Factory Inspection and Worker Safety

Reforms in Britain during the 1840s led to a series of Factory Acts and amendments designed to end child labor, bring women into safer occupations, and limit workday hours. The 1867 Factories and Workshops Act, for example, excluded boys under age thirteen from the coal mines and glass factories. Women's employment was also curtailed.

Between 1890 and 1920 most states in the United States enacted workplace safety laws, but they were primarily cosmetic and sometimes struck down by reactionary courts. An Illinois law limiting women's employment to eight hours was struck down in 1895 by state courts. When employers did violate weak laws, they were not penalized but were simply asked to stop violating them. In many states, factory inspections were voluntary. Some states enforced tougher laws in response to disasters, such as New York after the Triangle fire, but most did not.

The New Deal of the 1930s brought the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), which guaranteed a right to form unions and bargain collectively, and the 1936 Walsh Healey Act, which set safety and health requirements for government contractors. Safety standards were adopted from panels of government advisors (the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists [ACGIH]).

A 1947 bill guaranteed a right to walk off the job if workers believed it was unsafe, but attempts to pass an act requiring occupational safety and health standards across the board were defeated in the 1950s and 1960s. Organized labor noted that work injury and illness rates increased during this time, with annual fatalities totaling about 14,500.

In 1970 Congress passed the comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) with requirements for record keeping, complaint procedures, federal inspections, and regulatory hearings with judicial enforcement. Professional standards for occupational medicine were also included.

Critics say OSHA's impact has been slight enough to be debatable, but some studies suggest that OSHA has managed to limit exposure in newly regulated areas such as asbestos, vinyl chloride, lead, and cotton dust.

In 1977 the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act consolidated all federal mining industry regulations into a single administration, and in 1990 the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) began programs to help eliminate specific health hazards, such as black lung disease and silicosis.

Government regulation and worker's compensation lawsuits probably decreased the occupational fatality rate from 7.46 to 4.25 per 100,000 workers annually between 1980 and 1995 in the United States, while the 2000 global average is an estimated 14 per 100,000.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), 1.2 million men and women worldwide die every year from occupational accidents and work-related diseases. Workers worldwide also suffer 250 million occupational accidents and 160 million occupational diseases each year. These deaths and injuries take a particularly heavy toll in developing countries, the ILO said, where mining, agriculture, logging, and other hazardous industries are concentrated.

In addition, only 10 percent or less of the work force in these nations is likely to have any sort of accident or health insurance coverage. Labor organizations and international environmental organizations have made industrial health and safety a twenty-first-century issue for the developing world.