OSHA 1971: Bringing Government to Protect the Lives of Industrial and Farm Workers

On May 28, 1971, one month after the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) went into effect, OSHA issued its first citation against an employer. Citation No. 1 found that:

Visible pools and droplets of mercury have been allowed to accumulate and remain on the cellroom floor, in the basement, and in other working areas and working surfaces contributing to airborne concentrations of mercury which significantly exceed levels generally accepted to be safe levels of such concentration. . . . Instances of excessive airborne concentrations of mercury had been made known to the employer on occasions prior to the date of this inspection. (see Appendix A, available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org)

The cited employer was the Allied Chemical Corporation, one of America’s oldest chemical companies, which had been formed in 1920 from 4 chemical companies with roots as far back as 1881. For more than one year prior to the issuance of the citation, Allied Chemical knew that its workers were being overexposed to mercury as a result of an investigation conducted by the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health (BOSH), the predecessor to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

BEFORE OSHA

That a major American corporation, as late as 1971, could knowingly expose its workers to the classic health hazard of mercury poisoning, described by Ramazzini in 1713 as “the most cruel bane of all that deals with death and destruction,”^1(p308) was emblematic of working conditions in the United States that led to the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Until OSHA, the United States lacked any governmental structure that provided workers with the right to complain and force employers to correct hazardous conditions.

“Unfortunately, our legislators and others who are responsible for the safety of all our citizens are lethargic about this major problem of health and safety,” wrote Anthony Mazzocchi in the forward to the March 29, 1969, edition of Hazards in the Industrial Environment.^2(foreward) Mazzocchi, a leading labor advocate for the passage of OSHA, was the Citizenship-Legislative Director of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW). His union was at the receiving end of the post–World War II explosive growth in the US chemical industry, which had barreled ahead with new products, with little thought of the consequences to its workers or the environment. Health hazards, as opposed to safety conditions, drove the concerns of workers and their allies for the passage of OSHA. “[A]t this point in history, workers are much more endangered by environmental conditions which threaten their health,” Mazzocchi told the US House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on Labor of the Committee on Education and Labor on November 18, 1969.^3(p1180)

The workers’ concerns coincided with the emerging public consciousness about the deteriorating environment, which was galvanized by the first national environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. Plants that sent toxic or carcinogenic emissions out of their windows, smokestacks, or piped it into nearby rivers, or dumped wastes from their processes onto nearby open pits, exemplified contempt not only of the environment, but also the health of the workers inside these plants.

ASBESTOS

Between 1969 and 1970, the OCAW International Union organized 7 conferences across the United States in which local union leaders were asked to report on the conditions inside their plants to panels of scientists, in public settings, and the proceedings were transcribed for wider distribution.

On June 14, 1969, Dale F. Casseday, President of OCAW Local Union 8–732, which represented the workers at Avisun Corporation in New Castle, Delaware, reported:

We have one very big problem with asbestos. We handle approximately 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of asbestos per day. It is loose. It is in the air. Certain mornings when you drive into the parking lot it looks as though it had snowed. The parking lot is white with asbestos. It is laying on the floor. The fork trucks drive by and the exhaust blows the dust up.^4(p22)

Subsequent industrial hygiene sampling conducted by the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine found asbestos fiber counts as high as 122 fibers per cubic centimeter. Mt. Sinai reported that the

dust generated during the dumping of asbestos into the transport line is extreme. The levels are so high that face respirators are inadequate to protect the workers. Only air supply respirators under these dust conditions offer sufficient protection. In addition, the dust generated easily spreads to other areas of the plant, exposing workers in the packaging area to undesirable levels of asbestos.^4(pB-5)

Avisun was a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, otherwise known as the Amoco Oil Corporation.

BERYLLIUM

In 1970, I toured the Kawecki-Berylco Industries plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The plant refined pure beryllium metal from beryl ore. We climbed up a tower where visible beryllium dust was seen filtering down through the metal stairway. The recommended exposure limit at the time was 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The company refused to provide the union with the results of its air monitoring for beryllium dust on the grounds that the union was allegedly not “knowledgeable enough about the subject.”^5(p34) The Pennsylvania division of occupational health also refused to release the results of its surveys on the plant’s conditions to the union, on the grounds that such information might jeopardize the company’s trade secrets, a rationale that the company had not even thought to suggest.^5(p34)

FARM WORKERS

In 1969 and 1970, the most exploited work force in America was, and still remains, the nation’s farm workers. During a contentious hearing before US House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on Labor of the Committee on Education and Labor on November 21, 1969, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) demanded that agricultural workers be included in the proposed remedial legislation:

there should be a uniformity of standards that should apply throughout the country and farmworkers should be treated no differently from other kinds of workers, and all farmworkers should be protected by the same standards that other workers are protected by.^3(p1347)

As with industrial workers, the farmworkers’ chief concern was the toxic chemical environment in the fields caused by exposure to pesticides, whose identities had been kept as closely guarded secrets by growers and pesticide applicators. “[T]he biggest area is in the whole areas of pesticides,” because “[g]rowers consistently use the wrong kinds of economic poisons in the wrong amounts in the wrong places,” testified Dolores Huerta, Vice-President of the UFWOC.^{3(p1369–1371)}

OSHA STATUTE

The emphasis on exposure to toxic substances in the work environment ultimately found its way into the OSHA statute. Section 8(c)(3) of the statute requires that each

employer shall promptly notify any employee who has been or is being exposed to toxic materials or harmful physical agents in concentrations or at levels which exceed those prescribed by an applicable occupational safety and health standard promulgated under section 6, and shall inform any employee who is being thus exposed of the corrective action being taken.⁶

The sense of urgency in 1969 and 1970 was not unlike today’s movement to protect civilians from gun violence. The most basic function of government is the protection of the health and safety of its citizens. OSHA was a response to that governmental failure. While not perfect, the existence of OSHA has made a significant difference in the lives of working people.