It is an economic fact that the more of one economic good you produce, the more it usually costs in terms of some other economic good you have to give up.  But how much money should industry spend on a workers’ heath and safety?

Textile workers suffering from "brown lung" disease brought on by inhaling particles of cotton dust and fiber supported the government’s demand for tougher standards in the mills.

However, in the 1970’s the American textile industry was locked in a fierce struggle against foreign competition. The industry was spending millions to protect worker health while competing Asian textile industries spent almost nothing.

The textile industry claimed that the initial relatively small expenditures for worker protection using inexpensive dust masks were able to produce large improvements in worker health. To improve health still further would require massive expenditures which would cost them billions. The money spent on improving health would mean higher consumer costs and elimination of thousands of jobs for what industry experts believed would be a massive diversion of resources resulting in very limited health and safety improvements.

The government responded that while dust masks could significantly reduce the risk of the disease, they could not eliminate it.  The Supreme Court held that under the OSHA Act human life could not be measured in terms of a financial cost-benefit analysis.

What is the true value to society of our choices? Should we strive to preserve human life regardless of any other economic cost, or should cost-benefit comparisons allow individuals to take informed risks?

Your assignment is to choose which position you would have taken on the issue if had you been in Congress during the debate over the Occupational Safety and Health Act.  Would you support stricter safety standards, vote to eliminate OSHA, or find some reasonable compromise?

• This brief should be 5 paragraphs; a minimum of 2 sentences, no more than 5 sentences per paragraph.

• All sentence must be complete sentences.

• The first paragraph of this Brief will be the Introduction.

• The first sentence of this Brief will be the THESIS. The Thesis is a clear NORMATIVE (subjective) statement of the position the brief will take on the issue using the vocabulary and concepts from economics: 

  • Should there be strict safety standards for businesses regulated by the government, should businesses be allowed to set their own standards without government interference, or is there some other reasonable compromise?

• The second sentence in the Introduction will be the OUTLINE for the rest of the brief listing the three supporting topics which will be presented to back up the  position supported by the Brief.

• The next three paragraphs will be Support paragraphs.  Each support paragraph will begin with a Topic sentence, and will include at least one POSITIVE (objective) FACT taken from the online articles or the textbook which backs up the THESIS.

• For the brief, use facts from the video, online articles, and textbook, page 24; do NOT bring in outside facts.

• All facts in this Brief MUST be cited using (author's name) format.

• A bibliography using proper MLA format citations should be at the end of your brief.

• A Brief should NEVER be in first person.

• A Brief should ALWAYS be IN YOUR OWN WORDS (IYOW); you may NOT cut and paste from the internet or any other source or you will receive a zero and this will be reported to the Honor Council.

• Your brief should ALWAYS be printed out, not hand-written.

• Your Brief is due at the beginning of the class on the assigned due date; assignments turned in after class will be penalized one point per day late.