In Memory: George Taylor, Architect of First Major Workplace Safety and Health Law

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/04/03/in-memory-george-taylor-architect-of-us-workplace-safety-and-health-laws/

In Memory: George Taylor, Architect of First Major Workplace Safety and Health Law

by Mike Hall, Apr 3, 2007

George H.R. Taylor, one of the architects of the nation’s first comprehensive workplace safety and health law, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and a key player in winning its congressional approval in 1970, died March 23 at a hospital in Rockville, Md. He was 95.

Taylor worked for the AFL-CIO from 1959 until 1983, the last six years as the federation’s director of occupational safety and health until his retirement.

Speaking about Taylor, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) says the ground-breaking safety legislation “would have never passed without him.”

Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO director of safety and health, says:

George led the unions’ fight for worker protections on radiation, asbestos, lead, cotton dust, noise and other hazards. He was a mentor to a whole generation of safety and health activists, teaching us that worker rights and union rights were a prerequisite for improving workplace conditions. He was a dedicated trade unionist, passionate about righting wrongs and addressing injustice. Though he lived in the Washington, D.C., area for many decades, he never lost touch with his Idaho roots and had a fierce sense of independence and disdain for bureaucracy.


George H.R. Taylor

In the 1980s, Taylor fought against the Reagan administration’s move to put a price on workers’ lives by quantifying the cost of safety regulations. He told The Washington Post:

It’s an arid exercise in controlling lives. You don’t make policy concerning human lives based on costs. That lets systems economists, any that have the gall, to become decision makers.

If there is a reasonable belief that a large number of people are going to be put at risk, you try to prevent it. You don’t wait until you can count the last pair of lungs on the dissecting table.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Taylor:

…spent his life’s work fighting for justice and fairness and demanding that government serve the interest of ordinary citizens. Millions of workers have been protected from injury and illness because of his tireless work.

Taylor is survived by his daughter Caroline V. Taylor, son John G. Taylor and two grandchildren.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Countless people benefited from Mr. Taylor's work...

some lives probably even were saved, quite a legacy to leave behind. Thanks for the post, Steve.