39 years of OSHA: Are we safer?

Thirty-nine years ago the Occupational Safety and Health Act became law with the promise that all workers would have a safe and healthy work environment.

Since the establishment of OSHA, an estimated 389,000 workers owe their lives to the organization’s efforts to promote health and safety at work. Fatalities in the workplace declined in 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, from 5,840 deaths in 2006 to 5,657 in 2007. That’s a drop in work-related fatalities of 3.13 percent.

Industries affected most dramatically during the OSHA years include mining, which saw a 75 percent decline in fatalities since 1970, and construction, with 83 percent fewer fatalities and 73 percent fewer workrelated injuries in 2007 than in the year
when OSHA was established.

Even one serious injury at your place of business is too many, and the AFL-CIO joins other pro-worker organizations in calling for improvements in workers’ comp
services, such as the following:

• OSHA protection extended to exempt workers, including 8.8 million state and local public employees, flight attendants and others in the transportation industry, who are not covered by OSHA’s regulations.
• Updating standards such as exposure limits for toxic substances that haven’t been modified since 1971.
• Providing ergonomic safety standards, which do not exist.
• More training of immigrant workers, who account for a disporportionate share of injuries, in their rights at work, the laws that protect them, health and safety principles, and steps to stop the increase in work-related fatalities for hispanics.
• Stronger laws to protect whistle blowers from retaliation by employers.
• Increased staffing to improve the current coverage of OSHA inspectors from 799—enough to inspect a workplace once in 137 years—and 1,244 inspectors for state OSHA plans, enough for one inspection in 60 years.
• Stiffer penalties for serious violations of safety laws, along with increases in certain penalties such as the current average of $7,693 for a fatality case.

These and other changes to worker safety laws will be considered over the coming months. The goal of providing a safe and healthy workplace remains the same. OSHA claims that its ability to deliver the programs and standards needed to achieve this goal depends on adequate funding and staffing as well as support at the highest levels of government.

At the workplace, safety and health depends to a great extent on the diligence of the safety and general managers.