1)

. Introduction

What is occupational health and safety? Occupational health and safety is a discipline with a broad scope involving many specialized fields. In its broadest sense, it should aim at:
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the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention among workers of adverse effects on health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of workers in an occupational environment adapted to physical and mental needs; the adaptation of work to humans.

In other words, occupational health and safety encompasses the social, mental and physical well-being of workers, that is the whole person . Successful occupational health and safety practice requires the collaboration and participation of both employers and workers in health and safety programmes, and involves the consideration of issues relating to occupational medicine, industrial hygiene, toxicology, education, engineering safety, ergonomics, psychology, etc. Occupational health issues are often given less attention than occupational safety issues because the former are generally more difficult to confront. However, when health is addressed, so is safety, because a healthy workplace is by definition also a safe workplace. The converse, though, may not be true - a so-called safe workplace is not necessarily also a healthy workplace. The important point is that issues of both health and safety must be addressed in every workplace. By and large, the definition of occupational health and safety given above encompasses both health and safety in their broadest contexts. Efforts in occupational health and safety must aim to prevent industrial accidents and diseases, and at the same time recognize the connection between worker health and safety, the workplace, and the environment outside the workplace.

Why is occupational health and safety important? Work plays a central role in people's lives, since most workers spend at least eight hours a day in the workplace, whether it is on a plantation, in an office, factory, etc. Therefore, work environments should be safe and healthy. Yet this is not the case for many workers. Every day workers all over the world are faced with a multitude of health hazards, such as:
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dusts; gases; noise; vibration; extreme temperatures.

Unfortunately some employers assume little responsibility for the protection of workers' health and safety. In fact, some employers do not even know that they have the moral and often legal responsibility to protect workers. As a result of the hazards and a lack of attention given to health and safety, work-related accidents and diseases are common in all parts of the world.

Health and safety programmes For all of the reasons given above, it is crucial that employers, workers and unions are committed to health and safety and that:
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workplace hazards are controlled - at the source whenever possible; records of any exposure are maintained for many years; both workers and employers are informed about health and safety risks in the workplace; there is an active and effective health and safety committee that includes both workers and management; worker health and safety efforts are ongoing. A. Accidents

In general, health and safety in the workplace has improved in most industrialized countries over the past 20 to 30 years. However, the

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situation in developing countries is relatively unclear largely because of inadequate accident and disease recognition, record-keeping and reporting mechanisms. It is estimated that at least 250 million occupational accidents occur every year worldwide. 335,000 of these accidents are fatal (result in death). (Since many countries do not have accurate record-keeping and reporting mechanisms, it can be assumed that the real figures are much higher than this.) The number of fatal accidents is much higher in developing countries than in industrialized ones. This difference is primarily due to better health and safety programmes, improved first-aid and medical facilities in the industrialized countries, and to active participation of workers in the decision-making process on health and safety issues. Some of the industries with the highest risk of accidents worldwide are: mining, agriculture, including forestry and logging, and construction. Identifying the cause of an accident In some cases, the cause of an industrial injury is easy to identify. However, very often there is a hidden chain of events behind the accident which led up to the injury. For example, accidents are often indirectly caused by negligence on the part of the employer who may not have provided adequate worker training, or a supplier who gave the wrong information about a product, etc. The consistently high fatal accident rates in developing countries emphasize the need for occupational health and safety education programmes that focus on prevention. It is equally important to promote the development of occupational health services, including the training of doctors to recognize work-related diseases in the early stages.

B. Diseases

Exposure to hazards in the workplace can lead to serious illness.

Some occupational diseases have been recognized for many years, and affect workers in different ways depending on the nature of the hazard, the route of exposure, the dose, etc. Some well known occupational diseases include:
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asbestosis (caused by asbestos, which is common in insulation, automobile brake linings, etc.); silicosis (caused by silica, which is common in mining, sandblasting, etc.); lead poisoning (caused by lead, which is common in battery plants, paint factories, etc.); and noise-induced hearing loss (caused by noise, which is common in many workplaces, including airports, and workplaces where noisy machines, such as presses or drills, etc. are used).

