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In Memory: George Taylor, Architect of First Major Workplace Safety and Health Law
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| George H.R. Taylor |
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.
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.
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1 Comment
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Management has a hero of production named Taylor and labor has a hero for Health and Safety named Taylor. Our Taylor saved thousands of lives while the production wizard just increased profits at the expense of workers.
To My Brothers and Sisters who still live on Workers Memorial Day
When the Roll is called up yonder,
Of all the workers who have died.
Will my name be among them?
So my heart will fill with pride.
I am a Union Member in life and when I am dead;
So every April 28 I want to hear my name be read.
I died because of the job, so remember me by name.
Correct the unsafe condition; I do not want the Fame.
I was proud of being union all the time I was alive.
I want to stay union even if my body won’t survive.
Let my death be an example to those who still live.
Be Safe and Healthy is the message I would give.
We just came to work here we didn’t come here to die.
With Solidarity in my heart I will never say Good-bye.
Thousand of us each year meet with this tragic fate.
Safety first, last and always before it is to Late!
Written By David Hurlburt CWA Local 9410