ABSTRACT
In 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and giving it the responsibility to promulgate and enforce regulations on an economy-wide basis. Until the 1960s, the regulation of workplace safety was largely a byproduct of the incentives created by a patchwork of state-level workers' compensation laws layered upon the common law regime. Authority to set health and safety standards were vested in a new agency, the OSHA. Employers with voluntary compliance programs would be exempt from random OSHA inspections. In response to the procedural labyrinth that OSHA must negotiate in the rulemaking process and the limited resources available for standard-setting, it has emphasized alternative approaches to achieving its goals. In May 1987, OSHA cited Chrysler for ergonomic hazards and entered into negotiations that would result in a comprehensive ergonomics program. In his words, "OSHA's ergonomics regulation will protect workers whose jobs no longer exist".
