OSHA and NIOSH Turn 50.

OSHA and NIOSH turn 50 in 2021. Practice resources are described as well as links for following the respective 50-year anniversary reflections.

A Short History of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States.

As this short history of occupational safety and health before and after establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) clearly demonstrates, labor has always recognized perils in the workplace, and as a result, workers' safety and health have played an essential part of the battles for shorter hours, higher wages, and better working conditions. OSHA's history is an intimate part of a long struggle over the rights of working people to a safe and healthy workplace. In the early decades, strikes over working conditions multiplied. The New Deal profoundly increased the role of the federal government in the field of occupational safety and health. In the 1960s, unions helped mobilize hundreds of thousands of workers and their unions to push for federal legislation that ultimately resulted in the passage of the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. From the 1970s onward, industry developed a variety of tactics to undercut OSHA. Industry argued over what constituted good science, shifted the debate from health to economic costs, and challenged all statements considered damaging.

"Educate the Individual... to a Sane Appreciation of the Risk" A History of Industry's Responsibility to Warn of Job Dangers Before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and the Workers Right to Know laws later in that decade were signature moments in the history of occupational safety and health. We have examined how and why industry leaders came to accept that it was the obligation of business to provide information about the dangers to health of the materials that workers encountered. Informing workers about the hazards of the job had plagued labor-management relations and fed labor disputes, strikes, and even pitched battles during the turn of the century decades. Industry's rhetorical embrace of the responsibility to inform was part of its argument that government regulation of the workplace was not necessary because private corporations were doing it.

Organized labor and the origins of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

New Solutions is republishing this 1991 article by Robert Asher, which reviews the history of organized labor's efforts in the United States to secure health and safety protections for workers. The 1877 passage of the Massachusetts factory inspection law and the implementation of primitive industrial safety inspection systems in many states paralleled labor action for improved measures to protect workers' health and safety. In the early 1900s labor was focusing on workers' compensation laws. The New Deal expanded the federal government's role in worker protection, supported at least by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), but challenged by industry and many members of the U.S. Congress. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO backed opposing legal and inspection strategies in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. Still, by the late 1960s, several unions were able to help craft the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and secure new federal protections for U.S. workers.

A legacy of struggle: the OSHA ergonomics standard and beyond, Part I.

In November 2000, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an ergonomics standard to prevent debilitating work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). It was rescinded by Congress within four months. We explore how this story unfolded over two decades of collaboration and conflict. Part I provides an overview of the historical context of the struggle for a standard, followed by interviews with key players from labor, academia and government. They provide a snapshot of the standard; discuss the prevalence of WMSDs in the context of changing work organization; give insight into the role of unions and of scientific debate within the context of rulemaking; and uncover the basis for the groundbreaking OSHA citations that laid the foundation for a standard. Part II interviews further explore the anti-regulatory political landscape of the 1990s that led to repeal of the standard, discuss the impact of the struggle beyond the standard, and describe creative approaches for the future.

A legacy of struggle: the OSHA ergonomics standard and beyond, Part II.

The OSHA ergonomics standard issued in 2000 was repealed within four months through a Congressional resolution that limits future ergonomics rulemaking. This section continues the conversation initiated in Part I, documenting a legacy of struggle for an ergonomics standard through the voices of eight labor, academic, and government key informants. Part I summarized important components of the standard; described the convergence of labor activism, research, and government action that laid the foundation for a standard; and highlighted the debates that characterized the rulemaking process. Part II explores the anti-regulatory political landscape of the 1990s, as well as the key opponents, power dynamics, and legal maneuvers that led to repeal of the standard. This section also describes the impact of the ergonomics struggle beyond the standard itself and ends with a discussion of creative state-level policy initiatives and coalition approaches to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) in today's sociopolitical context.

The labor movement's role in gaining federal safety and health standards to protect America's workers.

In the United States, unions sometimes joined by worker advocacy groups (e.g., Public Citizen and the American Public Health Association) have played a critical role in strengthening worker safety and health protections. They have sought to improve standards that protect workers by participating in the rulemaking process, through written comments and involvement in hearings; lobbying decision-makers; petitioning the Department of Labor; and defending improved standards in court. Their efforts have culminated in more stringent exposure standards, access to information about the presence of potentially hazardous toxic chemicals, and improved access to personal protective equipment-further improving working conditions in the United States.

Workplace measurements by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 1979: descriptive analysis and potential uses for exposure assessment.