There are also a number of potentially crippling health problems that can be associated with poor working conditions, including:
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heart disease; musculoskeletal disorders such as permanent back injuries or muscle disorders; allergies; reproductive problems; stress-related disorders.

Many developing countries report only a small number of workers affected by work-related diseases. These numbers look small for a variety of reasons that include:

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inadequate or non-existent reporting mechanisms; a lack of occupational health facilities; a lack of health care practitioners who are trained to recognize workrelated diseases.

Because of these reasons and others, it is fair to assume that in reality, the numbers of workers afflicted with occupational diseases are much higher. In fact, overall, the number of cases and types of occupational diseases are increasing, not decreasing, in both developing and industrialized countries.

Identifying the cause of occupational disease The cause of work-related diseases is very often difficult to determine. One factor is the latency period (the fact that it may take years before the disease produces an obvious effect on the worker's health). By the time the disease is identified, it may be too late to do anything about it or to find out what hazards the worker was exposed to in the past. Other factors such as changing jobs, or personal behaviours (such as smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol) further increase the difficulty of linking workplace exposures to a disease outcome. Although more is understood now about some occupational hazards than in the past, every year new chemicals and new technologies are being introduced which present new and often unknown hazards to both workers and the community. These new and unknown hazards present great challenges to workers, employers, educators, and scientists, that is to everyone concerned about workers' health and the effects that hazardous agents have on the environment.

2 ) The concept of OSHA ..

Since 1950, the international labor organization (ilo) and the world health organization (who) have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the joint ilo/who committee on occupational health at its first session in 1950 and revised at

its twelfth session in 1995. The definition reads: occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of workers in all occupations; the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job. Need for more research on health and safety of employees: Compared to other elements of the hrm model, workplace health and safety is underresearched by hrm scholars and has been largely neglected in the hrm discourse. This is one reason together with the rising cost of health, new laws and the deregulatory proposals why more research should be devoted to workplace health and safety by hrm specialists. However, there is another important reason why hrm scholars and practitioners need to pay more attention to health and safety. It is this: if strategic hrm means anything, it must encompasses the development and promotion of a set of health and safety policies to protect the organizations most valued asset, its employees. The changing approach to workplace health and safety: The traditional approach to safety in the workplace used the careless worker model. It was assumed by most employer and the accident prevention bodies that most of the accidents were due to an employees failure to take safety seriously or to protect herself or himself. The implication of this is that work can be made safe simply by changing the behavior of employees by poster campaigns and accident prevention training. In the 1960s, something like a thousand employees was killed at their work in the uk. Every year of that decade about 500,000 employees suffered injuries in varying degrees of severity, and 23 million working days were lost annually on account of industrial injury and disease. Such statistics led investigators to argue that for both humanitarian and

economic reasons, no society can accept with complacency that such levels of death, injury and disease and waste must be regarded as the inevitable price of meeting its needs for goods and services (robens, 1972). Since the robens report, there has been a growing interest in occupational health and safety. Moreover, it has been recognized that the careless worker model does not explain occupational ill-health caused by toxic substances, noise, and badly designed and unsafe of work. Nor does this perspective highlight the importance of job stress, fatigue and poor working environments in contributing to the causes of accidents. A new approach to occupational health and safety, the shared responsibility model, assumes that the best way to reduce levels of occupational accidents and disease relies on the cooperation of both employers and employees: a self-generating effort between those who create the risks and those who work with them (robens, 1972). Health and safety and the HRM cycle: The employer has a duty to maintain a healthy and safe workplace. The health and safety function is directly related to the elements of the hrm cycle selection, appraisal, rewards and training. Health and safety considerations and policy can affect the selection process in two ways. It is safe to assume that in the recruitment process potential applicants will be more likely to be attracted to an organization that has a reputation for offering a healthy and safe work environment for employees. The maintenance of a healthy and safe workplace can be facilitated in the selection process by selecting applicants with personality traits that decrease the likelihood of accident. The appraisal of a managers performance that incorporates the safety record of a department or section can also facilitate health and safety. Research suggests that safety programs are more effective when the accident rates of their sections are an important criterion of managerial performance. Safe work behavior can be encouraged by a reward system that ties bonus payments to the safety record of a work group or section. Some organizations also provide prizes to their employees for safe work behavior, a good safety record or suggestions to improve health and safety. Training

