OSHA was Created in What Year?
There are two answers to the question OSHA was created in what year because the acronym OSHA has two meanings – the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – and each were “created” in different years.
Strictly speaking, both the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration evolved in different years – rather than were created. This is because although Congress passed the Act in 1970, and the Administration started enforcing the Act the following year, the regulation of occupational safety and health started almost 200 years earlier.
The History of Safety and Health Legislation
The earliest recorded safety and health legislation was passed by the First Congress of the United States in 1790. The legislation gave a ship´s crew the authority to order a vessel into the nearest port if the majority of the crew and the first mate believed the ship was unseaworthy. Although the legislation was unenforceable, it demonstrated some federal responsibility towards workers´ safety.
Further federal safety and health legislation was slow to manifest; and it was not until 1893 that Congress passed the “Coupler Bill” to reduce the number of railway workers killed or injured due to the unsafe link-and-pin method of coupling cars. By then, individual states were leading the way in workers´ safety – with 21 states having introduced legislation against various types of workplace hazard.
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The Formation of the Department of Labor
The issue with individual states leading the way in workplace safety was that this led to piecemeal legislation. As a consequence, states that enforced strong safety and health legislation tended to lose industries to those with less stringent regulations – limiting the desire to introduce further legislation to address new safety issues as the “Progressive Era” evolved at the start of the 20th Century.
To resolve this issue, Congress created the Department of Labor in 1913. The Department was responsible for the creation of the Working Conditions Service that inspected World War 1 production sites and advised businesses on reducing hazards; and, in 1934, the Bureau of Labor Standards – the first Federal agency to promote safety and health for the entire work force.
Labor Standards Start to Develop
Soon after the creation of the Bureau of Labor Standards, Congress passed three important Acts of safety and health legislation as part of President Roosevelt´s “New Deal”. The 1935 Social Security Act allowed the Public Health Service to fund industrial health programs, the 1936 Walsh-Healey Act banned federal contract work conducted in hazardous conditions, and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act banned exploitative child labor and banned workers under 18 from dangerous occupations.
Enforcement of the three Acts was supported by a seemingly minor amendment to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act which gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to fine willful violators of safety and health regulations. However, as technologies evolved in the post-World War 2 era, new threats to safety and health emerged, and the lack of preventative protection for at-risk workers caused Congress to pass further Acts of legislation.
How the OSH Act and OSH Administration Came into Being
From the mid-1960s onwards, Congress passed a raft of Acts dealing with workforce safety and health. The Service Contracts Act of 1965 was followed by the Metal and non-Metallic Mine Safety Act (1966), the Federal Construction Safety and Health Act (1969), and the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969). However, compliance with the Act was enforced by various state and federal agencies – a situation many felt impacted the effectiveness of the Department of Labor.
Several options were explored, but business representatives and labor unions often failed to find common ground. Eventually, proposals such as shutting down manufacturing plants when workers were put in imminent danger were withdrawn and a General Duty clause was added to a catchall Act that incorporated and amended standards in existing laws. It was also agreed that a “new” agency within the Department of Labor would be in charge of enforcing the standards.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act passed both chambers of Congress on December 17, 1970. The Act was signed into law by President Nixon on January 29, 1970, and became effective on April 28, 1971. On the date the Act became effective, the “new” agency – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – assumed the role of policing compliance and enforcing OSH Act standards from the former Bureau of Labor Standards.
Therefore, the answer to the question OSHA was created in which year is that neither the OSH Act nor the OSH Administration were “created”. The OSH Act evolved from almost 200 years of safety and health legislation – both at state and federal level – while the OSH Administration evolved from more than half a century of federal involvement in enforcing compliance with the safety and health legislation.
