U.S. Implements Job-Safety Rule Opposed by Business
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Clinton administration put in place on Monday a final safety standard, vigorously opposed by business, which it says will prevent 460,000 painful workplace injuries a year caused by repetitive motion.
By announcing the final ergonomics standard now and having it take effect on Jan. 16, just before a new president is inaugurated on Jan. 20, the administration acted before a possible George W. Bush administration could delay or kill it.
But Charles Jeffress, head of the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) insisted that the timing of the implementation of the standard had nothing to do with the possibility of an incoming Republican administration that is likely to oppose it.
``The schedule, if you will, was set before there was any thought about who the candidates were going to be in the election,'' Jeffress said in an interview.
OSHA has been researching an ergonomic standard since 1990, except in 1995 when it was blocked from doing so by the Republican-controlled Congress. Until last year, Congress had mostly prevented the agency from implementing a standard, following an intense lobbying campaign by business groups.
OSHA originally proposed the standard last Nov. 23 and made several changes to it in the final version, following nine weeks of public hearings and a review of other public comments.
``It's the culmination of a 10-year process,'' said Jeffress. ''We have done the studies; we have heard from the public.''
The ergonomics standard requires employers of more than 102 million workers at 6.1 million work sites take steps to prevent so-called musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), or repetitive strain injury (RSI), such as carpal tunnel syndrome or back injuries caused by repeated motion on the job.
Its sweep covers an array of jobs that usually require lifting, repetitive arm movements or using computer keyboards.
Companies will have to advise their workers of possible injury risks and the importance of prompt reporting of symptoms but are not required to actually change the way work is done unless an employee is hurt on the job or has symptoms of a work-related injury, OSHA said.
Business groups, calling the rules rushed, scientifically weak and a payoff to labor unions, said they would challenge them at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Baruch Fellner, an attorney pressing the suit by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and other groups, said the rules are too vague and not supported by science, OSHA's economic analysis is ``fatally flawed'' and the agency violated procedures in developing the standard.
``We fully expect to prevail in this lawsuit,'' Fellner said.
Other business group representatives told a news conference the rules are difficult to follow and would greatly impede productivity. They cited government statistics that show the worker complaints of these kinds of injuries have declined 34 percent in the last three years.
NAM Senior Vice President Mike Baroody said OSHA's timing was aimed at avoiding congressional oversight or the review of the next president and was aimed at fulfilling a promise that Vice President Al Gore made to organized labor.
``Rightly understood, this is not a health and safety rule -- it's a political payoff,'' said Baroody. ``And it's a scandal.''
The business community could accept rules that rely on ``a performance standard that encourages people to reduce the incidence of these complaints, these injuries,'' Baroody said.
OSHA estimates companies will have to fix 18 million jobs in the next 10 years, cutting in half the number of MSDs. It said the rules would prevent about 230,000 of the injuries reported each year and another 230,000 among those not reported.
The government estimates that employers will have to spend $4.5 billion a year on training, administration and workplace alterations to comply with the standard.
But society would reap estimated annual savings of $9.1 billion from lower workers' compensation costs for employers, greater productivity and worker savings, OSHA said.
Business groups said OSHA has greatly underestimated the true cost of the rules. One group, the Employment Policy Foundation, recently estimated the standard will actually cost businesses $125.6 billion a year.
Peg Seminario, safety and health director for the AFL-CIO, said the rules will be especially helpful to women, who make up 46 percent of the workforce but suffer 70 percent of workplace injuries to the upper extremities of the body.
``We think it's a major step forward and will result in major changes in the workplace without question and is indeed long overdue,'' she said. ``That being said, it could be made stronger.''
Jeffress said that during OSHA's hearings, there were few, if any claims the standard could not be supported by science. ``The charges of there being no sound science have virtually disappeared,'' he said. ``When we asked for information, people could not make that argument.
Intense partisan disagreement over the ergonomics standard was one reason Congress and the Clinton administration have yet to agree on a final budget for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.