Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
November 14, 2000, Tuesday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. C1
LENGTH: 810 words
HEADLINE:
Material from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this report.;
OSHA SETS REPETITIVE STRESS RULES NEW CURBS WOULD SEEK TO
ERADICATE INJURIES; PARTISAN BATTLE ENDS
BYLINE: By
Michael Rosenwald, Globe Staff
BODY:
The Clinton
administration announced rules yesterday aimed at eradicating the 460,000
workplace injuries attributed each year to repetitive motions on the job. The
move capped a partisan battle that had bitterly divided Republicans and the
White House.
For Heidi Eberhardt, the news was a victory of sorts.
The Somerville resident suffers from a devastating
repetitive strain injury: tendinitis in both thumbs, hands, and forearms.
Eberhardt said she developed the injury while working for an Internet publishing
company, typing on her computer eight hours a day, five days a week.
When the pain is at its worst, she can't turn her door key or even
button her pants. Eberhardt, 32, had to leave her job. She now works 12 hours a
week for the Coalition of New Office Technology in Boston, which advocates for
the health and safety of office workers.
While she and other proponents
of the measure cheered the news, Republicans and business leaders who have
wrangled over the cost spoke out against it.
Representative Bill
Goodling, a Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the House Education and
Workforce Committee, said the new standards, which go into effect on Jan. 16,
follow "a pattern of overstepping authority and issuing controversial new
policies."
The National Association of Manufacturers, which said it
would challenge the new rules in the US Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, called them rushed, scientifically weak, and a payoff to labor unions.
Baruch Fellner, lawyer pressing the suit for the association and other
business groups, said that the rules are too vague and are not supported by
science, that the economic analysis by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration was fatally flawed, and that the agency had
violated procedures in developing the standard.
"We fully expect to
prevail in this lawsuit," the Reuters news agency quoted Fellner as saying.
OSHA has argued that the ergonomics program would save
businesses an average of $9.1 billion each year, according to
Charles N. Jeffress, the assistant secretary of labor who oversees the agency.
It would also prevent about 230,000 reported repetitive stress
injuries a year, and perhaps 230,000 that go unreported.
The
program covers more than 102 million workers at 6.1 million work sites
nationwide. It calls for companies both to provide educational information about
such workplace injuries and to take steps to curtail them. Eberhardt said no
such measures were in place at the company where she says her injuries occurred.
The problem of repetitive stress injuries is
particularly acute in Massachusetts. Last year, 51 percent of work-related
illnesses and injuries that forced workers to miss more than five days at work
were caused by repetitive stress injuries, said Nancy Lessin,
the health and safety coordinator for the state's AFL-CIO chapter.
"This
is obviously taking a huge toll on workers in this state," Lessin said. "It's
taking a huge toll on their health and well-being. And it's also costing a lot
of money in terms of worker compensation and lost productivity."
OSHA's Jeffress said the government estimates that
employers will need to spend $4.5 billion a year to comply with
the standard.
But other calculations differ dramatically. The Employment
Policy Foundation, a nonpartisan research and education foundation in Washington
that focuses on workplace trends, estimates that the changes will cost
businesses $125.6 billion a year. Jeffress calls that number
"greatly inflated" and "wildly exaggerated," adding that OSHA's
predictions were based on company case studies.
Detractors also said the
initiative was rushed into implementation for fear that a White House led by the
Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush, would delay or kill the
project altogether.
Jeffress shrugged off that assertion and pointed out
that OSHA has worked on the measure for 10 years and published
a proposal a year ago.
"This is not a partisan or political issue,"
Jeffress said. "It's about saving workers from getting hurt. It's about
preventing injuries. We know that it's time to act."
Proponents say the
measure was needed sooner rather than later. What's especially alarming to many
are the increasing number of repetitive stress injuries
surfacing among younger workers. From 1992 to '96, Massachusetts public health
officials recorded more than 200 cases of carpal tunnel syndrome involving
workers younger than 25.
Lessin said people should think about those
affected by these injuries before squabbling over dollar figures or statistics.
"This is not just about numbers and costs in terms of dollars," Lessin
said. "Whether it's a back injury or a repetitive stress
injury, this is not only taking a toll on people's lives at work, but
on their ability to function in the world."
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