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

Cry Wolf Quotes

The [vinyl chloride standard would be the] tip of an enormous regulatory iceberg….If government allows workers to be exposed to the gas, some of them may die. If it eliminates all exposure a valuable industry may disappear.

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Paul H. Weaver, Fortune Magazine.

Employers do not deliberately allow work conditions to exist which cause injury or illness. Safety is good business… The goal is to have meaningless standards eliminated and achieve a law which recognizes business efforts to provide safe work places and provides fair treatment for all.

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Chamber of Commerce newsletter, June, 1973.

[Anything beneath the level of 50 parts per million parts per million (ppm) is] uneconomic and all but impossible to meet...[it would be] simply a requirement for liquidation of a major industry.

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The Manufacturing Chemists’ Association (MCA).

Vague statutory requirements and misguided management over the years have given OSHA one of the worst track records in the history of federal agencies. As a result of OSHA operations, the costs of doing business have increased substantially among affected industries. In addition, many employers, both business and farming, have complained of harassment, lack of adequate technical advice, and total disregard for local operations or the realities of doing business….For years, I have introduced and co-sponsored bills to eliminate small businesses from coverage of OSHA….I can think of few other issues which have so consistently irritated my constituents…I shall certainly continue my efforts to eliminate the costly and counterproductive practices of OSHA which lead to uncertainty, increased disillusionment with the federal government, and which show questionable benefits in terms of increased health and safety.

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Senator John Tower (R-TX) writes to A.L. Simmons, Safety Director, Whittacker Corporation.

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.