There is an implied moral obligation placed upon an employer to ensure that work activities and the place of work are safe; there are legislative requirements defined in every jurisdiction on how this is to be achieved and there is a substantial body of evidence which shows that effective occupational safety management can reduce the financial exposure and damage to the reputation of an organisation by reducing accidents.
As the industrial revolution opened up substantial commercial opportunities in Western societies, the financial imperative of business owners and industrialists lead to the use of an exploited, unskilled and uneducated workforce including child labour and rural migrant workers, often in working conditions where injury and death were day to day occurrences.
In the UK, the early 19th century Factory Acts were a significant development for gradually improving occupational safety through the decades, in fact the last iteration was made in 1961.
One clear example of how unsafe and dangerous work conditions had become during the industrial revolution can be seen in this extract relating to an early 20th century mining disaster in West Virginia, USA.
One historian has suggested that during World War I, a U.S. soldier had a better statistical chance of surviving in battle than did a West Virginian working in the coal mines.
[5]As research into occupational medicine improved, it had become possible to start to identify industrial diseases and illnesses caused by exposure to industry specific hazards such as coal dust in mining (miners black lung or coalworker's pneumoconiosis), asbestos in construction (asbestosis and mesothelioma), exposure to physical agents such as occupational noise from industrial machinery (hearing loss, tinnitus or deafness) and vibration hazards from tools and equipment (hand-arm vibration syndrome and vibration white finger).
The ILO guidance document is one of the most basic and adaptable models for organizations to utilize when developing a occupational safety management system.
An OSMS is intended to act as a part of the business administration system for an organization to effectively meet its legal obligations under applicable occupational safety and health laws.
National standards draw on experience and knowledge from a wide variety of organizations and individuals and can provide a uniform and consistent framework in which to work.
The Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series Project Group was independent of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).