The American workplace has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and so have the inherent hazards for workers. New, bigger, more powerful equipment has come online. New chemicals and other toxic substances have come into routine use. New production and construction methods have been introduced.
Created in 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, is charged with protecting workers in the workplace, empowered to adopt regulations on a range of worker-safety topics, and to enforce those regulations to the point of pursuing criminal violations of the law. In its early years, OSHA aggressively attacked the myriad safety problems in American workplaces, to great effect – fewer injuries and fewer deaths. But the war on regulation launched during the Reagan years began a steady decline in OSHA’s ambition and effectiveness, and progress preventing workplace injuries has stopped.
Today, OSHA casts an exceedingly small shadow on the American workplace. It has been starved of the resources it needs to keep up with regulatory challenges and burdened with analytical requirements by adverse court decisions and congressional action. The result is that new safety standards can take a decade or more to implement, and enforcement of existing standards is sporadic at best.
In October 2010 and June 2011, CPR organized symposia to engage the occupational health and safety community in a discussion about the future of OSHA and its sister agencies. These meetings provided a chance for a broad group of academics, union representatives, non-union worker advocates, and government officials to reflect on the first 40 years of OSHA's life, with an eye toward the future. Recognizing OSHA's strengths and aiming to improve upon them, the meetings focused largely on enforcement and rulemaking.
Participants at the sessions discussed ways OSHA could improve inspection targeting to protect the most vulnerable workers and go after "bad actor" employers. Expansion of criminal enforcement was also focal point in the discussion. On the rulemaking front, participants explored new ideas for streamlining the regulatory process so that OSHA might create standards to reflect new knowledge about existing occupational hazards and evidence of emerging hazards. Participants also discussed how OSHA might expand its role in educating workers, reflecting CPR Member Scholars’ view that empowering the workforce is key to a safety in the workplace.
CPR staff and Member Scholars are working with meeting participants and other members of the occupational health and safety community to explore all of these ideas, and plan to publish "blueprints" for OHS reform in Fall 2011.
CPR's June 2011 OSHA Conference. See pictures from CPR's June 30, 2011 conference, “A New Progressive Agenda for Occupational Safety and Health,” bringing together leaders of the occupational health and safety movement, including OSHA Administrator David Michaels.
'OSHA Listens' Presentation. On March 4, 2010, CPR Policy Analyst Matt Shudtz made a presentation from Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and himself to an "OSHA Listens" session, chaired by OSHA Administrator David Michaels. The presentation drew on “Workers at Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction at OSHA,” CPR White Paper 1003, that they co-authored with CPR Member Scholars Thomas McGarity and Sidney Shapiro. Read the presentation.
White Paper on OSHA Dysfunction. Read “Workers at Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction at OSHA,” CPR White Paper 1003, by CPR Member Scholars Thomas McGarity, Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro, together with Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz. Read the news release.
CPRBlog. Read CPRBlog entries on OSHA by CPR Member Scholars Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro, and others.
