OSHA: Occupational safety health

The OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Act) is a U.S. federal law which handles health and safety in workplace sectors that was been signed in 1970 by President Nixon, the objective of the federal act is to ensure the safety of workers, by requiring business owners to pull-out potential health and safety hazards.

The passing of the Safety Appliance Act in 1893 were introduced as legal forerunners of OSHA. This was the first federal law ever to require work area safety equipment, it only applied to railroad personnel. 1910, a series of deadly mine explosions catch the congress attention, they created the Bureau of the Mines to study improvements in mine safety. With the raised industrial production tailing World War II, accidents in the work area increased. In the two years before the debut of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA), about 14,000 workers died each year from accidents and 2 million were injured on the workplace. Also the raised in the use of manufacturing chemicals exposed employees to biggest amounts of hazards.

In the mid 1960's, awareness took place about the environmental impact of chemical usage catch the public's attention in protecting employees health and safety, as exposure to hazardous chemicals was greater for workers than the environment into which the toxics were dumped. A comprehensive worker protection bill of President Johnson was failed, and then President Nixon proposed OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Act). This federal compromise bill was little bit demanding on the business owners, although it did compromise the Department of Labor's ability to handle employer violations. OSHA regulations officially effect on April 28, 1971, which is now marked and celebrated as Worker's Memorial Day by most American Labor Unions.

OSHA also builds the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency within the Department of Labor. This state administration has the control to mend and enforce workplace standards. The Occupational Safety and Health Act also shaped the independent Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission (OHSRC) to review enforcement process. OSHA also formed the NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health,) another federal research group that handle a part of the Center for Disease Control. By making independent investigative federal agencies, OSHA effectively made systems of bureaucratic procedures for the best of employees’ protection laws and to enforce a fair and methodological implementation of such rules.