Why Work Kills a Brief History of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States

Abstract

In the early 20th century, U.S. monopoly corporations responded to the movement against work accidents by setting up a business-controlled “compensation-safety establishment,” which kept down compensation costs but did little to improve working conditions. This “establishment” was able to keep the issue of occupational safety and health out of public debate until the late 1960s through its control of research, education, compensation, and government appointments in the area, and by creating the public impression that the problems of occupational disease were almost nonexistent.

Despite the occurrence of sporadic rank-and-file uprisings, unions have been seriously involved in health and safety only since the late 1960s, when they mobilized in an effort to pass the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The passage of the OSHA law was made possible by the help of progressive professionals, worker dissatisfaction, the new environmental consciousness, and a general climate of social unrest. Although the corporate elite, through the “compensation-safety establishment,” has been able to dominate the operation of the federal institutions created by the new law, the question of occupational health and safety is now on the permanent agenda of workers, unions, and the public.