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
[The strong Democratic bill will] bring about conditions in the business community which will be chaotic…and could bring about a breakdown between government and those in labor and management with which it deals.
The Act broadly authorizes the Secretary to grab any police powers in the occupational health and safety fields that are now held by states. State safety officials could be forced to report directly to the federal Secretary when he says so.
[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.
I believe that Congress and the people must realize that if this bill…is passed, we are direct[ing] attention to less than 10 percent of the safety problems in the country….From my own personal experience and evaluation of available statistics, the basic cause (85% to 95%) of occupational injuries is some type of ‘people failure.’ Inadequate equipment or facilities accounts for a very small percent of the total injuries experienced….‘people failure’ cannot be eliminated by legislation.
