Can’t Take No More 1980 Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)

Studs Terkel narrates this fast-paced history of occupational health and safety in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution to the 1970s, which OSHA released in 1980. Rare archival footage and photos illustrate the problems behind dramatic tragedies as well as the daily dangers that put workers at risk for long-term health problems. It also connects the health and safety movement with the civil rights and environmental movements. This is one of three wonderful films produced and distributed by OSHA during the administration of Dr. Eula Bingham – Can’t Take No More; Worker to Worker; and OSHA. Then in 1981, the new head of OSHA, under the Reagan Administration, Thorne Auchter recalled most copies and they disappeared. A few copies were kept alive by union officials who refused to return their copies. The penalty for being discovered in possession of one of these films was losing all OSHA funding for their safety and health programs. This was recalled by Tom Lynch on his blog Workers’ Comp Insider at http://www.workerscompinsider.com/archives/000698.html
” [in 1975] when I became the Director of the Army’s safety efforts throughout New England, and would travel up and down the east coast lecturing on safety and health, it was obvious that OSHA was a big stick. In 1979, with assistance from the AFL-CIO, OSHA produced a 27-minute movie called “Can’t Take It No More.” Narrated by Studs Terkel, it carried a powerful message, offering a history of the safety movement in America and targeting worker health. As part of our program, my training department would screen the film repeatedly over the next year and a half for soldiers and civilian employees. In 1981, one of the first things the new Reagan administration did as it began to reverse OSHA’s aggressive thrust by ushering in “voluntary compliance,” was to recall all governmental copies of “Can’t Take It No More” and forbid any organization seeking government funding for a safety program from showing the film. I recall having to box up our three copies and send them back to Washington, DC, where they were to be destroyed. That was when I knew that, for OSHA, the good times were over … ” All three films are posted to my YouTube channel and also available for download from the Internet Archive thanks to the work of the nonprofit Public.Resource.Org. Find out more about this wonderful organization and make a donation at https://public.resource.org/about/index.html.
This film, produced by Durrin Films, Inc. (now Durrin Productions, Inc) at (http://www.durrinproductions.com/about.html ), won an Honorable Mention at the 1982 American Film Festival; CINE Golden Eagle.