Berman, Daniel M. Ch. 1 "Why
Work Kills." Death on the Job: Occupational Health and
Safety Struggle in the United States. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978.
Pp 1-37.
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Occupational Safety Health Act Annotated Bibliographies |
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Berman, Daniel M. Ch. 1 "Why
Work Kills." Death on the Job: Occupational Health and |
Chapter one in this text begins with the story of a man by the name of Marcos Vela. Marcos worked as a machine tender in an asbestos factory in 1935. In 1959 he received a medical examination by a company doctor concentrating on the detection of lung disease. In his x-ray, it was noted that there was a finding of occupationally related disease. Even with this finding it was not suggested that any changes be made in the working environment, and Marcos was not informed that he was developing asbestosis. In 1962 another examination was done by a company doctor, and this time it was found that Marcos had the presence of lung disease. Again, he was told nothing of his condition. In 1965 he was given another medical exam it was found that he had work-related pneumoconiosis. As with the other times, Marcos was told nothing. In 1968 Marcos began complaining of coughing and shortness of breath at his doctors examination. This time the x-ray showed a “round glass appearance.” The company nurse told Marcos he was fine. That August Marcos was hospitalized because he was unable to catch his breath. He would never return to work again. For ten years the company not only knew one of its workers was developing asbestosis, they did not tell him of his condition. The company also did not take any measures to help prevent further exposure to the asbestos. In November of 1973 Marcos took the company physician to court on a malpractice suit and was awarded $351,000. His lung capacity is down to one-fourth of normal and he stops to take rapid shallow breaths when he speaks quickly. Marcos has said “it’s hard on my family; with all this money I have I can’t get my health back.”
The political movement that created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) act of 1970 has called increasing attention to the importance of preventing casualties. Working conditions are now on the permanent agenda of workers, unions and the U.S. public. The rapid industrialization of the United States produced a multitude of new dangers for workers. By the end of the nineteenth century, large corporations and sweatshops began employing millions of immigrants in dirty jobs. Women’s work was lower paid than men's and sometimes more dangerous. On March 25, 1911, the upper three stories of a ten-story building in New York City caught fire. Most of the doors were locked or blocked, or opened inward, trapping the workers inside. There were no fire escapes. One hundred and forty-five of the five hundred employees, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, were burned to death or died jumping from the building. Massachusetts passed the first factory inspection law in 1867, and Illinois in the 1890s. However, these efforts were unenforceable. For example, in Illinois, when Mrs. Florence Kelley was appointed factory inspector by Governor John P. Altgeld, not a lawyer or prosecuting attorney would handle the violations that she detected.
The organization which became the National Safety Council was conceived in 1911 at a meeting of the Association of Iron and Steel Electrical Engineers. The National Safety Council was formalized the next year in Milwaukee to the incantations of Dr. Edwin A. Steiner. The National Safety Council was seen as a “separate safety organization, national in scope, that could better serve as a coordination agency and general clearing house for all phases of accident prevention.” Serious attacks on the compensation-safety apparatus began in the late 1960s in the coal mines. Coalminers began to fight for state laws granting them workers’ compensation benefits for disability caused by black lung. Nixon finally signed to Occupational safety and Health (OSHA) Act of 1970 into law on December 29, 1970. The law promises much more that it has delivered. Employers are required to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees.” To guarantee compliance, the law gives OSHA the power to inspect working places, make citations for violations, and propose penalties. Standards are set by the OSHA administration with the advice of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
This chapter, though long, provided a lot of helpful insight into why OSHA was formed and how it was formed. The stories given about workers becoming ill, or injured in the work place were well explained and easy to understand. Reading the stories made it very easy to understand why workers were so adamant about forming an organization that would help to make to work place a safer place.
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Berman, Daniel M.
Ch. 4 "The
Compensation Safety Apparatus."
