Copyright 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
December 16, 2000, Saturday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL, Pg. 3
LENGTH: 529 words
HEADLINE:
OSHA'S ERGONOMIC RULES WILL HURT MORE THAN HELP
BYLINE:
Christopher S. "Kit" Bond
BODY:
In its Dec.
11 editorial, on the recently published ergonomics regulation,
the Post-Dispatch apparently took a page from an OSHA press release at face
value and assumed that the only way to reduce musculoskeletal disorders is to
adopt a regulation that does not answer critical questions to help employers
safeguard workers and that will leave small businesses exposed to litigation and
citations.
In fact, the Department of Labor's own figures from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics show that injuries related to ergonomic issues
declined by 26 percent from 1992 to 1998 throughout the economy, not just in the
industries cited in the editorial. Unfortunately, the regulation OSHA has put
out will only muddy the waters and cause employers who already have effective
programs to go back and retool them just to satisfy OSHA.
The
Post-Dispatch's recitation of OSHA's widely discredited cost and benefit figures
also ignores the government analysis by the Small Business Administration, which
determined that OSHA's initial cost estimates (the same ones quoted in the
editorial) were between two and 15 times below the actual cost of the rule.
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, I have heard from
thousands of small businesses about their utter fear of the excessively punitive
ergonomics penalties. Let me be clear: Their fear is not that they will have to
protect their employees, or even that they will have to spend some money to
achieve this goal.
They are fully prepared to do what is right for their
employees to avoid painful and time-losing injuries, but they believe that OSHA
is using their companies to test its theories on how to prevent musculoskeletal
injuries and determine what levels of exposure to risk are appropriate. While
extensive research on the subject of musculoskeletal disorders has been
conducted, it has not yielded the required consensus to support the thresholds
OSHA imposes. Moreover, there is no agreement on remedies or interventions to
safeguard workers.
A clear example of this is the controversy
surrounding the use of back belts. While OSHA has endorsed the use of back belts
as part of the ergonomics standard, the National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health continues to maintain that back belts provide no protection
against back injuries.
Consider too the fact that this rule makes an
employer responsible for an injury that may not have been caused by the
workplace. This means that small businesses will be held accountable for factors
beyond their control. They may do everything right, or even what OSHA has
required, but the problems may continue, further exposing them to liability.
The Post-Dispatch blithely dismissed these difficulties and others,
merely adopting OSHA's arguments to answer relevant concerns raised by the very
businesses that will have to comply with this incomprehensible rule.
Unfortunately, it also concealed the fact that the inherent flaws in OSHA's
ergonomics rule are the root cause of the problems small businesses will have
with the rule, rather than the mean-spirited and whiny attitude the
Post-Dispatch ascribed to the business community.
NOTES:
Christopher S. "Kit" Bond, a Republican, is
a U.S. senator from Missouri.
LOAD-DATE: December 16,
2000