OSHA (Uncensored)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Carl Malamud <carl () media org>
Date: August 29, 2008 2:36:51 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: OSHA (Uncensored)

Here's a nice Labor Day story.

In 1980, the last year of Jimmy Carter's administration, the  
Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) commissioned a  
series of three 30-minute films about worker safety.  These were real  
pro productions, with Studs Terkel as narrator on two of the  
productions.  In 1981, Reagan appointed 36-year old Florida  
construction executive Thorne G. Auchter, who proceeded to  
systematically dismantle the agency.  Evidently, the 3 films disturbed  
Thorne greatly, because OSHA issued a recall, threatening to withold  
OSHA funds from any organization that did not return their copies of  
the films, which were promptly destroyed.

But, a few union officials defied the ban and "stole" copies so they  
weren't able to be returned.  Over the years, they would occasionally  
show them to their troops, using the fact they banned as a way to get  
them to watch the films, which have important messages about worker  
rights and workplace safety.  But, aside from these bootleg showings,  
the video disappeared.

Public.Resource.Org got a note recently from Mark Catlan, a health and  
safety expert for one of the unions for the last 28 years (he actually  
started working for the union the year the film came out, and  
remembers his education director stealing a copy out of his office so  
it wouldn't get returned).  A year ago, Mark decided the world needed  
to see these films, so he found 16-mm cannisters and made them  
available to us to transfer to DVCAM and then disk.

Making their public debut after 30 years are "Worker to Worker,"  
"Can't Take No More," and "The Story of OSHA."

Link to YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=31E75CE43C7B93B5

Link to the Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22public.resource.org%22%20AND%20subject%3A%22osha.gov%22%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies

( http://tiny.cc/hdLvC )

Carl




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