and hr development play a critical role in promoting health and safety awareness among employees. Costs of health and safety of employees: Workplace health and safety raises the question of economic costs. The economic cost of occupational health and safety to the organization is double-edged. On the one hand, health and safety measures which protect employees from the hazards of the workplace can conflict with managements objective of containing production costs. On the other hand, effective health and safety policies can improve the performance of employees and the organization, by reducing costs associated with accidents, disabilities, absenteeism, or illness. There are also indirect costs associated with work-related accidents. The indirect costs include overtime payments necessary to make up for lost production, cost of retaining a replacement employee, a wage cost for the time spent by hrm personnel recruiting, selecting and training the new employee and, in less typical cases and the cost associated with loss of revenue on orders cancelled or lost if the accident causes a net long-term reduction on sales. A healthy and safe work environment helps to reduce costs and improve organizational effectiveness. If work-related illness and accidents can be transposed on to the balance sheet the organization can apply the same management effort and creativity to designing and maintaining a healthy and safe workplace as managers customarily apply to other facets of the business. As robens stated accident prevention can be integrated into the overall economic activity of the firm (1972). The importance of health and safety: In addition to improving and reducing costs, maintaining a healthy and safe work environment helps to facilitate employees commitment to quality and improve industrial relations. One of the side effects of a proactive health and safety policy is that it leads to improved productivity and quality. Collard (1989) reports that in two foreign companies

studies, a cap (cost and productivity) program was continually emphasized by top management and one major aspect of this was the highest standards of housekeeping (19849). Further it is argued that employee and union-management relations can be improved when employers satisfy their employees health and safety needs. In some cases, new provisions covering health and safety have been negotiated into collective agreements. When employers take a greater responsibility for occupational health and safety it can change employee behavior and employees might take a less militant stance during wage bargaining if management pay attention to housekeeping. Attention to workplace health and safety can have a strong, positive effect on employee commitment. When employees work in healthy and safe workplace, higher levels of motivation, performance and loyalty will result.

3)History of OSHA
A History of its First Thirteen Years, 1971-1984
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 heralded a new era in the history of public efforts to protect workers from harm on the job. This Act established for the first time a nationwide, federal program to protect almost the entire work force from job-related death, injury and illness. Secretary of Labor James Hodgson, who had helped shape the law, termed it "the most significant legislative achievement" for workers in a decade.1 Hodgson's first step was to establish within the Labor Department, effective April 28, 1971, a special agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to administer the Act. Building on the Bureau of Labor Standards as a nucleus, the new agency took on the difficult task of creating from scratch a program that would meet the legislative intent of the Act.

Dunlop/Corn Administration, 1975-1977: Reform and Professionalization

By early 1975 OSHA was in serious trouble with labor, business, the Congress, and the White House. One of the principal tasks facing President Ford's newly appointed Secretary of Labor, John Dunlop, was that of getting OSHA out of trouble. Dunlop had

