Market Incentives Trump Regulations

It is not very likely that safety regulations have done much to really improve the quality of life for American workers. In fact, there is a good chance that it has done the opposite. As long as all parties understand the risks involved, which contract law sorts out in the courts, workers will be compensated for higher risk with higher wages through the forces of supply and demand (known as compensating differentials). Regulations that force safety standards wind up forcing wages down as well, and it is perfectly reasonable for some workers to choose to accept higher risk in exchange for higher wages. Interestingly, it is unlikely that the regulations are actually anything more than paper work used to keep out smaller firms or lower skilled workers. Consider the following graph:
If the vertical line illustrating where OSHA was formed was not there, you would not be able to guess when it was instituted based on the graph. Workplace fatalities were already well under decline by the time safety regulations came along via OSHA. Why is this? Because one way to cut costs is to improve workplace safety, causing the supply of labor to shift to the right, and lowering the wages you have to pay. For some numbers from Bryan Caplan:

Annual OSHA penalties for safety violations (2002): $149,000,000

Annual Workers Compensation Premiums (2001): $26,000,000,000

Estimated Annual Wage Premiums for Risky Activities (2004 dollars): $245,000,000,000

The market punishment for riskier conditions is about nine times larger than the government regulation punishment of workers compensation and OSHA penalties. That is why we have the steadily falling time trend pictured in the graph.
Hat Tip: Marginal Revolution, Division of Labour, and EconLog