The author links the current systemic lack of regulation of occupational diseases in Slovenia to the socio-political changes and transformations of political relations that have taken place in the last thirty years – to the paradigm of self-responsibility in the field of health and work and to the social understanding occupational diseases and work-related illnesses. She also focuses on the history of the occupational health and safety profession. She does not look at occupational health and safety from the biomedical viewpoint but rather from the political-economic and socio-cultural perspective. She explains occupational health as a political and social phenomenon related to people's structural vulnerability. In her exploration of the experiences of work-related illness and injury, the author draws on ethnographic research with textile workers.