BACKGROUND: Inspectors from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been collecting industrial hygiene samples since 1972 to verify compliance with Permissible Exposure Limits. Starting in 1979, these measurements were computerized into the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS). In 2010, a dataset of over 1 million personal sample results analysed at OSHA's central laboratory in Salt Lake City [Chemical Exposure Health Data (CEHD)], only partially overlapping the IMIS database, was placed into public domain via the internet. We undertook this study to inform potential users about the relationship between this newly available OSHA data and IMIS and to offer insight about the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of OSHA measurement data for occupational exposure assessment. METHODS: We conducted a literature review of previous uses of IMIS in occupational health research and performed a descriptive analysis of the data recently made available and compared them to the IMIS database for lead, the most frequently sampled agent. RESULTS: The literature review yielded 29 studies reporting use of IMIS data, but none using the CEHD data. Most studies focused on a single contaminant, with silica and lead being most frequently analysed. Sixteen studies addressed potential bias in IMIS, mostly by examining the association between exposure levels and ancillary information. Although no biases of appreciable magnitude were consistently reported across studies and agents, these assessments may have been obscured by selective under-reporting of non-detectable measurements. The CEHD data comprised 1 450 836 records from 1984 to 2009, not counting analytical blanks and erroneous records. Seventy eight agents with >1000 personal samples yielded 1 037 367 records. Unlike IMIS, which contain administrative information (company size, job description), ancillary information in the CEHD data is mostly analytical. When the IMIS and CEHD measurements of lead were merged, 23 033 (39.2%) records were in common to both IMIS and CEHD datasets, 10 681 (18.2%) records were only in IMIS, and 25 012 (42.6%) records were only in the CEHD database. While IMIS-only records represent data analysed in other laboratories, CEHD-only records suggest partial reporting of sampling results by OSHA inspectors into IMIS. For lead, the percentage of non-detects in the CEHD-only data was 71% compared to 42% and 46% in the both-IMIS-CEHD and IMIS-only datasets, respectively, suggesting differential under-reporting of non-detects in IMIS. CONCLUSIONS: IMIS and the CEHD datasets represent the biggest source of multi-industry exposure data in the USA and should be considered as a valuable source of information for occupational exposure assessment. The lack of empirical data on biases, adequate interpretation of non-detects in OSHA data, complicated by suspected differential under-reporting, remain the principal challenges to the valid estimation of average exposure conditions. We advocate additional comparisons between IMIS and CEHD data and discuss analytical strategies that may play a key role in meeting these challenges.

The road to GHS: worker right-to-know in the 21st century.

Of the three communications standards discussed, HI is definitely the outlier, as it emphasizes worker control of the process of identifying hazard and deemphasizes employer control of identification of hazards and dissemination of hazard information. GHS may not be as protective of American workers as HazCom is, but for workers in less-developed countries, where regulation of workplace health and safety is less strong than in the United States, Canada, many countries in Europe, and Japan, GHS--if adequately enforced-will likely represent an improvement in information on chemical hazards in the workplace. American workers may well see a decline in workplace protection against chemical hazards while protection may improve for workers in less-developed countries. This trade-off is part of the ongoing debate about globalization, of which worker protection from chemical hazards should be an important aspect. The next paper in this series will compare the proposed and final versions of GHS, and will discuss possible improvements to GHS to better serve American workers. As OSHA moves forward with the GHS rule, people and organizations concerned with worker right-to-know should consider possible improvements to GHS to better serve workers in the United States and worldwide.

Ten years after: is it time to revisit the 1994 OSHA indoor air quality rule?

Approximately 20 million nonsmoking workers are employed in workplaces without restrictions on smoking and are potentially exposed to secondhand smoke--a Class A carcinogen. These workers are largely in the service industry, in southern and western states and in non-urban areas. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) 1994 proposal for smoke-free workplaces (withdrawn in 2001) was attacked by many interest groups that may no longer oppose this protection. Federal regulation for smoke-free workplaces is needed for workers, who are not protected by state and local smoke-free laws. This policy could save thousands of lives each year, and prevent significant illness. Twenty-one states have "state plans" that would allow more protective laws. Of the 29 states under OSHA, 11 have comprehensive smoke-free statutes. Changes in the policy environment and in institutions such as unions, restaurant associations, and the tobacco industry since 2001 may improve the prospects for federal action and reduce disparities that currently characterize exposure to secondhand smoke.

The hearing conservation amendment: 25 years later.

It has been twenty-five years since the final version of the Hearing Conservation Amendment was issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the U.S. Department of Labor. Since that time, some things have changed and others have stayed exactly the same. Certainly the noise-exposed workforce is more knowledgeable about the hazards of noise, and the use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) has greatly increased. There have been significant strides in the technology for measuring noise and for protecting hearing through HPDs. But there is considerable room for improvement. Some of the noise regulation's provisions are embarrassingly outdated, some are in dire need of improvement, and others, such as the requirements for engineering noise control, are not being enforced. Sadly, there seems to be little progress in reducing overall noise exposure levels. What needs to be done at this point is a major overhaul of the noise regulation: recommitment to engineering noise control; reduction of the permissible exposure limit (PEL) to 85 dBA; a shift to the 3-dBA exchange rate; and a nationwide assessment of hearing loss in American workers to determine the effectiveness of current hearing conservation measures to identify and address the weaknesses in programs and regulations.

Heritage of army audiology and the road ahead: the Army Hearing Program.

Noise-induced hearing loss has been documented as early as the 16th century, when a French surgeon, Ambroise Paré, wrote of the treatment of injuries sustained by firearms and described acoustic trauma in great detail. Even so, the protection of hearing would not be addressed for three more centuries, when the jet engine was invented and resulted in a long overdue whirlwind of policy development addressing the prevention of hearing loss. We present a synopsis of hearing loss prevention in the US Army and describe the current Army Hearing Program, which aims to prevent noise-induced hearing loss in soldiers and to ensure their maximum combat effectiveness.