When was osha founded

Over that time frame, OSHA has advanced safety across the country that genuinely makes a difference in the workplace and workers.

The mission of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards, providing training, outreach, and education, establishing partnerships, and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health.

Here's a quick snapshot of the critical moments in OSHA history. So many of these things we've come to accept as everyday practice. Without looking back, we don't realize how many formal regulations are in place to protect workers. Plus, it's a growing list of protections and not without revision when necessary to either improve protections or streamline rules. If you're better at videos than blog posts, the UFCW has posted a couple of videos that you may find of interest.

It chronicles the development of workplace safety. All of the OHSA regulations exist to protect workers from hazards in the workplace. OHSA Regulation Nearly 1 million students will be trained during the next 22 years. June 23, Cotton dust standard issued to protect , workers from byssinosis. Cases of "brown lung" will decline from 12, to during the next 22 years. November 14, Lead standard published to reduce permissible exposures by three-quarters to protect , workers from damage to nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems.

The construction standard is adopted in February 26, Supreme Court decision on Whirlpool affirms workers' rights to engage in safety and health-related activities. May 23, Medical and exposure records standard finalized to permit worker and OSHA access to employer-maintained medical and toxic exposure records.

September 12, Fire protection standard updated and rules established for fire brigades responsible for putting out nearly 95 percent of worksite fires. January 16, Electrical standards updated to simplify compliance and adopt a results-oriented approach to performance standards. July 2, Voluntary Protection Programs created to recognize worksites with outstanding safety and health programs. Nearly sites currently participate. November 25, Hazard communication standard issued to provide information and training and labeling of toxic materials for manufacturing employers and employees.

Other industries are added on August 24, November-December First "final approvals" granted to state plans Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Alaska , resulting in relinquishment of concurrent federal enforcement authority.

April 1, First instance-by-instance penalties proposed against an employer -- in this case, Union Carbide's plant in Institute, WV, for egregious violations involving respiratory protection and injury and illness recordkeeping. December 31, Standard on grain handling facilities adopted to protect , workers at nearly 24, grain elevators from the risk of fire and explosion from highly combustible grain dust. January 26, Safety and Health Program Management Guidelines published to encourage voluntary safety and health programs based on Voluntary Protection Program successes.

March 6, Standard on hazardous waste operations and emergency response issued to protect 1. December 6, Standard on occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens published to prevent more than 9, infections and deaths per year, protecting 5. February 24, Standard on process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals adopted to reduce fire and explosion risks for 3 million workers at 25, workplaces, preventing more than deaths and more than 1, injuries each year.

October 1, OSHA Training Institute Education Centers created to make the agency's training courses more widely available to employers, workers, and the public. To date, 12 centers have trained more than 50, students. January 14, Standard on confined spaces published to prevent more than 50 deaths and more than 5, serious injuries annually for 1. February 1, Maine program created to promote safety and health programs at companies with high numbers of injuries and illnesses.

August 9, Standard on fall protection in construc-tion revised to save 79 lives and prevent 56, injuries each year. August 10, Asbestos standard updated to cut permissible exposures in half for nearly 4 million workers, preventing 42 cancer deaths annually.

June 6, Phone-fax complaint-handling policy adopted to speed resolution of complaints of unsafe or unhealthful working conditions. August 30, Scaffold standard published to protect 2. November 9, OSHA Strategic Partnership Program launched to improve workplace safety and health through national and local cooperative, voluntary agreements.

April 19, Site Specific Targeting Program established to focus OSHA resources where most needed -- on individual worksites with the highest injury and illness rates. At press time, the rules were under review by the Bush Administration. Here's what congressional and presidential leaders were saying three decades ago as they urged passage of a comprehensive occupational safety and health bill to protect America's workers.

It is only right that the protection we give them is also up to date. Nixon, August 6, The spread of industry and the mobility of the workforce combine to make the health and safety of the worker truly a national concern. There is no dispute that a strong federal occupational health and safety program is necessary if we are to achieve a real diminution in this industrial carnage.

The statistics on occupational injury, disease, and death show all too clearly that private industry and the States are not doing an adequate job of insuring health and safety in the workplace. We have worked long and hard on this matter. In , when large-scale uranium mining was getting underway, the Atomic Energy Commission discovered that radiation levels in these mines were dangerously high.

The Commission, in cooperation with the Public Health Service, began a long-term health study of the miners. A number of Federal agencies had limited jurisdiction over uranium mines, but none had clear responsibility for them, and there was very little enforcement. The lack of action took on tragic overtones with the revelations of , and public attention focused on the Federal Radiation Council. Created in to advise the President on protective measures to take against all types of radiation hazards, the council was composed of representatives from concerned agencies.

In , it had just completed a study of the uranium mines and was expected to recommend a standard shortly. However, when the council met on May 4, , it became deadlocked between a standard that the Atomic Energy Commission recommended and a tougher one preferred by the Labor Department. The next day, Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, impatient with inaction, announced a bold step. Previously, Wirtz had been reluctant to act because he felt that uranium mining was not properly a Department of Labor area.

However, without holding public hearings, Wirtz adopted under the Walsh-Healey Act the standard he had unsuccessfully advocated before the Federal Radiation Council. This move had a decisive impact on the shaping of a national job safety and health program in , as the Departments of Labor and HEW promoted their competing proposals.