30 years of experience in governmental affairs and was an advocate of the kind of regulatory reform Nixon had called for a year earlier. A firm believer in the goals of OSHA, Dunlop considered the agency a victim of mismanagement and was determined to reform it. Rather than immediately installing a new assistant secretary, Dunlop put John Stender on indefinite leave and brought in two experts Marshall Miller and Bert Concklin to provide interim leadership to OSHA while they studied its problems. Miller, a lawyer with experience in government environmental programs, was to make recommendations on policies for standards and other OSHA programs. Concklin, who had a background in business and management, was to be concerned mainly with budget, personnel, and public relations. Stender resigned in July 1975.26 During this crucial period a recently completed Ford Foundation study on the politics and economics of job safety and health circulated around OSHA and strongly influenced the direction of reform.27 Written by Nicholas Ashford of M.I.T., the study stressed that the problem of protecting people on the job was too massive for government to handle alone but required cooperation from all sectors. While the costs of reducing hazards was not cheap, Ashford contended, the benefits to society would far outweigh the outlays. In Ashford's view, health was a more serious but less recognized problem than safety. Also, he recommended that OSHA be headed by a safety and health professional.28 After studying the agency and its problems, Concklin and Miller took a number of actions designed to improve OSHA's operations and mollify its liberal critics. They revised the agency's internal management, developed studies of its policies, streamlined the development of standards, and sought to better inform workers and employers of their obligations under the OSH Act. Miller established the policy that announcements of proposed safety and health standards would include background on the issues involved and would list the alternatives considered. Concklin set up a procedure to publicize developments favorable to OSHA, such as a recent survey of Georgia businessmen which reported generally favorable responses to OSHA inspections of their workplaces. In addition, OSHA revised its long dormant national advisory committee and sought to improve its own relations with other safety and health agencies.29 One of the most important changes Concklin and Miller introduced was to have OSHA concentrate more effectively on inspecting the most dangerous and unhealthy workplaces. They pointed out that there was no solid evidence that the 80 percent of OSHA's budget that it spent on enforcement was making workplaces any safer. This was because, despite limited earlier efforts such as the "Target Industries" and "Target Health Hazards" programs, OSHA had not systematically aimed its efforts at the 30 percent of all workplaces which reported worker casualties.30 As what was intended to be a capstone to their reforms, in November 1975 Concklin and Miller announced a "National Emphasis Program" which would employ a combination of enforcement and educational activities to reduce casualties in highly hazardous industries. To start off, OSHA chose to focus on foundries and metal casting and stamping operations. The program included special training of inspectors

and assistance to state governments, industry, unions and others to achieve voluntary compliance.31 Problems of safety and health in the workplace did not, of course, go away while OSHA was trying to put its house in order in 1975. The new leadership had to act on a number of major issues, most of them already under consideration at OSHA. The most important actions OSHA took in this period were the issuance of proposed new standards for coke oven emissions and airborne lead. Under pressure from the unions, OSHA also committed itself to preparing a tougher standard for cotton dust and held hearings on the noise proposal John Stender had introduced. OSHA once again resumed sifting through its consensus standards to weed out nuisance rules. In an unusual flurry of activity in the fall of 1975, OSHA issued several proposals for health standards. In addition to the one for lead, proposals came out to regulate asbestos, beryllium and a number of industrial chemicals. George Taylor of the AFLCIO commented that "the logjam appears broken." The "break", however, was not the result of reforms in OSHA's procedures, but rather stemmed from its desire to avoid time consuming IIS's. Secretary Dunlop had secured permission from the White House to publish any proposed standards that were ready by September 30 without IIS's, though these might have to be supplied later.32 Efforts to reform OSHA in 1975 mollified congressional and other critics somewhat, but it also raised their expectations for significant progress. The departmental appropriations bill Congress passed in the fall of that year called for improvement in the professional competence of OSHA's inspectors and for more effective enforcement. Congress also ordered the agency to set clear guidelines governing which workplaces would be inspected first, it called for the elimination of irrelevant standards, and it urged OSHA to place greater emphasis on health problems. Many of these goals had already been adopted by OSHA's new management team, but Congress was clearly putting the agency on notice that it intended to see that these goals were realized.33 The key to successfully rescuing OSHA from intense criticism by Congress and others was to find a highly qualified person to head the agency and guide it out of troubled waters. Dunlop decided to follow Nicholas Ashford's recommendation that that person be a safety and health professional. Concklin and Miller were given the job of finding him or her. Their search led to a professor of occupational health and chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh named Morton Corn. With special expertise in health, wide experience as a consultant with management and labor, impressive professional credentials, and a record of active participation in national and international health organizations, Corn seemed well qualified for the job.34 Corn's nomination in October 1975 was well received. Businessmen liked him because he emphasized cooperation rather than conflict among groups concerned with job safety and health. Senator Richard Schweiker from Pennsylvania felt that Corn's nomination was non political. He said, "I do not know the doctor's politics, nor do I want to know them." Sheldon Samuels of the AFL-CIO termed Corn's appointment "exactly the kind...designed for the job," but cautioned that "time will tell....He's been tested professionally, but never politically."35

