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Refusing Work To Avoid Serious Injury Or Death: An Empirical Study Of Legal Protections Before And During Covid-19, Michael H. Leroy
Refusing Work To Avoid Serious Injury Or Death: An Empirical Study Of Legal Protections Before And During Covid-19, Michael H. Leroy
Pepperdine Law Review
I present data on court and administrative rulings involving employees who were disciplined or quit after refusing to work due to concerns about death or injury. My sample of 109 pre-pandemic cases from 1944–2020, and its comparison to twelve COVID-19 cases in 2020 and 2021, shows an emerging picture of new forms of work refusal. The cases before COVID-19 were concentrated in mining, construction, and transportation. In contrast, the COVID-19 cases span new occupations in social services, education, law, healthcare, protective services, food preparation, and building cleaning. Before COVID-19, employees lost most work refusal cases because laws such as the …