1
Safety and health committees are an ongoing experiment in labor-management self-
regulation of the workplace. Safety committees have been common in many dangerous
industries since the adoption of workers’ compensation programs in most states during the
1910s. Early studies of these committees indicate similar attributes to those in contemporary
times: committees have an equal number of labor and management representatives; committees
generally advise management but hold little authoritative power; meetings occur on a regular
basis; committee functions include worksite inspections, hazard identification and abatement,
and promotion of safe work practices.
1
Given the thin regulatory capacity of the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, labor scholars and government officials have identified
workplace safety committees as important, supplemental regulatory tools for improving safety
and health at work (Cohen and Rogers 1992; Rogers 1995; DOL 1988; New OSHA 1995). For
workplace issues more broadly, labor-management committees have received serious
consideration among parties interested in increased productivity (DOL 1994; Levine 1995) and
among scholars concerned about increasing employee input, participation, and empowerment in
an era of low union membership in the U.S. workforce (Freeman and Rogers 1999).
Not all scholars are optimistic about safety committee effectiveness, and the critics cite
workplace relations of power as a primary obstacle to effective labor-management cooperation
that undergirds effective self-regulation. Noble’s groundbreaking analysis of OSHA includes a
cautionary note on safety committees, arguing that they are ineffective so long as workers do not
have the protection and autonomous power of labor unions (1986: 224-231). Regarding joint
labor-management committees more generally, critics contend that they function as institutions
of “pseudo-participation”: by giving workers a forum to air their grievances, committees serve
the function of providing employees with a voice without any impact on the outcome of
authoritative decisions (Grenier 1988; Bachrach and Botwinick 1992). Recent efforts to legalize
labor-management committees prohibited by the Labor-Management Relations Act
2
have created
the specter of the return of the company union (at a time when the rate of union membership in
the American workforce is lower than the 1920s, widely regarded as the company union’s
heyday). One important issue regarding safety committees, then, is whether they are effective in
non-union workplaces as those that are unionized.
1
French (1923) and Douglas (1921) are two early studies on the emergence of workplace safety committees in
response to workers’ compensation reforms.
2
The Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act is the most widely debated piece of legislation (U.S. Senate 1997).
Convention