After Corn was sworn in as the new head of OSHA in December, the critics gave him a brief grace period to allow him time to try to point OSHA in the right direction. Although he subscribed to the policies already put in place by John Dunlop and his aides, Corn had a definite approach to the agency. He was outspoken and articulate in his views and he believed that OSHA was at a crucial phase in its history. As he said shortly after taking the reins at the agency: "The reason I'm in this job is that... Dunlop and others convinced me that the very survival of OSHA was at stake that the whole Act might be repealed... I think the manner in which this agency proceeded...alienated so many people that the Congress... was ready to take corrective action. And if it were not for promises of new procedures...we wouldn't have been given a new lease on life."36 Corn himself had criticized the agency in the past. He felt that it had operated: "... in a style that professionals would not subscribe to. I've watched OSHA from the outside with great concern. I had no contact with this agency in its first four years that was not accidental. Many professionals didn't want contact with OSHA."37 One of Corn's immediate goals was to improve OSHA's relations with groups in and out of the government. Early visits to Capitol Hill scared him because of the lack of comprehension there of the agency and its mission. He immediately ordered an upgrading of the agency's congressional affairs staff.38 Corn also sought quick improvement in OSHA's communications with state governments, labor, management and others. He wanted to bring everyone he could into his office to sit down and talk.39 Even before he was officially the head of OSHA, he met with various groups and asked them about their problems and concerns. Just after the Senate had voted to confirm his nomination, Corn met with a group of state government officials who were amazed that he took the time to talk with them about their problems.40 Corn's seeming preoccupation with OSHA's outside relations was the result of a course of events that had made OSHA itself as much of a public issue as death, illness and injury on the job. Corn, however, had not really lost his perspective. His over riding goal was to focus on serious hazards in general, and health hazards in particular. Corn told a reporter, "I believe we should focus on real hazards."41 In order to make it easier for OSHA to set standards once it determined what the most serious hazards were, he proposed to investigate alternatives to the current, slow paced program of developing one standard at a time.42 Controversy over OSHA's health standards had come to center around economic feasibility the cost of compliance. Corn described his position on costs and standards as follows: "I think first of all the agency has an obligation, one which I feel very strongly, to state in a standard the scientific facts what is the safe level based on the best available evidence. That obligation cannot be ignored and... should be in the forefront of anything OSHA does. Having done that, we then must decide how we can meet that goal at bearable costs."43 Corn's policy was that the period of time which industry was given in order to meet a safety or health standard could be lengthened to give hard pressed companies time to

meet the standard without suffering unduly. He recognized that some companies might find it less burdensome than others to comply and he would allow for this in setting the abatement periods. Corn maintained that in this way economic considerations could be recognized with no sacrifice of health or safety.44 Combining this type of flexibility and consultation with concerned groups, Corn planned to involve them in the whole standards setting process, from start to finish. Rather than surprising the affected parties by announcing a proposed standard of which they had no advance knowledge, Corn thought OSHA should consult regularly with them during the whole drafting process. The result, Corn believed, would be greater acceptance of and compliance with standards once they were promulgated.45 Shortly after Corn took over, a highly publicized workplace tragedy brought out in bold relief the kinds of problems that Corn had been hired to deal with. Around New Year's Day 1976 the news media gave national publicity to the poisoning of workers at a recently closed small chemical plant in Hopewell, Virginia, that had manufactured a pesticide called "kepone." A total of 29 workers were hospitalized with nerve damage. At congressional hearings in January it was revealed that OSHA had fumbled an early opportunity to detect the kepone danger. A worker from the plant had tried to file a health complaint at a local OSHA office. OSHA, however, treated his case as one of job discrimination, since he had been fired, and did not recognize or follow up on the health aspect. The kepone tragedy gave added urgency to Corn's whole agenda of OSHA reform, particularly to a goal he had expressed at his swearing in ceremony of raising the professional competence of the agency. Besides hiring only highly qualified inspectors, Corn improved the qualifications and competence of those already on the OSHA staff through special training programs. He also began to train safety inspectors the bulk of OSHA's inspection force in the basics of occupational health. Corn was well aware of employers' complaints about nit picking and obnoxious inspectors. To deal with the nit picking he had inspectors concentrate on the most serious hazards. To deal with the "OSHA Ogre" image, he began something called "comportment training" (known more informally in the agency as "'couth' lessons"). To rectify OSHA's failure to provide the technical information needed in enforcing complex safety and health standards and in dealing with hazards like kepone, Corn developed a technical data center to answer questions from inspectors in the field so they could make quick decisions based on up to date information.46 With the kepone affair as its kickoff, Corn's short tenure was marked by a great deal of activity and innovation. It was disrupted at the outset not only by kepone but also by the resignation of Secretary Dunlop in January 1976 over President Ford's veto of a labor bill which Dunlop had strongly supported, and it ended barely a year after it began when Ford was defeated in his bid for a second term. The most important action to protect workers' health was a controversial standard OSHA issued in October 1976 for coke oven emissions after five years of development and delay. The standard required engineering controls, which made it very expensive for industry to comply. In December OSHA proposed a revised standard for cotton dust that also required engineering controls, though these were to be phased in over a seven year period.

