Osha Publications And Audiovisual Programs 1998 Revised

In 1998, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began work on developing a standard that would have required all workplaces to establish a safety and health program, which uses management tools that address general behaviors and procedures to reduce the risk of occupational injuries and illnesses. Although some states already had such programs in place, OSHA argued that worksites with such programs had lower rates of injury and illness and that a federal standard would extend this benefit to worksites without such programs. By 1999, however, OSHA had abandoned its rulemaking process, partly due to intense criticism of the effectiveness relative to the cost of the proposed standard. Prior studies have attempted to analyze whether, if implemented, the standard would have been effective in its goals and whether the benefit-cost trade-offs would have leaned in favor of one or the other. Unfortunately, these studies have been inconclusive for a variety of reasons. This report takes an objective approach to assessing both the proposed OSHA standard and prior studies of its potential effectiveness, implementation and enforcement, and benefits and costs, concluding with recommendations to guide further analysis should federal or state authorities opt to revisit the rulemaking process for such a standard.

Background Workplace violence is a serious safety and health hazard in many workplaces. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, homicide is the second leading cause of death to American workers, claiming the lives of 912 workers in 1996 and accounting for 15 percent of the 6,112 fatal work injuries in the United States (BLS, 1997). Violent incidents at work also resulted in 20,438 lost work-day cases in 1994 (BLS, 1996). The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reported that from 1987 to 1992 almost 1 million persons annually were victims of violent crime at work (Bachman, 1994). These data include four categories: 615,160 simple assaults; 264,174 aggravated assaults; 79,109 robberies; and 13,068 rapes. These victimizations resulted in an estimated 159,000 injuries annually. Violence inflicted upon employees may come from many sources, including customers, robbers, muggers and co-workers. Although workplace violence may appear to be random, many incidents can be anticipated and avoided Even where a potentially violent incident occurs, a timely and appropriate response can prevent the situation from escalating and resulting in injury or death. OSHA believes that all late-night retail establishments can benefit from an examination of their workplaces to determine if workplace violence is a potential hazard for their employees.