what was the status of us workplace safety laws in 1900?

what was the status of us workplace safety laws in 1900?

Answer –

Before the 1900s, there were no laws related to workplace safety in the United States and this has increased the safety and health risks being faced by the employees on their jobs. For example, around 300 miners have been dying among 100,000 workers each year in the United States. The regulatory and legal climate that was developed in the US at that time had also discouraged the employers related to providing appropriate priority to the levels of safety that in turn led for formation of productive and dangerous methods of production. However, the labor groups had started providing pressure on the government for the remedies and the bureaus of state labor have investigated the dangers towards safety and health. The Massachusetts Factory Act implemented in 1877 that helped in establishment of the system of factory inspection which improved the conditions in the workplace. The middle class and upper-class progressive people had also provided towards enforcement of the laws by the employers and this helped in formation of the safety laws.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed by the Congress in 1970 for protecting the workers on their jobs and creating the Occupational Health and Safety Administration or OSHA for regulation and maintenance of the standards related to safety and health. The safety laws in the United States were hugely opposed by many states although the workers were demanding their implementation. Although all states already had the safety laws, none of laws were properly implemented by them. Most of the states had just passed some of the safety laws and they also lacked in the activities that need to be performed for effectively enforcing the laws so that they can be beneficial for the workers. During the era of industrialization which was a period between Civil War and the World War 1, overall outlook related to average workers had been quite grim in nature. The evolving nature of the workplaces for moving faster and increasing the levels of production had placed the employees in the dangerous working conditions. The serious accidents taking place within the workplaces became quite frequent and this also prompted the government in taking the actions. The surveys of different workplace fatalities from 1906 to 1907 were hugely related to the lack of appropriate workplace laws that can be used for improvement of the conditions within organizations.

Child labor was another important issue that had started increasing during 1900s due to lack of appropriate workplace laws. The views related to child labor was inherited by the United States from the colonial England that depicted the idle children as an important source related to poverty and crime. The census in 1900 had also depicted that the children who are within the age group of 10 years to 15 years have made around 6 percent of overall labor force in the nation. On the other hand, discrimination is another important aspect that had become a widespread issue during 1900s and was also encouraged hugely in the United States due to lack of appropriate workplace laws. The shifts that were however depicted in 1900s were encouraged hugely based on the roles being played by women. There was a lack of the presence of women who had entered the workforce the in the US and in 1950 around one-third of the women of the age of 16 years had entered the labor force. The laws related to workplace safety in the 1900s were thereby hugely different from the laws that are currently implemented within the workplaces.