Everyone has heard of OSHA in some capacity or another. But what does OSHA do? And why does it matter? 

OSHA is a government agency that creates and enforces safety regulations for jobs. It stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Even if you’re an employee, you should still be familiar with OSHA regulations. OSHA regulations have been maintained since the 1970’s to help increase the health and safety at jobs across the country. 

OSHA creates rules that dictate proper equipment, procedure, and training to ensure that workers can safely work on a variety of jobs. OSHA is extremely prevalent in the construction industry, as there are many moving parts that can cause severe injuries on construction sites. One of the biggest OSHA violations found on construction sites is scaffolding that doesn’t meet regulations. OSHA has issued over $8,000,000 in fines per year due to these scaffolding violations. 

Scaffolding violations also tie in with OSHA’s “fall protection” violations. Each jobsite should protect their employees from falling with guard rails, a safety net, or personal harnesses. This costs construction companies more money than any other OSHA violation collectively. 

Besides issuing fines, what does OSHA do? OSHA sends its 2,000 inspectors to 8 million workplaces. This covers over 100 million people! They also offer protection for whistleblowers that report unsafe conditions on the jobsite. OSHA’s whistleblower offers protection from:

• Blacklisting
• Demotion
• Disciplinary actions
• Intimidation
• Refusal to hire or rehire
• Termination

If you believe your workplace is unsafe, you can file a complaint with OSHA. You do not need to know if any specific rules have been broken to file a complaint. 

What was it like working before OSHA?

Before OSHA, there were no health and safety regulations. Children were working 12 hour days in factories, there were no escape plans for fires, and workplace injury was common. As the manufacturing industry exploded in the US, workers were injured frequently. The most common example is fingers being lost to machinery mishaps. It was often cheap to replace the worker. They often had no legal recourse, and even if they did manage to win a lawsuit the payout didn’t amount to much. The accident rate did begin to decline in the early 1900’s. Congress passed worker’s compensation laws that drastically increased the amount of money companies had to pay for injured workers. This circumvented workers needing to sue the companies directly.

We should be grateful to OSHA

After the formation of OSHA, workplace deaths and injuries sharply decreased. Worker deaths per year were around 14,000 in 1970 to 4,400 in 2009. This statistic is impressive because deaths decreased by over half while the workforce doubled. OSHA has protected thousands of workers and prevented innumerable deaths over the last 50 years. 

Without OSHA, the safety precautions we take in the construction industry would not exist. The industry would be far more dangerous and the advancements made over the last 50 years would have been stifled. 

Sole Source Construction is a full service construction company. From design to implementation, Sole Source Construction has you covered. Call us at (401) 712-2700 or visit our website.