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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




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