Death on the
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Despite the Passage of OSHA, 85% of the funds for health and safety are still spent by private businesses and insurance carriers. As a result, almost all of the professional specialists in health and safety are directly employed by business. Most of the remainder tend to work for federal or state governments. The constant struggle to minimize health and safety costs colors all the activities and attitudes of those employed in the private sector. Business-funded institutions were the only organized constituency in occupational safety and health until the end of the 1960s. Organizations such as the National Safety Council (NSC), the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCII), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), etc. make up the heart of the traditional compensation-safety apparatus. Differences in philosophy between the organizations have been few, even where their membership is made up of governmental rather than private employees. In the fierce conflicts over standards-setting and enforcement under OSHA the traditional groups have often been bypassed by consulting firms or by trade groups. The doctrines and modes of action developed by the traditional organizations, however, still dominate business activity in health and safety. Today the National safety Council operates on an annual budget of about $13 million, sometimes bolstered by federal grants. Half of its program is devoted to occupational safety and health. The organization heavily advertises and promotes safety in all spheres of life around the country, and is best known to the general public as the stern prophet of holiday weekend death tolls on the highway. During WW II the U.S. Public Health Service carried out its first attempts to determine dangerous levels of exposure to airborne contaminants. By 1946 a list of the “maximum allowable concentrations” for a number of airborne contaminants was made generally available, thought they were not legally enforceable. Since WW II there has been an explosion of new chemicals into the workplace and the environment. The number of commercially available chemical compounds rose from 17,000 to 47,000 between 1958 and 1971. Since there are only 500 in the OSHA regulations for existing hazardous substances, thousands of known and suspected toxic chemicals lack exposure standards. With the passage of the new federal health and safety law, responsibility for setting health and safety standards shifted from the private business groups to OSHA in the Department of Labor. Standards-setting now requires NIOSH to review the relevant scientific literature and recommend a standard to OSHA, which then holds public hearings at which interested parties can state their case. Even though these meetings use a tremendous amount of time and money, they have allowed workers and their representatives a much greater voice than in the past.
This article was a great way to see how far OSHA and its standards have come and how far they still have to go. The work place may seem safe to work in because people are aware of the chemicals that will make them sick, however it is frightening to learn how many chemicals are out there that are not looked at by OSHA as dangerous and able to enforce to not be in the workplace.
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Berman, Daniel M.
Ch. 6 "The Future Politics of working
Conditions." Death on the |
According to the Census Bureau figures, people earn more money, work less, die later and live in bigger houses than people did in 1900. When no jobs are available, or someone is too sick or too old to work, they can apply for unemployment, social security, or welfare, all of which are programs won through labor pressure. However the relative positions of labor and capital remain unchanged since the turn of the century. A small minority owns most of the wealth and runs the country. These people also generally determine the health conditions of labor. U.S. capitalism is dominated mostly by gigantic companies which plan their activities on a global, rather than a national scale. In the U.S. with the relatively high wages, new factories usually use tremendous amounts of energy and capital and create very few jobs. Jobs have been rationalized throughout the economy leaving workers with more of less to do than ever before. If the characteristics maladies of U.S. steel in 1905 were accidents, tuberculosis, and exhaustion, the quintessential ills of the Age of Exxon and IBM would have to be stress and heart disease and cancer and boredom. Capitalist enterprises, with their need to maximize profits and minimize production costs, have an inherently disruptive effect on people’s lives. Periodic unemployment makes it difficult for families to plain their lives together, and subjects families to endless fights over money. As technological innovations occur, whole classes of skills become “unsaleable” on the job market. When all the sources of stress are combines with speedup and the constant introduction of new chemical, physical, and electronic hazards, the effects are particularly deadly. It is clear that the occupational movement by itself will be unable to directly attack the roots of stress. However, the movement will certainly be able to help by exposing and clarifying the connections between the built-in insecurities, of life under advanced monopoly capitalism and stress, which conventional medicine blames on people’s unhealthy lifestyle.
