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The Effects of OSHA

Since the Industrial Revolution and its entailing features, the protection of workers on the job has become an ever more pertinent issue. With the creation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, in 1970, the federal government sought to provide a critical mechanism for ensuring such protections and for providing the supplemental education and instruction necessary for their achievement. To what extent this has been or continues to be effective is a matter of figures, interpretation and debate.

  1. Overall Role

    • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is the primary oversight organization for labor in the United States. It lays out an enormous body of code and regulation specific to various industries and workplace settings that seeks to secure employees from injury. This influence includes construction and equipment specifications, toxicology testing, as well as safety inspections, emergency outfitting and preparedness and manager and owner accountability.

    Figures

    • OSHA claims that the years 2002 and 2003 saw the lowest fatality rates in U.S. history. Injuries and case rates dropped by 4 percent and nearly 6 percent respectively throughout 2003 and 2004. The organization also claims to have conducted close to 40,000 workplace and related inspections in 2005 alone, a figure which further resulted in some 85,000 violations issued. Yet OSHA does not hesitate to offer startling figures for injuries and fatalities which do occur; as many as 5,200 fatalities averaged yearly with another 4.3 million non-lethal injuries.

    Critiques

    • Despite its arguable effectiveness, OSHA has come under sharp criticisms, as well. Because of the fact that OSHA, as a federal agency, is quite large and bound by considerable amounts of regulation and documentation, it is accused by some as being slow, bureaucratic and unwieldy. Again, because of the vast amount of ground the agency need cover, it is also cited for poor consistency with regard to some inspection practices and follow-up protocols. In the opinion of such critics, OSHA can not exercise enough oversight expediently enough to be truly effective.

    Non-coverage

    • OSHA's effects are also limited to certain considerations. It cannot provide any oversight for the self employed. It is also hampered when other federal agencies possess jurisdiction over a certain situation, location or sphere of influence. Additionally, regulation over worker conduct and safety is retained on occasion by the state or local organizations particular to given areas. All of these factors limit the scope of OSHA's control and its ability to offer comprehensive and consistent programs and enforcement to all workplace environments within the country.

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