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OSHA: Problems and Prospects
Mason, Joseph Barry
19/1  (Fall 1976): 21-28

The article focuses on Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). An enlarged sense of social responsibility and increasing numbers of accidents led to passage of the OHSA. The federal government now has adopted as national domestic policy that the cost of safety can no longer be balanced against the cost of accidents. The safety of workers should not be traded off in terms of wage costs. Safety is an issue of public policy and the cost of doing business, and not the cost of dealing with the unions, while collective bargaining can and does supplement public sector regulation, it cannot substitute for it. Preventive safety and health can be made to work for retailers and other businesses. Such an approach may help to reduce workman's compensation costs, hospitalization costs, and perhaps lost time front accidents. OSHA is not without its problems, however. Employers talk about vagueness in the standards and complain that different OSHA inspectors are likely to provide different answer to the same question.

 

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