Labor views on past, present and future occupational safety related research were presented by a representative of the United Steel Workers of America. According to the author, early industrial safety programs failed because information available to plant safety and health departments was not given to supervisors and line foremen charged with the responsibility of insuring the safety of workers under their direction. Such problems were said to have instigated the passage of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. One problem that labor has with this law today is that safety standards are set by organizations that are industry oriented. It was suggested that this has resulted in standards written more to protect industries from third party law suits and liabilities than to ensure worker safety. It was also suggested that standards were set only after serious injuries or deaths were incurred by workers. Instead, standards should be written and enforced from a preventive point of view. Statistical analyses of deaths and injuries incurred in the workplace were said to be of far less value than research into cause and recommendations for prevention. Examples of areas needing research were said to include machine guarding and the explosive potential of molten metal mixing with water. These areas continue to claim worker lives. General worker dissatisfaction with OSHA was also discussed. The author recommends that NIOSH certify all safety equipment.
Symposium on Occupational Safety Research and Education, Division of Safety Research and Division of Training and Manpower Development, NIOSH, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 82-103
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.