New studies have shown that the accident rate is five or ten times what people have been lead to believe and millions of workers are exposed to poisons on the job. It is now accepted that far more people are killed be slow-developing occupational diseases than by work accidents. The major increases in benefits since the middle 1960s have been for temporary injuries rather than for much more costly permanent disability such as back injuries and respiratory diseases. The OSHA administration was set up under the anti-labor administration of Nixon and Ford, so OSHA has generally been a captive to business, unless its hand is forced. The new OSHA regulation requiring employers to pay for workers’ “lost-time” at work during OSHA inspections is being held up by the litigation, and the administration’s top economic advisor, Charles Schulze. In the immediate future the rising cost of energy is likely to have a harmful effect on working conditions. Although little thought has been given to the problem. Factory owners are forced to make their employees work harder and faster to preserve their profit margins. The most important tasks for the occupational health movement in the near future should be the preservation of legal rights and the building of new institutions to support the struggles of workers in the shops. Experience has shown that if the issues are not dealt with by the people on the shop floor, the issues will not be dealt with at all. Union locals should also band together with other union locals to form regional committees on safety and health.
This article was able to provide a large amount of helpful and interesting information. However, this information did not appear to be provided from a non-biased standpoint. The author did not appear to look at what OSHA has done to improve the working environment from what it used to be. We still have a long way to go to make working environments perfect, but the author seems to want the working environment to be perfect already.
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Del Broccolo, Joseph Carmine. “Workplace Negligence and OSHA’s Inequities.”11 May 2003. http://www.rso.cornell.edu/prelaw/osha_inequity.htm |
History has shown that the employer who willfully violates the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) and other safety principles leading to the serious injury of a rank and file worker, seems to get nothing more than a financial penalty and a warning concerning future violations. This is disturbing considering the permanent damage received by the employee and the minimal amount of compensation. It is estimated that out of the approximately 138,594 citations issued, the total amount of $83,158,232.57 is issued in fines. That gives an average of $600.00 per citation issued. Often times companies will not report a hazard or an injury if they can get away with not reporting it. In one case an employer did not report a hazard in the workplace. While the employer claimed it wasn’t willful, the court disagreed, as injuries were as severe as finger amputations, broken bones, eye injuries and severe burns that resulted in long absences from work. The employer was found guilty but only subjected to fines associated with the citations. Another case dealing with several sub-contracting companies that work with NASA’s space shuttle launch platform committed several violations concerning the absence of guardrails on high pad platforms. In this case, SECRETARY OF LABOR vs. ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORP tried in 1996; again the companies in question were dismissed with a simple slap on the wrist. It is a common fact that if an individual is driving in an unsafe manor and he unintentionally injures or kills another human being he may be charged with manslaughter or gross negligence resulting in jail time and hefty civil fines. However when an employer allows his employees to operate unsafe machinery, resulting in loss of limbs, or life, he is given a mere slap on the wrist and told to not do it again. Although OSHA has set standards on amounts of potentially hazardous substances allowed in the air of the workplace it has often failed to provide an accurate measure. It was presented in this article that the fines and punishment be much stronger and actually implemented. Jail time should be given to an employer who knowingly allows a hazardous condition exist in the workplace, and an employee is seriously injured are killed. They should not be allowed to have a “slap on the wrist” simply because they are a business owner.
Reading this article was a shock because it was very different from all the other articles I have come across that talk about OSHA. All other articles regarding OSHA have been biased and have only said good things about OSHA. It was good to see a view from the other side. There is not a committee that exists that does not have troubles. By reading an article that has a different point of view was refreshing to see that people realize that OSHA is not perfect. OSHA is an organization that if not kept an eye on, will try to get away with as much as they can.
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Murolo, Priscilla, and A.B. Chitty.
Ch. 7 "The Labor Movement of the Twenties."
