AFL-CIO v. Marshall
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
617 F.2d 636 (1979)
- Written by Nicole Gray , JD
Facts
In June 1978, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), headed by the Secretary of Labor, Ray Marshall (defendant), promulgated regulations to limit workers’ exposure to cotton dust. The Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970 gives the secretary broad discretion to regulate against potential harm to workers and only requires that he provide notice of proposed rules to interested parties and give them an opportunity to present evidence or arguments before proposed rules are implemented. OSHA’s internal rule-making procedure requires further that a qualified hearing officer preside over oral hearings on proposed rules and verbatim transcripts of those hearings be taken. According to a large rule-making record, OSHA promulgated the standards in question to reduce health risks to cotton workers by establishing permissible exposure limits for every industry that exposed workers to cotton dust. The implementation was dependent on cooperation of employers by adoption of engineering and work practice standards within a timeframe indicated by the statute. Representatives of the cotton textile industry and nontextile industries (plaintiffs) challenged the regulations in federal court as unwarranted and infeasible; and employee unions, including AFL-CIO (plaintiff), challenged the standard as too lenient. The cases were consolidated.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Bazelon, J.)
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