The Role of Legal Compliance in Sustainable Supply Chains, Operations, and Marketing ​

Chapter 8

Operations Management and Workplace Health and Safety

History

With the rise of industrialization in the late nineteenth century, immigrant laborers seeking a new life in the United States flocked to urban centers in pursuit of economic opportunity. Working conditions for manufacturing and processing plant laborers at this time were poor to say the least. In 1877, Massachusetts passed the nation’s first safety and health legislation, imposing safety standards on only the most serious injury-prone aspects of factory operations: exposed belts, shafts and gears, elevators, and fire exits. The trend in state protections of laborers continued with nine states requiring inspections of factories, 13 states requiring guard equipment for machinery, ...