Why Do Flight Attendants Need OSHA Now!
OSHA Now is one of the most important campaigns for flight attendants in many years. It involves your safety each and everyday you are at work on a flight. Please take the time to make a differece in your safety.

Why Flight Attendants Need
OSHA NOW!
Job-related injuries, illnesses and deaths have an incalculable human cost. That's why virtually all workforces have some type of protection from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
But air transport workers don't have OSHA protections. In 1975, the FAA claimed jurisdiction over the health and safety of flight attendants and pilots. And while the pilots are medically certified and their health is closely monitored by the FAA's Office of Aviation Medicine, cabin safety and health hazards faced by the overwhelmingly female flight attendant profession have essentially been ignored for the past 25 years.
This lack of safety and health protection exposes flight attendants to unnecessary risks, such as:
Exposure to HIV and Hepatitis. Flight attendants must provide inflight emergency medical assistance that may include giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or assisting during childbirth. However, flight attendants are not protected by a blood-borne pathogen standards as they would be under OSHA.
Breathing bad air. Poor air quality in the passenger cabin is associated with symptoms ranging from headaches and blurred vision to permanent disability. Substandard air quality can be traced to inadequate ventilation and chemical contamination of the air with engine oils, pesticides and cleaning agents. Currently, carriers are not required to inform flight attendants of any chemical exposure hazard or provide them with access to company medical and exposure records as they would under OSHA.
Lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying, twisting. Flight attendants suffer disc, neck and shoulder injuries from lifting bags into overhead bins, or from being struck by items that fall from overstuffed bins during turbulent flight. Company goals for on-time departures and passenger service put pressure on flight attendants to undertake this passenger responsibility.
Flight attendants often maneuver poorly maintained food and beverage carts that weigh more than 200 pounds. Using carts that are equipped with awkward hand brakes can cause nerve and muscle damage in the wrists and arms. Broken carts are often returned to the cabin unfixed. Despite these hazards, flight attendants are not protected by any design standards that could be referenced and enforced by OSHA, nor will they be affected by OSHA's proposed ergonomics standard as it stands now.
Serious recognized hazards. Flight attendants do not have the stated right to a place of employment that is free from serious "recognized hazards" as they would with the protection of OSHA's General Duty Clause.