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New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) Records

Call Number

WAG.029

Date

1971-2011, inclusive

Creator

New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health
New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (Role: Donor)

Extent

62.5 Linear Feet in 61 record cartons, 2 manuscript boxes, and 1 oversize flat box
3 websites in 3 archived websites.

Language of Materials

Materials are in English with some Spanish on the archived websites.

Abstract

The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) was founded in 1976 to advocate for safe and healthy workplaces. NYCOSH bases much of its advocacy on the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and has helped spearhead successful efforts to preserve the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The collection includes minutes of membership, steering committee, health and technical committee, personnel committee, political education committee and workers' compensation committee meetings, general correspondence, requests for assistance, membership records, course materials, publicity flyers, fact sheets, newsletters, fund raising materials, pamphlets, lobbying materials, and educational materials.

Historical Note

The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) was founded in 1976 to advocate for safe and healthy workplaces. NYCOSH bases much of its advocacy on the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and has helped spearhead successful efforts to preserve the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 established rules and regulations governing health and safety standards in American workplaces. In the mid-seventies, the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) funded several educational programs under the auspices of Cornell University's Labor Studies Program. These programs increased health and safety consciousness among health care professionals. Out of these programs, a group of individuals organized NYCOSH in 1976 as an independent organization to advocate safe and healthy workplaces. NYCOSH's began as a strictly volunteer organization which solicited membership from labor unions and individuals. Initially, NYCOSH's budget consisted of funds collected in member dues. Eventually, NYCOSH began supplementing its budget with grant monies from city, state, and federal offices as well as private foundation grants.

The steering committee represented the central body around which NYCOSH worked, with a number of single issue committees designed to address specific topics faced by members. The committees included the health and technical, reproductive rights, workers' compensation, and political education. The most active of these committees were the health and technical, workers' compensation, and political education committees. The health and technical committee collected information regarding health and safety issues for a variety of occupations and organized educational forums, fact sheets, pamphlets, and other tools designed to inform workers of potential health and safety risks associated with their jobs. The workers' compensation committee helped individuals in their pursuit of compensation for injuries and illness resulting from their work. The committee produced a pamphlet describing all of the steps necessary for successful completion of workers' compensation disputes. The committee also drafted and lobbied for strong workers' compensation legislation at all governmental levels. The political education committee lead most of NYCOSH's lobbying initiatives, including regulations for saving OSHA legislation, asbestos, and right to know laws.

NYCOSH provided four basic services for its members, technical support, educational services, political education, and a task force addressing the special needs of minority workers.

Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, represented a serious threat to OSHA legislation. Numerous other COSH organizations, environmental organizations, and other politically oriented groups, and unions, joined NYCOSH forming a national coalition to fight attempts to weaken OSHA legislation. NYCOSH played a major role coordinating what would become the Committee to Save OSHA and efforts to persuade federal officials, senators and congressmen that OSHA must be maintained as it was and, in the future, strengthened. For the duration of the Reagan Administration, NYCOSH would reinstate the coalition to address threats to the legislation. Other topics that NYCOSH addressed in the 1980s included toxic substances and reproductive hazards and attempts to regulate women's work based on these issues. NYCOSH published its first reproductive hazard curriculum in 1980. Asbestos hazards became a major concern for the organization also. The health hazards workers and communities faced from asbestos remains a central issue in NYCOSH organizing. The first of a number of conferences addressing the issues related to asbestos hazards was staged in 1980.

In 1981, NYCOSH busied itself with a large number of conferences and activities. The growth of the organization demanded that it hire a full-time and part-time staff person to facilitate its services and activities. Joel Shufro, a board member, became the executive director of the organization, and continues to lead NYCOSH. Over the course of the year, NYCOSH held several conferences on topics such as toxic substances, hazardous wastes, and workers' "right to know." Work also began on a major conference devoted to the problems of minority workers called the Harlem Occupational Health Conference and on one about hazards in the office. Legislation which NYCOSH began working on in 1981 included the asbestos compensation, longshore and harbors workers' compensation and New York State workers' compensation bills. Legislative lobbying for occupational safety and health continued to be one of NYCOSH's major functions. In 1982 the longshore and harbors workers' legislation passed even though NYCOSH and other organizations lobbied strongly against it.

In 1984, because of major lobbying efforts by NYCOSH, the New York State Senate established the Committee on Occupational Health and Safety. NYCOSH also organized all of its fact sheets and published a list of publications it produced and made available to the public. Part of this organizing effort resulted in a resource guide and a library for membership and public use. This year also began NYCOSH's work to pass an asbestos control law in New York City. This effort was successful in 1986 with the passage of the law.

