5 ms·
Interesting how little effect the introduction of OSHA seemed to have on the slope of the workplace fatalities trend graph. I would not have predicted that.
by housel 10y ago
Interesting how little effect the introduction of OSHA seemed to have on the slope of the workplace fatalities trend graph. I would not have predicted that.
- Consultant32452 10y agoI wonder how much OSHA has cost us in terms of both direct government spending as well as regulatory compliance in corporations (which is surely orders of magnitude greater) for such pitiful results.
- irremediable 10y agoYou'd need to look at death/injury by sector to see its effect. FWIW, I don't have a horse in this race, but I'm inclined to believe OSHA is a good thing. AFAIK most economics/manufacturing research has suggested the health and safety precautions in developed countries are cost-effective. Moreover, it's probably telling that most (all?) other developed countries have similar health and safety agencies.
- Consultant32452 10y agoIf health and safety precautions are cost effective, which I believe they are, then OSHA is redundant because businesses will strive to be economically efficient regardless of the regulations.
- irremediable 10y agoI think this would be true in an ideal world, but in practice I fear businesses can avoid dealing with the externality of employee injury. Many people working in building, manufacturing, manual labour, etc are low-paid, low-educated, and in the US may well be illegal residents. All of these things make it difficult for an injured worker to sue.
- chillwaves 10y agoMaybe because the incidence of death on the job was already low and safety (and consequences) is more than just about fatalities?
- michaelbuckbee 10y agoMy thought was that fatal accidents are much more prevalent in manufacturing jobs than the service industry and the drop corresponds more to manufacturing jobs leaving the US than anything else.
- Animats 10y agoYou need to look at stats by job classification. There are far fewer miners and production line workers than there were in the 1960s. Peak manufacturing employment was in 1978.
- Bartweiss 10y agoAt a guess, fatalities have always been bad for business. The decline just represents a decline in jobs that tend to kill people (Vox is really bad with ignoring this sort of association). I can't seem to find good pre-OSHA injury data (because OSHA are the only people counting), but that's where I'd expect to see the difference. You can run a business assuming injuries will happen, but pretty much everyone tries not to kill workers.