Philadelphia Worker and Community Right-to-Know Act
The Philadelphia Worker and Community Right-to-Know Act requires employers that use any of 450 chemical substances to file Material Safety Data Sheets with various local government agencies. (An additional list of 99 chemicals will trigger the filing requirement if they are emitted from the workplace.) Material Safety Data Sheets must be made available to the public, upon request, through the governmental agencies where they are filed. Containers of these chemicals must be clearly labeled. (This was the first municipal right-to-know law.)
Cry Wolf Quotes
[The right-to-know law would be] harmful to the economy and not very helpful to the air.
[W]e all probably use salt, sodium chloride, on our food….Salt has been included in the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (published by NIOSH). The toxic dose of salt needed to kill half the test animals is about 1/8 ounce of salt for each 2.2 pounds of weight of the animal. Does this mean that the City of Philadelphia should regulate table salt?
You are going to ruin our business. And I think that’s pretty serious.
No jobs have left the city because of the toxic-disclosure law…. But whatever the figures for a statewide right-to-know law, it is hard conceive of them outstripping the astronomical costs—in tarnished corporate images, in legal expenses and in compensating and caring for sick employees—that await businesses without formal, accepted mechanism to warn workers about the health risks they face on the job.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Dying To Know: A Historical Analysis of the Right-To-Know Movement
This survey provides a sweeping analysis of the right-to-know movement in America.