The most innovative action was the development of a proposal, published only after Corn had departed, for a generic standard for carcinogenic substances. Corn sought to improve OSHA's relations with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) a separate research agency created by the OSH Act and streamlined OSHA's review of and response to recommendations from the Institute for regulation of particular health hazards. The last major action was an agency reorganization that reflected the increased emphasis on occupational health and that provided greater technical support to the agency's staff. The election year politics of 1976 put great pressure on OSHA throughout Corn's tenure, partly because President Ford faced a stiff challenge for the Republican presidential nomination from Ronald Reagan, a strong critic of federal regulation. The White House, in turn, became increasingly critical of OSHA. In January word leaked out of an attack on OSHA in a draft of the annual Economic Report of the President. The report criticized the agency for making industry spend billions of dollars a year on safety measures which, it alleged, had little effect on accident rates. This angered Corn and many supporters of OSHA. The White House yielded and withdrew the offending statements from the final draft. As the pace of the presidential campaign stepped up in early 1976, the president and business groups made the agency a target in attacks on government regulation. In the New Hampshire presidential primary election, Ford told a business audience that some businessmen wanted to "throw OSHA into the ocean." He promised he would not allow "the unnecessary and unjustified harassment of citizens" and told the group that he had ordered the agency to treat citizens as "friends, not enemies."47 The culmination of the tug of war between the Ford Administration and OSHA came over a proposed White House Task Force on federal regulatory agencies. The idea for such a group originated in February when President Ford outlined a program for regulatory reform involving both long term legislative action and modifications in current programs in the agencies. It was decided that the OSHA effort would deal with the safety standards revision project of simplifying OSHA's consensus standards. On May 13, the President announced the creation of task forces for OSHA and other agencies. Their main purpose, he said, was to "simplify and streamline" federal regulations. "The Congress had given these agencies a job to do," Ford said, "but they can do that job without needlessly harassing the American businessman."48 At the same time, there was concern at OSHA and among organized labor that the task force would be used to investigate and interfere with the agency.49 Corn convinced Secretary Willie J. Usery that the task force should be kept limited in scope. He wanted to have its duties spelled out in writing and its activities confined to OSHA programs already in operation. In meetings with White House staff, OSHA insisted that the task force be advisory only, with no authority of its own. Announced on June 11, this plan limited the task force to working on the standards revision project only.50 Other than recommending technical changes in some safety standards, the task force had little effect on OSHA by the time it completed its work.51 Meanwhile, organized labor monitored OSHA closely to see that it did not go too far with deregulation. When OSHA announced that it would have to delay issuance of