The Bureau of the Budget accepted the Department of Labor's recommendations. In January , President Johnson called on Congress to enact a job safety and health program virtually identical to that developed by the Labor Department. Johnson said it was "the shame of a modern industrial nation" that each year more than 14, workers were killed and 2.

Citing inadequate standards, lagging research, poor enforcement of laws, shortages of safety and health personnel, and a patchwork of ineffective Federal laws, Johnson argued that a comprehensive new law was needed. The Johnson proposal, quickly introduced as legislation, gave the Secretary of Labor the responsibility of setting and enforcing standards to protect 50 million workers.

The bill also had a general duty clause requiring employers to "furnish employment and place of employment which are safe and healthful. Violators could be fined or jailed, and the Secretary could black-list transgressors who held government contracts. The Labor Department would help interested States to develop their own programs in lieu of the Federal one.

The Department of HEW would provide the Labor Department with scientific material for new safety and health standards. Congressional committee hearings on the Johnson proposal began in February Wirtz claimed that 3 of 4 teenagers entering the work force would probably suffer one minor disabling injury or more during their work life. He also displayed shocking photographs of gory industrial accident scenes. Wirtz felt that the main issue was "whether Congress is going to act to stop a carnage" which continues because people "can't see the blood on the food that they eat, on the things that they buy, and on the services they get.

The proposal aroused opposite strong reactions. Organized labor supported the bill. A noted occupational health researcher, Irving R. Selikoff, of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and consumers' advocate Ralph Nader added their voices in support. However, industry, led by the U. Chamber of Commerce, vehemently opposed the broad powers which would be given to the Secretary of Labor.

Industry campaigned hard against a "crash program" that would undermine the rightful role of the States. Ironically, the Labor Department itself may have hurt the bill's chances. In March , it published the booklet, "On the Job Slaughter," containing gory photographs similar to those Secretary Wirtz had displayed when testifying. When industry found out that many of the pictures were 20 to 30 years old, it accused the Labor Department of deception. The Johnson proposal failed in President Johnson's decision not to run for re-election, domestic violence in the inner cities, demonstrations against the Vietnam War -- these and many other events diverted congressional and national attention from dealing with workers' safety and health.

The bill never came to a vote in Congress. By , the idea of a general job safety and health law had taken hold. Beginning in , Congress passed several laws protecting various groups of workers. The Service Contracts Act of and the Federal Construction Safety and Health Act of provided missing links in the protection of Government contractor employees. A mine explosion in causing 68 deaths in Farmington, W.

In the context of Federal action, President Richard Nixon presented his version of a comprehensive job safety and health program to Congress in August After his inauguration, he had called on his Cabinet departments to sift through his campaign speeches for election-year promises. They were to report to him on what they were doing to meet these pledges.

Under Secretary of Labor James D. Hodgson 29 , who was particularly interested in workers' safety and health, was "delighted" to find that in a speech in Cincinnati, the Presidential candidate had called for Federal action on that problem. The White House asked Hodgson to prepare a bill, and he began work immediately, consulting extensively with labor and management. The Nixon Administration's proposal bypassed the question of whether Labor or HEW should have control and offered instead a five-person board that would set and enforce job safety and health standards.

Nixon emphasized use of existing efforts by private industry and State governments. The main Federal concern would be with health research and education and training, and only secondarily with direct regulation.

Legislation embodying the Nixon proposal was introduced in Congress and for the second consecutive year hearings began on a national job safety and health program.

Hundreds of witnesses from labor, industry, government, and the safety and health community gave thousands of pages of oral and written testimony. In addition to hearings in Washington, there were field hearings around the country at which rank-and-file workers in steel mills, automobile plants, and other industries testified.

Secretary of Labor George Shultz emphasized at the hearings that the Nixon bill was part of a continuous historical process. Secretary Schultz believed that a consensus had finally evolved on both the need for a Federal law and its general form. He exhorted Congress to "work out our differences and get something done. This turned out to be easier said than done.

Democratic Congressmen, and some Republicans, raised strong objections to the bill. Many felt that, with two departments already involved, a safety board would create administrative confusion. Labor union supporters opposed any such board and wanted the programs lodged in the Labor Department.

The proposed enforcement scheme came under fire because it only penalized willful, flagrant violators. Critics felt that this would take away much of the deterrent effect, because employers would be tempted to ignore Federal safety and health standards until after they were inspected.

Exemptions of small employers, a 3-year delay in the bill's effective date, and a reliance on "consensus" standards devised by industry groups also drew Democratic opposition. Organized labor had enthusiastically backed the Johnson bill, but it completely opposed the Nixon proposal. It agreed with congressional critics that the Labor Department was the proper locus of authority over safety and health.

Unions felt that strong action was needed to deal with the hazards of the workplace, especially alarming new chemical dangers. As Anthony Mazzocchi of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union put it: "The mad rush of science has propelled us into a strange and uncharted environment. We grope in the dark and we can light only a few candles.

To address the number one cause of worker fatalities in the construction industry, OSHA launches the fall prevention campaign. The new decade began with a challenge unlike any other faced by the American workforce as the coronavirus pandemic impacted workplace safety and health in unprecedented ways. OSHA acted quickly to protect the nation's workers through outreach and education efforts, ensuring compliance with agency standards, and collaborations with federal, state, and local authorities.

The agency continues to work tirelessly to address the demands of this evolving health crisis.