Mandatory Occupational Safety and Health Standards: Some Legal Problems

Abstract

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 19701 authorized for the first time the setting by the federal government of occupational safety and health standards applicable to businesses affecting interstate commerce.2 This authority for the detailed federal regulation of conditions relevant to industrial safety and health has already had very significant effects on American industry. It is clearly destined to have even greater influence in the future as the broad regulatory potential of mandatory safety and health standards is fully explored. This article considers a number of legal problems connected with developing mandatory standards to protect occupational safety and health, and with regulating the hazards in the industrial workplace by means of such standards. Compliance with occupational safety and health standards is a primary duty under the Act for both the employer3 and the employee.4 The duty is nothing more than an admonition in the case of employees as there are no statutory penalties applicable to them.5 For the employer, however, the duty is much more than theoretical as the mounting number of citations6 under the Act will attest, including penalties for the employer's failure to provide stringent enough sanctions to make his employees obey.7 And the penalties can be severe, especially for repeated or willful violations or for failure to abate a violation.8