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Treading on eggshells
Judge John Prosser's description of workers suffering from Repetitive Strain Injury (R51) as people with 'eggshell personalities' whose crippling complaints had been brought on by their 'lack of confidence' at work, was the sort of judgement employers love to hear because of its enormous implications for thousands of workers.
Prosser's cynical comments were part of his recent High Court ruling in the case of journalist Rafiq Mughal, who was claiming damages for pain and loss of earnings against his former employers, news agency Reuters. Mughal's hands were so swollen that it looked as if they had been 'pumped up with air' and he was constantly in pain. He claimed that his condition was a result of his work on a keyboard from 1987-9 and that his company had not provided advice on correct posture when using a VDU and the necessity of regular screen breaks.
It was a bitter irony that while the case was taking place I was seeing a doctor who is considered to be the specialist in RSI or 'work related upper limb disorders' for a diagnosis of my own complaint. He also happened to be the expert medical witness for Mughal and his response to the comments was that he was as dismayed as I was.
While Mughal's case wasn't really a test case in the sense that it would set a legal precedent, what was disconcerting was the possible confidence it might give to an employing class that already proposes sweeping deregulation of current health and safety guidelines and laws.
RSI is a catch-all term that is used to describe a variety of upper limb complaints usually resulting from intensive hand use occupations. It is not limited to journalists but is a danger to many types of workers including musicians, hairdressers, keyboard users and assembly line workers. Nor is it new--the problem has been known for 150 years, but only recently have the consequences of failing to diagnose it early been understood.
The complaint causes intense pain and often loss of function in muscles, tendons, joints and ligaments resulting from excessive or incorrect use. The effects can be weakness, loss of control, speed and accuracy or the inability to move the fingers independently, as well as tingling or numbness in the fingers. At worst, it can cause a complete seizure, which may be temporary, but in serious cases it is hard for the injury to mend without total or long term rest, which in most cases means giving up your job.
It won't just affect your job, either. I also have RSI and since my hands seized up I have had difficulty with various day to day tasks: inability to write constantly for any length of time, carrying shopping, turning taps, opening cans or twist tops, cleaning and even holding SW on paper sales. The National Union of Journalists has an RSI support group, where some people have even complained of an inability to perform particular sexual acts. The depression and distress that are part of RSI stem from constant pain, inability to work and worries about money--not lack of confidence or laziness.
According to government figures there are fewer than 500 cases of RSI in the United Kingdom in an average year. But the 1990 Labour Force Survey estimated that more than 75,000 people were suffering from an upper limb disorder. The latter figure is probably the more realistic, given the number of workers who have to perform repetitive tasks as part of their jobs. Employers such as British Telecom, Vauxhall, Lucas and Bernard Matthews have had to pay out compensation to workers who have won claims for repetitive strain injuries.
Contrary to what Prosser says, RSI is a medical condition which should be in medical books and on the prescribed list of industrial diseases and injuries.
Simone Kane, freelance journalist
Sound of revolution
Leon Theremin, who died last month, was a Bolshevik and physicist, who invented what is now referred to as the synthesiser during the 1920s. He also invented the first television device in 1926. The vacuum tube or valve, invented in 1915, was the invention that has enabled the development of our present day computing networks. The valve opened the way for electricity to be harnessed to operate switches which turn on or off connections between separate pieces of machinery. These pieces of machinery could then be integrated to produce more complicated machines. Theremin was the person who took this idea and applied it to music.
How did Theremin relate his scientific interest to the political ideas of the time? Interviewed in the US magazine Keyboard (Feb 1992) Theremin states: 'Einstein was a physicist and theorist, but I was not a theorist--I was an inventor--so we did not have much in common. I had much more in kinship with someone like Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin), who was interested in how the whole world is created.'
Lenin was very interested in all inventions of the day and, after hearing about Theremin's musical invention at a very successful electronics conference in Moscow, invited Theremin, in 1920, to perform his electronic music for him. Theremin performed Glinka's 'The Lark' which Lenin liked and then showed Lenin how to perform the song using 'The Theremin' himself.
Composers such as Varese, Schillinger and the conductor Leopold Stokowski commissioned various newly developed electronic musical instruments for use in their compositions and arrangements. Theremin developed the 'Terpitone' dance studio in which a dancer could manipulate sound by the use of the movement of the body.
However, during the 1930s Theremin suffered persecution at the hands of the Stalinists. On returning from America in 1939 he underwent eight months of imprisonment and intensive questioning. In 1966 Theremin was put on a state pension but continued to look for a space to work on his inventions. He found a space in Moscow's 'conservative' music Conservatory. But when Nuzhin, an assistant director at the Conservatory, learnt of the nature of Theremin's work he stated: 'Electricity is not good for music. Electricity is to be used for electrocution.' Nuzhin ordered all of Theremin's work to be removed.
Despite this sort of condemnation Theremin found work at Moscow University in the department of acoustics. But again the narrow mindedness of Stalinism and the restrictions imposed upon technological development by state capitalism fell upon Theremin's work. In 1978 the chairman of the physics department considered music not to be a science and told Theremin to vacate his room at the university.
Leon Theremin's largely untapped genius is testimony to the wastefulness of capitalism.
Ray Brazier
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