NYCOSH's worked continued with the Asbestos Task Force and video display terminal (VDT), right to know, and workers' compensation issues at the forefront of its efforts. These efforts culminated in 1988 with the passage of the asbestos control legislation in New York City, the NYC Community Right to Know law, and the nation's first VDT law passed in Suffolk County. In 1989, NYCOSH's lobbying efforts passed the Workers' Compensation Reform bill in New York State.

Recently, NYCOSH has been involved in the struggle to gain medical screening and care for 9/11's first responders and cleanup workers. NYCOSH's longtime Executive Director, Joel Shufro, retired in 2014.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into four series:

Series I: Management, 1977-1989

Series II: Activities, 1979-1987
Subseries A: The Committee to Save OSHA, 1979-1983
Subseries B: NYCOSH (New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health) Conferences, 1980-1986
Subseries C: Health and Safety Activities and Information, 1981-1987

Series III: Unprocessed Material, 1971-2011

Series IV: Archived Websites

Series I is arranged by function and then alphabetically. Series II is arranged by activity and then by date. Series III has not been arranged by an archivist.

Scope and Content Note

The collection includes minutes of membership, steering committee, health and technical committee, personnel committee, political education committee and workers' compensation committee meetings, general correspondence, requests for assistance, membership records, course materials, publicity flyers, fact sheets, newsletters, fund raising materials, pamphlets, lobbying materials, and educational materials. The collection includes a large amount of information regarding OSHA legislation and the lobbying effort made by NYCOSH in association with the national organization, the Committee to Save OSHA, against attempts to limit its regulatory reach in 1980. Another large section of the material covers NYCOSH activities regarding asbestos. These documents include material from two major conferences and campaigns lobbying for a New York City law controlling asbestos and other regulatory legislation at the state and federal levels.

The other documents constituting the bulk of this collection are correspondence. The correspondence includes lobbying material sent to political figures, form letters regarding dues payment, invitations, notification of conferences, networking letters to other COSH groups, unions, and political groups, and basic requests for information regarding health and safety issues and NYCOSH itself. VDT hazards, right to know material and workers' compensation materials, although less in bulk, are important aspects of the collection. These materials include legislation drawn up under the auspices of NYCOSH to strengthen workers' compensation in New York State and VDT guidelines in New York City. NYCOSH sponsored two "right to know" conferences and was active in lobbying for stricter legislation regarding employers' responsibility to inform workers and near by residents of the presence of toxic materials.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by New York Committee for Occupations Safety and Health was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date; New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) Records; WAG 029; Box number; Folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) Records; WAG 029; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials are stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact special.collections@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to research visit.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, 1985. The accession number associated with this gift is 1985.009. Additional donations were made in 2005 and 2009. The accession number associated with these materials is 2011.075.

Two additional donations, comprising the materials in Boxes 57-59, were made in 2012. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 2012.015 and 2012.023.

Another two additional donations, comprising the materials in Boxes 60-63, were made in 2014. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 2014.010 and 2014.016. Three pamphlets related to workplace safety were also donated in 2014. The accession number associated with these items is 2014.137.

Board Minutes from 2012 - 2013 donated by the NYCOSH, 2016. The accession number associated with this gift is 2016.006

http://nycosh.org/ was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2007 as part of the Labor Unions and Organizations (U.S.) Web Archive. In 2015, this website was migrated to Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. In 2021, https://twitter.com/NYCOSH/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2021.010. In May 2022, https://nyhealthynails.org/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2022.060.

Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures

Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu, (212) 998-2630 with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Take Down Policy

Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.

If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.

Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.

Collection processed by

Tamiment staff.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:48:48 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English.

Processing Information

Some materials from the 2012 and 2014 accessions were placed in archival housing. Loose materials were placed in archival folders.

In 2014, the archived website was added as series IV. Additional websites were added in 2021-2022.

Board minutes from 2012 - 2013 were added to series I (box 64) based on their content.

In 2019, items in Box 64 were placed in new acid-free folders and boxes in preparation for offsite storage.

Revisions to this Guide

April 2018: Updated by Jackie Rider to include accession 2018.041, reincorporated films.
April 2019: Updated and edited by Jasmine Sykes-Kunk for compliance with DACS and ACM Required Elements for Archival Description.
July 2022: Edited by Nicole Greenhouse to reflect additional administrative information and added archived websites.

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012