It was crazy. Though already 7 years old at that point, OSHA was still in its infancy, so there were few workplace safety rules in effect (and when we went to factories as EPA inspectors we went to great efforts to make sure they knew we weren’t OSHA, since shop foremen at some factories were under instruction to make life hell for OSHA inspectors). I think the only thing keeping steelworker injury levels manageable was the strong union, which had negotiated some important safety rules – rules which the fatcats said made US mills noncompetitive. They might have been right, but so what?
(Incidentally, on one inspection we found that excess pickle liquor at one now-closed factory got surreptitiously flushed into the regular water runoff, and eventually into Lake Erie, at 2AM every day or two.)
