I interpreted "the workplace" as him referring narrowly to white collar work (either in an office doing clerical/technical work or in a mobile setting like a salesperson).

We might not be crushed in machinery as children or poisoned by the products we produce at the same rate as in the industrial era, but that was seen in the same way as humans living today to be an acceptable cost of making a living. The question is of the acceptance of compulsory discomfort leading to potential harm later being an unquestioned norm.