12.2: Occupational Health Policy
Occupational health hazards have been recognized since antiquity, but it wasn’t until the industrial revolution that there was widespread awareness of the need to regulate workplaces. Initially these efforts were based on sanitation, cleanliness, and reducing worker injuries - which were common in many factories (Seabert et al., 2021). After decades of industrial tragedies including deaths nearly every other day in steel mills, a plethora of coal mine accidents, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster, and others, worker’s unions and environmentalists worked together to lobby congress for worker’s protections in the 1960’s (Frumkin, 2016). The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) has only been around for just over 50 years, as it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970. It began by setting standards for worker exposure to specific environmental hazards, such as asbestos, lead, and cotton dust. Since then more standards have been established to protect workers from injuries, bloodborne pathogens, and other environmental toxins (OSHA, n.d. -b). The OSH Act also established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to set and enforce these standards, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to conduct research and make recommendations for these health standards (Seabert et al., 2021). Because of these laws and oversight agencies, it is widely accepted that employers are responsible for providing “safe workplaces, free of recognized serious hazards” (Frumkin, 2016).
“This 2016 image depicted the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a 24/7 activity, and showed how the need for occupational health and safety never stops. NIOSH researchers from the Western States Division, and the Division of Applied Research and Technology, were the first to systematically document hazardous exposures to workers at fracking sites, including exposures to respirable crystalline silica (RCS), diesel particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. This sand mover operator was monitoring the sand level in the blender tub, framed in the bottom left handrail. His half-face cartridge respirator may not have been providing a high enough assigned protection factor to protect him from the elevated concentration of RCS, to which he was exposed. This photograph was taken in Encinal, Texas, during a test of a NIOSH-developed engineering control, known as the NIOSH mini-baghouse retrofit assembly, installed to reduce RCS emissions.”
Prior to the industrial revolution, common law principles held the worker at fault for any injuries they received while on the job, and some employers went so far as to require “death contracts” as an acknowledgement of the employee of the potential dangers - and perhaps deadliness - of their work. In the late 19th century, Prussia was the first country to create worker’s liability and insurance laws in an effort to maintain the loyalty of the working class while squashing Marxist and socialist political movements. Other European countries and the U.S. followed suit, although it took until 1948 for the last state to enact worker’s compensation laws. While these laws did provide for monetary compensation in the form of employer-funded insurance policies, they also protected the companies from the threat of lawsuits (Guyton, 1999). Currently, each state in the U.S. has its own worker’s compensation system, rules, and regulations, which may cover or exclude certain injuries or illnesses (Frumkin, 2016). Notably, in many states, agricultural employers are exempt from the requirements to provide workers’ compensation, even though agricultural work is some of the most dangerous. Fourteen states (including California) do require workers’ compensation for agricultural businesses, and enforce penalties for non-compliance (Mikolajczyk, 2022).