Wish for Unions: Documents from the Workers Institute for Safety and Health (WISH)
In honor of International Workers’ Day, we are highlighting documents from the Workers Institute for Safety and Health (WISH) which was established in 1980 to protect workers from occupational hazards.
Shortly after the Industrial Union Department and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) brought a Supreme Court case against the American Petroleum Institute over the regulation of occupational exposure to carcinogens, the Industrial Union Department endorsed the establishment of the Workers Institute for Safety and Health (WISH) in 1980.
The institute was founded to: “1) identify information concerning the special safety and health hazards of workers and their families, and 2) marshal human, monetary and material resources to assist in their control.” Through collaboration with unions, scientific communities, and other arms of the labor movement, WISH sought to “prevent exposure to hazards that are factors of disease and injury, to intervene in the process that results in such effects and encourage the development of effective treatment of diseased and injured workers and their families.”