Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The agency that promulgates and enforces workplace safety and health standards.

Commentary

safety first

Report: Bush’s Voluntary Program Didn’t Help Job Safety and Health

June 19, 2009

by Mike Hall, AFL-CIO, Jun 19, 2009

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirms what union and other workplace safety advocates have charged for years—the Bush administration’s reliance on voluntary policing by employers of their safety and health actions did not improve worker safety.

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Cry Wolf Quotes

[Brown lung is] an allergy. If you are exposed to cotton dust and develop any kind of respiratory problem, it can be corrected providing you have not been exposed for a very very long period.

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Robert Small, President of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, America’s Textile Reporter Bulletin, August, 1978.
08/01/1978 | Full Details | Law(s): Occupational Safety and Health Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA's Cotton Dust Standard

Did you know that agents of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can raid a place of business any time they want?

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Richard Lesher, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Commerce Publications, 1975.
01/01/1975 | Full Details | Law(s): Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Research shows that no one level of dust is more hazardous than another -- it's a combination of factors… We think the record shows elevators of various size are using a variety of options to reduce explosions.

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The National Grain and Feed Association spokesman Randy Gordon, The Miami Herald.
02/08/1987 | Full Details | Law(s): Occupational Safety and Health Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA Grainhandling Standard

If implemented, they would require employers to establish burdensome and costly new systems intended to track, prevent and provide compensation for an extremely broad class of injuries whose cause is subject to considerable dispute.

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The Bush Administration, The Los Angeles Times, “Senate Overturns Ergonomics Rules on Worker Safety”.
03/07/2001 | Full Details | Law(s): Ergonomics Standard (2000), Occupational Safety and Health Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration
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Backgrounders & Briefs

2011 Death on the Job

The AFL-CIO's annual report about death, illness, and injury at work.

Gauging Control Technology and Regulatory Impacts in Occupational Safety and Health

Information on multiple OSHA regulations and their costs. In almost every case, the regulations were far cheaper than the agency estimated.

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