Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha)

• Author: Mary Lush, Val Hinton
• Pages: 551-552

Page 551

Prior to and during the early 1970s, workplace safety concerns became an issue in the United States. No consistent guidelines required employers to provide safe and healthful working environments. Workers were experiencing job-related injuries, and too often those injuries were fatal. To address these concerns, Congress enacted PL 91-596 (Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970), which established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a federal agency headed by an Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. OSHA is functionally structured, with its major programs grouped into eight directorates (Administrative Programs, Construction, Compliance Programs, Federal-State Operations, Health Standards Programs, Policy, Safety Standards Programs, and Technical Support) as well as an Office of Statistics. Senior executive service members head these directorates and offices. Regional offices and subordinate area and district offices or service centers carry out various programs.

OSHA's mission, as set forth in the 1970 legislation, is to "assure…every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions." Therefore, OSHA developed and implemented certain standards and enforcement procedures, as well as employers' compliance assistance plans to help employers achieve and maintain healthful and safe workplaces.

Organizations with ten or more employees are subject to OSHA regulation, and those not in compliance may suffer large fines. For instance, OSHA proposed significant fines against a steel firm where alleged safety violations cost two workers their lives. Since OSHA was created, workplace fatalities have decreased by half, but every day about seventeen Americans die on the job.

OSHA strives to create worker awareness of and commitment to resolving workplace safety and health issues by collecting and studying data to identify workplace safety and health problems, as well as achieving problem resolution through regulation, compliance assistance, and enforcement strategies. To enforce regulations, OSHA conducts unannounced, on-site inspections. Data on the OSHA Facts homepage indicate that 34,264 federal and 56,623 state inspections were conducted by OSHA during Fiscal Year 1997, and 87,710 federal and 147,610 state violations were documented. For both federal and state violations, approximately $147 billion in penalties were assessed.

While businesses...