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About OSHA

There are references to OSHA throughout the manual. OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which was created by passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1971. OSHA gives workers the right to a safe and healthful workplace. The biggest problem for AFSCME is that OSHA does not cover all public-sector workers.

Many AFSCME members are covered by states that have passed laws that give the same or similar protections to public employees. Twenty-three states and Puerto Rico have federally approved laws that cover public employees. Other states, such as Illinois and Wisconsin, have laws to protect public employees, but are not approved by federal OSHA. See Chapter 9 for more information about OSHA coverage and what it means.

OSHA standards are mentioned throughout the manual. OSHA standards are regulations that are intended to protect workers. OSHA standards have numbers (citations) and appear in this manual in boldface type. For example, the OSHA respiratory protection standard appears as “29 CFR 1910.134.”

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