Occupational Safety and Health Act Creates OSHA After Decades of Industry Opposition to Workplace Safety

On December 29, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and establishing for the first time comprehensive federal authority to set and enforce workplace safety standards. The legislation responded to an epidemic of workplace injuries and deaths that had been tolerated for decades while industry successfully blocked regulation.

In 1970, approximately 14,000 workers were killed on the job annually, with 2.5 million disabled by workplace injuries and illnesses. Coal mine disasters, industrial explosions, and toxic exposures were routine news. Yet workplace safety had remained almost entirely unregulated at the federal level. States set weak and inconsistent standards that industries could evade by threatening relocation. Workers had little recourse beyond workers’ compensation, which provided minimal benefits and no incentive for employers to prevent injuries.

The labor movement had sought federal workplace safety legislation for decades. Business groups, led by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce, consistently blocked such efforts, arguing that safety was a matter for individual employer discretion and that regulation would impose crippling costs. Industry preferred the status quo, where the costs of workplace injuries were borne by workers and taxpayers rather than employers.

The bill’s passage reflected a shift in the political landscape. Growing environmental awareness, the consumer protection movement, and a reinvigorated labor movement created pressure for action. Media coverage of industrial disasters, including the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster that killed 78 miners, generated public outrage. Nixon, seeking to appeal to blue-collar workers, supported the legislation despite business opposition.

The final law required employers to maintain safe workplaces, authorized OSHA to set and enforce safety standards, required record-keeping on injuries and illnesses, and gave workers the right to request inspections and file complaints. Business groups secured concessions limiting penalties and providing for industry participation in standard-setting.

OSHA faced immediate industry resistance and became a target of the deregulation movement. Enforcement budgets were perpetually inadequate—the agency had fewer inspectors than the Fish and Wildlife Service. Still, workplace fatality rates declined significantly in subsequent decades, from approximately 14,000 deaths in 1970 to around 5,000 by 2019, even as the workforce doubled, suggesting the regulatory framework saved thousands of lives annually.