Historical Aspects of OSH – Essay

Unit 1 Essay: Historical Aspects of OSH

BOS 3001, Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health

Columbia Southern University

Unit 1 Essay: Historical Aspects of OSH

Hawk’s Nest Tragedy

The tragedy selected for this assignment was Hawk’s Nest Tragedy. This was a very early issue in the United States. This event led to major lawsuits and public interest in silicosis. It would go on to be labeled the “King” of occupational diseases. In West Virginia between 1930 and 1931 the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Project was undertaken. It was a hydroelectric power plant construction plan of Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation (UCC) to divert 5 miles of rivers in Gauley Bridge, (Quail, M. T., 2017). The workers were hired to drill a passageway through the mountain. Workers would spend between 8 to 10 hours underground with no mask or respirators to protect them from harmful dust and particles. On top of that this particular mountain had a unusually high silica content.

Under normal circumstances workers exposed to silica would take 10 to 30 years to show signs and symptoms of silicosis. The high content of silica in this mountain range coupled with the substandard work environment and lack of safety practices led to many employees dying within 1 year of working on this project. It is said that there were hundreds of employee deaths by the end of this project. It was reported that the company would have employees who died from exposure buried in a nearby field and lie to family members when questioned about the individual’s whereabouts. The primary excuse was the loved one had left without any indication of where they were going.

Compare and Contrast

At the time of this tragedy there wasn’t much in the way of regulations or governing bodies to help regulate and hold companies accountable like there are today. This tragedy led to a group of companies coming together to form the Air Hygiene Foundation which conducted research and developed standards for working in dusty environments, (Goetsch, D. L., 2015). The U.S. Department of Labor would later provide the leadership necessary to make silicosis a compensable disease under worker’s compensation. Today unlike the 1930s dust-producing industries use a variety controls that range from administrative, engineering, and personal protective gear to help protect workers in these dusty environments, (Goetsch, D. L., 2015).

Prevention of Reoccurrence

Even today silicosis is still an issue, with about 1 million workers in the U.S. still being exposed to silica every year and around 250 people dying annually, it will take everyone doing their part to help prevent a major reoccurrence from happening. Some OSH regulatory and/or consensus standards out there today that help with this issue are: The Three E’s of Safety, The Total Safety Management (TSM) concept, and OSHA’s General Industry Standards. The specific parts of the OSHA standards that stick out for air contaminants are, Subpart G: 1910.94, Subpart I: 1910.132, 1910.134, and Subpart Z: 1910.1000, (Goetsch, D. L., 2015).

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