Copyright 1999 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles
Times
November 23, 1999, Tuesday, Home Edition
SECTION: Part A; Page 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 1208 words
HEADLINE:
OSHA SCALES BACK ITS NEW WORKPLACE SAFETY PLAN;
ERGONOMICS: FEDERAL RULES ARE DESIGNED TO PROTECT 27 MILLION WORKERS FROM
ON-THE-JOB INJURIES. BUSINESS IS OPPOSED, EVEN AFTER PROPOSAL IS DILUTED, AND IT
STILL COULD DIE IN REPUBLICAN-LED CONGRESS.
BYLINE:
NICK ANDERSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON
BODY:
The Labor Department proposed new
regulations Monday to protect an estimated 27 million U.S. workers from
repetitive stress injuries, but the suggested standards were
relaxed in an effort to placate a hostile business community.
Labor
Secretary Alexis M. Herman contended that the new rules, which still face a
public comment period and could be thwarted by Republican critics in Congress,
would prevent 300,000 workers each year from suffering disabling injuries and
save $ 9 billion annually in workers' compensation claims and other costs.
The proposed rules, at 24 pages in abbreviated form, are generally
stronger than the one-page standard adopted in California in March 1998, when
the state became the first in the nation to create workplace ergonomic rules.
Some of the federal rules would kick in for an employer at the first
documented injury, while comparable California rules take effect only after the
second injury. And the federal rules would require employers to provide workers
with a summary of the new standards, while under state rules employees simply
have to be informed of management's ergonomics program, workplace experts said.
The new rules by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration are scaled back somewhat from a stricter set proposed
last February, making it easier for employers to correct violations with fixes
as simple as footrests. Nonetheless, business reaction to the new rules Monday
was sharply negative.
Randy Johnson, a vice president of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, said Monday that business leaders will redouble their
efforts on Capitol Hill to kill the standards and, if necessary, will take the
government to court.
"This fight's not over," Johnson said. "The
best-intentioned employer isn't going to be able to figure out the standards ,
even if he has hundreds of lawyers. It's like getting your arms around a bowl of
Jell-O."
Susan Hall Fleming, an OSHA spokeswoman, said
she knew of no business group that has endorsed the proposed standards. But she
said that is not surprising. "They prefer no regulations to any regulations at
all."
The federal ergonomics regulations, which would apply to nearly 2
million workplaces, would be the first at the federal level to enshrine the
principle that working conditions should fit the worker.
They are aimed
at preventing hernias, chronic back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and other
crippling disorders among millions of workers who perform repetitive, awkward or
stressful tasks.
The federal rules will supersede California's in cases
in which the federal rules are stronger. In addition, employers and employees
are likely to be better informed about the new federal rules than they are about
state rules. Carolyn Lundberg, president of Ace Ergonomics, a consulting firm in
Newport Beach, said many employers are out of compliance with the state rules,
in part because they are in denial about the rules' importance to their bottom
lines.
"Federal rules carry more weight," Lundberg said. "There are more
federal enforcement agents than Cal/OSHA has."
Most of
the targeted workers are in manufacturing or manual labor, but white-collar jobs
in which employees are prone to injuries would also be included.
The
administration acknowledged that it would impose direct costs of $ 4.2 billion a
year on employers--more than double the earlier estimate of $ 1.8 billion. Those
calculations do not include the projected workers' compensation savings.
"Good ergonomics is also good economics," Herman declared.
The
administration has been pressing for regulations since shortly after President
Clinton took office in 1993. Business interests have fought back every step of
the way. And when Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they swiftly
blocked any action.
This year, the House passed a bill to block the
OSHA rule-making, but the Senate failed to follow suit before
Congress adjourned last week. Now administration officials say they hope to wrap
up the regulations before Clinton leaves office in January 2001--but Congress
will have all next year to block the rules.
The proposed standards would
cover only health problems connected with muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints,
cartilage and spinal discs. The ailments must be documented by medical
professionals and linked to the direct tasks of a given job. For instance,
OSHA says, a factory worker who contracted tendinitis on a
production line would be covered under the regulations. But the same worker who
sustained a back injury while changing a water bottle would not be covered.
In general, the regulations require employers with manufacturing or
manual-lifting jobs to name an ergonomics point person and give employees
information on topics such as how to look for workstation hazards and how to
report potential problems or injuries.
In addition, employers in all
industries in which workers sustain work-related musculoskeletal disorders could
be required to analyze hazardous workstations in detail, fix the problems,
launch intensive employee training, offer certain minimum pay benefits to
disabled workers and take other follow-up steps.
Those requirements were
headlined in February, when the administration announced it would push ahead
with its proposal. What is new in the draft released Monday, besides the
increased cost estimate, is an option for businesses to avoid the full-scale
ergonomic program in certain cases by simply fixing a hazard that crops up in a
particular type of workstation within 90 days, and rechecking the safety measure
within 30 days. Such "quick fixes" could mean adding a platform, providing a
footrest or adjusting the height of a work surface.
Administration
officials also narrowed the language of the rules to stipulate that an employer
need trouble-shoot only workstations for employees who hold a job identical to
one in which a given worker is injured. Previously, employees with "similar"
jobs were also covered.
Other new language says that employers may be in
compliance as long as they are on schedule to eliminate hazards (before, there
was no definition of compliance) and that disabled employees who leave work are
entitled to 90% of their paychecks (before, the rule said 100%).
A
spokesman for Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate's Small
Business Committee and a leading critic of the proposed regulations, declined to
comment Monday on what opponents would do next.
In October, Bond said
the stakes are "incredibly high, since this regulation, whenever it is issued
and takes effect, will be one of the most far-reaching workplace rules ever
issued by any federal agency. Ultimately it will affect every business in the
country."
At Monday's news conference, a disabled poultry worker from
Delaware told how he and co-workers suffered injuries to their backs and hands
that might have been prevented by the proposed rules. "We all have damaged
bodies," said Walter Frazier, whose job required him to lift live chickens from
a conveyor belt, then twist and stretch upward to hang them on racks.
The proposed rules are to be published today in the Federal Register.
Details also are available on the OSHA Web site at
http://www.osha.gov.
LOAD-DATE:
November 23, 1999