This study investigated the relationship between firm economic well-being and
preventable accident rates in the U.S. motor carrier industry between 1975 and 1986.
In 1980 the U.S. motor carrier industry was deregulated which produced highly competitive
market conditions. Firms facing such conditions were required to devise coping
strategies if they were to survive in this new highly competitive business environment.
This research suggests that financially weakened firms trying to survive in a deregulated
environment would be forced to rely on cost cutting strategies which are inherently
threatening to workplace safety. However, the ability to implement such strategies
would be limited at firms where union contracts restricted management from modifying
work rules. As such, not all motor carriers were expected to exhibit the same relationship
between firm economic well-being and preventable accident rates.
Multiple regression analysis was utilized to assess the relationship between carrier economic
well-being and preventable accident rates at two points in time, pre-deregulatory
1975-76 and post-deregulatory 1985-86. Three major hypotheses were tested. First, the
economic well-being of the firm was hypothesized to have a greater effect on the firm's
preventable accident rate after deregulation than before deregulation. Second, the economic
well-being of the firm was hypothesized to have less effect on preventable accident
rates for union firms than for other types of firms. Third, changes in the effects of firm
economic well·being on preventable accident rates were hypothesized to differ less across
time for union firms than for other types of firms. As expected, union firms and
owner operator firms exhibited a stronger relationship between fum economic well-being
and preventable accident rates following deregulation than prior to its passage. However,
the regression analysis for nonunion firms produced unexpected results. Nonunion
fums exhibited a weaker relationship between fum economic well-being and preventable
accident rates in the post-deregulatory model than was the case in the pre-deregulatory
model. Possible explanations for this unexpected finding are discussed.
In addition, this study challenges a widely accepted approach to analyzing workplace
safety problems. That approach advocates focusing on the inappropriate behavior of
specific individuals when firms are confronted with deteriorating workplace safety conditions rather than investigating organizational level variables which are routinely associated
with unsafe working environments. This distinction is important because merely
removing isolated individuals who are thought to compromise w'orkplace safety will not
provide a meaningful remedy if, in fact, such unsafe behavior is a response to managerial
pressures. This study suggests that such pressuring would trigger :unsafe behavior in almost
any individual confronted with similar circumstances.
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