Occupational Safety and Health Act
The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act was enacted in 1970 to "assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women." The OSH Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) at the federal level and provided that states could run their own safety and health programs as long as those programs were at least as effective as the federal program. It also created the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, to review the agency’s regulations, and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to research necessary areas of focus.
Cry Wolf Quotes
These [ergonomics] regulations would cost employers, large and small, billions of dollars annually while providing uncertain benefits.
Far more could be accomplished by concentrating on motivation and other human factors than on mechanical or chemical factors. There is only a partial, indirect relationship between the enforcement of standards and the promotion of effective occupational safety and health programs.
The Labor Secretary would wield power over every aspect of these businesses….The act also opens the doors for the labor Secretary to: Rewrite local building codes, Revise local fire regulations, Cancel any professional football game should he decide, say, that tag football would be safer and healthier than tackle.
Enforcement of Federal standards through Federal inspectors would result in the most intimate involvement of the Secretary of Labor in all operations affecting interstate commerce….easily result[ing] in blowing up the most minor grievances to very substantial proportions. A minor complaint can very well become a ‘federal case’. Provision of this kind of authority in the Federal government would tempt many an employee representative to boost his stock by calling on the federal government, since the very presence of a federal inspector could be used to demonstrate his importance and influence.
