Law, and the Perversion of Democracy:
Bittle examines the aftermath of the Westray disaster to deal with one of the more intriguing problems criminal lawyers, criminologists, and sociologists face. Still Dying for a Living not only tells an interesting story about a drama worthy of public attention, but it also explains how we make laws, how political forces coalesce and confront each other, and how the dominant relations of production contour law making. A well-written and fine contribution to a relatively unexplored field.

Bob Barnetson is a professor of labour relations at Athabasca University and the author of The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada:
This book is timely and needed. Steven Bittle shines light upon the political “solution” to worker demands for greater protection in the workplace and carefully documents the ways in which these demands are sidetracked, both by the dominant legal discourse and by political manoeuvring.