Workers at Risk: The Failed Promise of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

by Thomas O. McGarity, Sidney A. Shapiro

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is not close to meeting its mandate to protect American workers, according to administrative law specialists McGarity and Shapiro. Thousands of men and women are still victims of workplace accidents and occupational disease. The goal of this book is to analyze why OSHA has failed and to suggest what can be done to set it back on track. The book, divided into six parts, evaluates the current status of the protection of workers and provides a history of OSHA regulation. The authors suggest four methods to reduce workplace health and safety (1) better management of OSHA; (2) reduced oversight by the courts and the executive branch; (3) a change in OSHA's legislative mandate; and (4) empowering workers to protect themselves.

This important work will be of interest to scholars and professionals in occupational health, labor economics, labor law, and human resource management.

Hardcover

First published February 28, 1993

About the author

Thomas O. McGarity is Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Administrative Law at the University of Texas School of Law and former attorney-advisor in the Office of General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. He is author of Bending Science, The Preemption War, and Freedom to Harm, as well as articles in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and The American Prospect. He is a past president of the Center for Progressive Reform.