From the |
For the labor movement, the 1920s were a time of defeat, retreat, and division. Total Union membership fell from about 3.6 million to 3.4 million. Twenty rail unions dropped demands for permanent government control of the railroads in return for union recognition and joined with railroad executives to draft the Railway Labor Act. The act passed in 1926 and set up a system of compulsory arbitration and presidential intervention that made legal strikes almost impossible. “Dopey Benny” Fein enforced labor rules on employers in New York’s needles trades and sold favors. Depending on the size, removing an individual usually cost $200.00. Fein’s mob could also help inside a union, persuading any trouble makers to retire. Profits from Prohibition promoted even more syndication in the crime industry, and gangsters like Al Capone in Chicago and Dutch Schultz in New York City took over some local unions entirely, raided their treasuries, and sold “strike insurance” to employers. National Union officials proved unable or unwilling to clean out these gangsters, and sometimes shared in the profits while organizing activity faltered.
Agricultural workers began organizing again in the late 1920s. The labor movement in Puerto Rico and the Philippines moved into politics and slipped into accommodation and corruption. The depression began sooner and lasted longer on the island than on the mainland. When the PSP took over Puerto Rico’s Department of labor in the early 1930s its appointees showed little interest in wages and workers conditions. Ethnic divisions retarded workers’ solidarity, In Hawaii, the planters discouraged labor organizing by recruiting many nationalities and giving each its own holiday.
Reading this article helped me to understand what working conditions were like in the past and what workers had to go through. Not only were their jobs tough, but they were treated unfairly by the people who employed them. Workers not only had to deal with a dangerous workplace, but they had to think about what would happen to them if they got caught up in the wrong group or caught participating in the wrong activity.
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Murolo, Priscilla, and A.B. Chitty.
Ch. 10 "The Sixties in the Workplace." From the
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By the late 1960s a strike wave was rising and labor leaders were facing increasingly militant dissent from below. This surge of labor activism centered on workplace rights, but more broadly than ever before. At a rally, Malcom X pronounced “You don’t get the job done unless you show the man that your not afraid to go to jail.” Hit hard by layoffs during the 1969-1970 slump in the auto industry, the League turned to community organizing. However black rank-and-file caucuses pushed black officials in bolder directions. An Ad-Hoc Committee of Concerned Negro Auto Workers got the UAW to stop opposing black candidates for local offices and they began winning elections in black and even white-majority locals. Latinos formed a parallel organization, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), founded in 1973 at a conference in Washington, D.C.,. New organizations united women workers, both union members and others. In 1971, 600 women from twenty-four cities met in Washington, D.C., for the first national conference of domestic workers. They represented local groups formed since the late 1960s, mostly black women with experience in the civil rights movement. Labor feminism also brought union women together across occupations. San Francisco activist founded the Union Women’s Alliance to gain Equality, whose mission statement declared that “women’s liberation must be for the working women, beginning on the job.” Members aided drives to unionize women workers, promoted the formation of women’s caucuses, and campaigned to preserve and extend protective labor laws. Lesbian and Gay rights also became labor issues, though on a smaller scale. The gay teachers association formed a caucus in New York City’s United Federation of Teachers. The Gay nurses alliance started in 1973, both men and women joined chapters. In 1974, Michigan negotiated the first contract to prohibit discrimination for sexual orientation. Workers railed around health and safety issues on an unprecedented scale. In the late 1960s the United Mine Workers backed the Black Lung Association’s campaign for compensation for black lung disease, caused by breathing coal dust.
In 1970 Congress established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, authorized to set workplace safety and health standards and monitor compliance. However OSHA was not up to the task. In its first sixteen years OSHA issued only eighteen health and safety regulations, and even at its most active could inspect less than 2 percent of U.S. workplaces in any given year. Strikes over health and safety issues actually doubled in the first four years after OSHA’s authorization. Though strikes by public employees were almost always against the law, they broke out repeatedly anyway, among hospital workers, teachers, office clerks, social workers, fire fighters, police, and others. Each victory encouraged others to take their grievances to the streets. The first national walkout by federal employees began on march 18, 1970 when postal workers in New York City staged a wildcat strike for higher pay. It quickly spread to Boston, Pittsburgh, Akron, Houston, and other cities. The strike ended two days later, when the government agreed to negotiate; postal workers got substantial raises and strikers got amnesty.
