Word: osha
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...year. The older agencies?including the Interstate Commerce Commission (founded in 1887), the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the Food and Drug Administration (1931), the Civil Aeronautics Board (1938)?impose limitations on particular industries. The newer agencies?the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1964), the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), OSHA (1970), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (1972)?issue orders to institutions across the board. Their potential for change, and for damage, is far greater than their more circumscribed predecessors. Says Kristol: "This creates a lot of questions about who is running the country...
Everybody's favorite agency to hate is OSHA. "It is a four-letter word," says Congressman George Hansen, an Idaho Republican. OSHA was set up to protect 50 million workers from safety hazards in their 4 million places of work. People who are self-employed are excluded from OSHA's scrutiny; so are farmers with ten or fewer workers. Safety in some kinds of employment?mining, railways, airlines, highways, atomic energy?is regulated by other federal agencies. An estimated 4,500 workers died in 1976 from accidents or disease related to their jobs (down from...
...OSHA inspectors have turned up in the most unlikely places with the most implausible demands. Michael Armstrong, manager of In-Line Inc., a North Carolina construction firm, recalls the investigator who insisted that he provide a portable toilet for his crew while they were digging a tunnel under a highway. In vain did Armstrong argue that his men never complained about using the bathroom at a filling station 50 yards away. OSHA was even determined to give cowboys a new kind of home on the range, complete with a portable flush toilet within five minutes walking distance. Ranch hands...
Businessmen contend that OSHA's most pernicious habit is to sneak up on them unawares without search warrants, a practice that is drawing increasing scrutiny from the courts. Since last January, 18 state and federal court decisions have been handed down against the agency for violating the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unlawful search and seizure. A suit is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the agency's authority to make inspections without a warrant. There is plenty of evidence that such tactics simply make enforcement all the harder. Says William Kemp, a furniture manufacturer in Goldsboro...
Some steps toward disarmament are being taken by OSHA'S new boss, Eula Bingham, 48, a former science professor at the University of Cincinnati. Apparently she has heeded President Carter's executive order of last November calling for "simple and clear regulations" and less interference with individuals and organizations. She pared by half the number of OSHA forms that employers must fill out, and virtually eliminated them for small businessmen who employ ten or fewer people. In December, she announced that OSHA is abolishing 1,100 of its more than 10,000 regulations; her hit list will require more than...