new standards on asbestos, ammonia, lead, arsenic, cotton dust and other substances until after November, the OCAW immediately sued to block the delays and AFL-CIO president George Meany called for an immediate public explanation from Secretary Usery. The Secretary assured Meany that he shared his concern for a safe and healthful workplace and that the delays were purely a result of the difficulty in analyzing the technical issues involved in the standards.52 In a move that must have been reassuring to labor, OSHA issued a group of voluntary guidelines for lead, mercury and silica to be used until permanent standards were issued. The guidelines called for relatively inexpensive measures such as medical examinations for exposed workers and use of personal protective equipment.53 Another issue of concern to organized labor arose when, at the request of the Interior Department, OSHA transferred its jurisdiction over a group of cement workers to Interior's Mine Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA). The Cement Workers Union, half of whose members were affected, protested and George Meany complained to Usery. Meany considered the 1966 mine safety law that Interior enforced to be ineffective and feared that the transfer would set a precedent for reducing the number of workers protected by the Act.54 Usery responded that OSHA had no choice in the matter because MESA had the legal right to extend its jurisdiction to cover these cement workers. However, he told Meany that the Labor Department was taking special pains to spell out the cement workers arrangement. (Ironically, the whole transfer was negated in 1978 when Congress transferred all mining safety and health duties into the Labor Department under the new Mine Safety and Health Administration).55 Morton Corn was not retained as head of OSHA by the incoming Carter Administration in 1977 and he left office a week before the inauguration. Corn sent Usery a final report on his activities at OSHA. While the bulk of the report was a straightforward discussion of Corn's safety and health policies, the problems facing OSHA, and so on, the portion that drew the most attention was his charge that there was a lack of highly qualified technical personnel at OSHA. Staff members retorted that there were many qualified experts there but Corn had failed to utilize them. Lost in the controversy was a remark Corn made shortly before leaving the agency in which he conceded that OSHA had begun "the slow climb to quality."56

The important of safety in workplace

Safety in the workplace is of paramount importance. True or False? Around 95 per cent of people answer 'True' to this question, but here we explain why the correct answer is 'False'. If a company made safety of paramount importance, it would soon be out of business. The reason for this is that if something is 'paramount' it is the top priority. But what is the top priority for any company? You have to agree that it is to make profit. On the other hand, the safest factory is an empty one; as soon as you bring in a machine and a person, it becomes inherently unsafe and you have to manage the risk. A simple example of managing a risk would be a trailing cable in an office environment that is covered by a cable cover/protector to reduce the chance of somebody tripping over it. Although this does not guarantee that tripping will be prevented, it does reduce the risk to what is called an acceptable or tolerable level. What this means is that we have chosen this control as an alternative to burying the cable and putting a socket in the floor - which would be deemed to be too expensive when balanced against the risk or, in legal terminology, it would not be 'reasonably practicable'. However, it must be recognised that the best control, which is burying the cable and installing a socket in the floor, would be reasonably practicable to implement at the design stage, because putting a socket in the floor at the design and planning stage would be no more expensive than putting one in the wall. Notwithstanding the above, companies often state that employees are their most valuable asset and nothing is more important than the employees' health and safety. This is also correct, because nothing should be more important - but that does not make it the 'top priority'. To operate to the best practice, companies should make safety of equal priority to other aspects of the business, such as production, quality and customer satisfaction. Employers should not put a price on a person's safety. True or False? As with the previous question, the vast majority of people instinctively answer 'True' to this question, but here we will show why the correct answer is 'False'. In fact the logic follows on naturally from the argument above. As previously stated, the law requires companies, when managing health and safety, to take into account the balance between the risk and the cost (which is what is meant by the phrase 'as far as reasonably practicable'). So the example of the cable cover/protector is an illustration of how it is perfectly acceptable to 'put a price on a person's safety'.

Unless they have already had formal training in health and safety, most people answer questions such as the two above by relying on opinion, 'common sense' and 'gut feel'. Unfortunately, that is not enough - as can be seen from the explanations given here which is why formal health and safety training is essential for anybody who has any such responsibilities. Not only does health and safety training teach people about legislation and regulations, but it also teaches people how to think the 'right' way. Managing health and safety the 'wrong' way not only poses potentially unacceptable or illegal risks to the health and safety of employees, the environment and the plant itself, but it can also cost the company dear. In the example above, an over-zealous health and safety manager could soon run up huge bills if he or she decided it was essential to bury cables and install sockets in the floor.