This article was short but was full of information. It was helpful to see the struggles workers had to go through just to have some decent pay and a clean working environment. Since strikes seem to be so common today, it was interesting to read how workers used to have to struggle to have strikes.
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"Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).” 12 May 2003. <http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/carter-osha.htm>. |
The dominant feature of OSHA during the Carter Administration was the establishment of "common sense priorities. "The priorities were: (1) getting serious about serious dangers; (2) simplifying regulations and eliminating unnecessary rules; and (3) helping America's small businesses save money and lives. Within the framework of getting serious about serious dangers, OSHA emphasized the need to protect the worker's health as well as safety. In 1980, OSHA announced the nation's first comprehensive policy to identify and regulate workplace carcinogens. As one of the initial steps in implementing that standard, OSHA issued for public comment a "candidate list" of substances for further scientific review as potential carcinogens. While rulemaking on the generic cancer policy was in progress, OSHA issued final standards limiting worker exposure to: benzene, the pesticide DBCP, arsenic, cotton dust, acrylonitrile, and lead. The lead standard was especially notable because, for the first time in the history of OSHA's health standards, it contained provisions for medical removal protection, in terms of pay, seniority, or other employment rights and benefits. Other highlights of the agency's safety standards development program included the promulgation in 1980 of regulations to protect an estimated 322,000 workers who service potentially explosive tube‑type truck, bus, trailer and other tires using multi‑piece rim wheels; and a final standard for perimeter guarding of low‑pitched roofs to protect workers from falls, also promulgated in 1980. The agency also acted resolutely in dealing with serious violators of safety and health regulations. In February 1980, the agency cited the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, the nation's largest shipbuilder, with 617 alleged violations of federal safety and health regulations, and proposed penalties totaling $786,190, more than double the largest amount ever proposed previously against any one firm. In 1980, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision (Marshall v. Whirlpool), upheld the right of workers to refuse to do a job which presented an immediate danger of death or serious injury. Also in 1980, however, the Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the Fifth Circuit which set aside OSHA's benzene standard ruling. OSHA has failed to make an adequate formal finding that the standard would remedy a significant health risk. All employers with 10 or fewer employees were exempt from OSHA's record keeping requirements unless selected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its annual survey of on‑the‑job injuries and illnesses. The reduction in subsequent paperwork was estimated to have saved employers about $100 million annually.
Reading this article provided proof of efforts that OSHA has made over the years in trying to improve the working conditions for employees. This did help to demonstrate that OSHA cannot do it alone. They need help from employees, employers, and all political parties. If people want things to get better in the work place than they need to help, they cannot just sit back and complain about it expecting someone else to fix it for you.
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“OSHA facts.” 11 May 2003. <http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/oshafacts.html>. |
OSHA missions is to insure healthful workplaces in America. Since the agency was created, workplace incidents have been cut in half and occupational injury and illness has declined 40 percent. In 2001, occupational injury and illness rates dropped to the lowest level -- 5.7 cases per 100 workers -- since the U.S. began collecting this information, part of an eight-year downward trend. There were 5.2 million injuries/illnesses among private sector firms. There were 5,900 worker deaths in 2001, less than one percent fewer than in 2000. Fatalities related to highway incidents, electrocutions, fires and explosions, and contact with objects or equipment all declined. Deaths from job-related falls increased 10 percent while homicides decreased to their lowest levels since the census was first conducted in 1992. (These figures do not include fatalities related to the events of September 11, 2001). OSHA began Fiscal Year 2003 with a staff of 2,303 including 1,123 inspectors. The agency's budget request is $454 million. Under the Bush Administration, OSHA is focusing on three strategies: 1. strong, fair, and effective enforcement; 2. outreach, education, and compliance assistance; and 3. partnerships and voluntary programs. OSHA plays a vital role in preventing on the job injury and illness through outreach education. OSHA provides a variety of material that is available in print or online for employers and employees to educate themselves. OSHA strives to help not only those who speak English as a first language, but also those who do not speak English as a first or second language. To help this effort, OSHA provides a Spanish webpage and Spanish speaking operators. OSHA's Alliance Program enables trade or professional organizations, businesses, labor organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies that share an interest in workplace safety and health to collaborate with OSHA to prevent injuries and illnesses in the workplace. OSHA and the organization sign a formal agreement with goals that address training and education, outreach and communication, and promoting the national dialogue on workplace safety and health.
Even though this article does not have an example of any cases, it was full of helpful information about OSHA. With the ever increasing worry about the economy, it is good to see a government agency is still concerned with the safety of the workers and is conscious about how they are spending their money. The budget requested by OSHA seems huge, but you must consider how many businesses are out there and how much money is required to employ enough people to keep and eye on all those businesses.
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Roberts, Joseph, M. SR.
Ch. 1 "A Basic explanation of OSHA, The Occupational Safety |
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, or OSHA, is a federal law that took effect on April 28, 1971. This law requires mandatory compliance by every employer and employee in the nation. OSHA is designed to assure safe and healthful working conditions for every worker in the nation. If you are an employer or an employee in any state, District of Columbia, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Wake Island, Outer Continental Shelf lands, and Canal Zone, you must comply with OSHA law. There is no approved state OSHA program so employees and employers must comply with the federal OSHA requirements. If you are having a hard time getting your business up to the safety standards of OSHA you can apply for assistance from OSHA. If you qualify under the Small Business Act, you can apply for a small business loan to help meet the cost of complying. You may be able to get the government to pay for testing of a certain hazard to see if your employees are affected by it. You can also ask the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to determine whether any substance in your workplace in potentially toxic. NIOSH will tell you how to remove a hazard without launching a full-scale inspection. The law is clearly stated that every employer is required to furnish to all employees an environment free from recognized hazards causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm. The employer has the specific duty of complying with safety and health standards and all applicable rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to the act. All employees are required to comply with all safety and health standards, rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to the act that are applicable to their actions and conduct.
This chapter provided me with a good overview of what OSHA is and why it is everyone’s responsibility to comply with the rules. This chapter helped to explain that the employer is not solely responsible for the safety of the employee. The employee must also make an attempt to keep him or herself safe while at work. By laying the law out in an easy to read format with charts and answers following questions, it was easy to interpret the law.
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Roberts, Joseph, M. SR.
Ch. 5 "Citations and Penalties." OSHA Compliance Manual. |
One of the commonly asked questions is “will I receive a citation for a violation?” The answer is yes. The OSHA inspector must issue a citation for each violation detected. You must receive a notice for minor violations that do not immediately or directly affect the safety of health of the employees. Once a citation is given it must be posted at or near each place a violation has occurred. It is required to be posted for at least three days or until the violation is corrected, whichever is longer. Citations can range anywhere from a $1000.00 fine to a $10000.00 fine or jail time served. Jail time can range anywhere from 6 months to life, depending on the seriousness of the crime. Fees are determined by the severity of the crime. A serious violation exists if there is “substantial probability” that the consequences of an accident resulting from the violation will be death or serious physical harm. Before issuing a citation, three areas must be examined, 1. what is serious physical harm? 2. likelihood of injury, and 3. employer’s knowledge. If it is found that the employer is in serious violation they can be issued a fine up to $1000.00 for each violation. If the person cited chooses not to pay the fine or is late in paying the fine, they can be charged a $1000.00 per day the fine goes unpaid.
In this chapter it was surprising to see the amount that fines could be if a company is not complying with OSHA standards. Knowing a fair amount of company’s that are not compliant with OSHA standards all the time, this news was almost scary. There are so many things out there that could cause a business to lose money. Even if the employer is unaware they are breaking an OSHA regulation, they can still be fined to maximum fine.
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