The Continuing Saga Of Eroding Worker Rights

OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry

OSHA was developed as a tool for making employers, especially the larger corporation employers with a long-standing record of safety violations and injuries on the job, adhere to minimum standards of safety. That is correct, OSHA seeks out the MINIMUM approach to safety. While OSHA had some teeth, other laws came into effect, including requirements that companies report risks of exposure to chemical, mechanical and biological hazards under the Right to Know principle.

But slowly and surely the rights of workers under OSHA and EEOC have been eroded to a point that now OSHA and EEOC are practically de-fanged as a useful law. Add to the recent news the fact that Congress has not fully funded the staffing of these agencies for enforcement and processing of complaints, and these laws are almost toothless. This is a damn shame because up until the last few years employers were getting really focused on workplace safety for fear of OSHA oversight and prosecution. This recent report is likely to eliminate that focus and result in the firing of numerous safety officers.

While working for a large broadband provider in Boston, I saw top executives of the company piss and moan about our safety officer enforcing rules about hearing protection, fire drills, evacuation drills, lock down drills (for violence in the workplace), insurance safety inspections, and the requirements for a first aid box in every workplace. While working for a major proprietary college system operated by a huge newspaper and media corporation, I saw a complete disregard for OSHA regulations regarding blood-borne exposures for the clinical labs where blood and other biologicals were being collected and processed by students, but exposing every worker on campus to the risks.

So, when we see this type of report, we need to send our Congress critters a message--a loud and clear message--that worker safety is not a secondary concern. We need to remember that worker safety affects families. When a worker is exposed to risks at work, there is the distinct possibilities of bringing the risk home, as was the case for those that worked in settings that exposed workers to asbestos. Even a small amount of asbestos exposure can result in asbestosis, the embedding of asbestos fibers in the lungs causing an obstructive pulmonary disease and the potential for a severe form of cancer called mesothelioma. The same was true for coal miners bringing home coal dust that not only caused black lung disease for the miners, but also the same risks for their families.

In the field of general contracting, OSHA required in the 1960s and 1970s that workers be provided fresh water and an on-site portable toilet. Prior to that requirement, many major construction corporations working on private and public projects would require workers to literally hold their water and waste until an official break and find a place to relieve themselves. What resulted was that many construction workers would relieve themselves in some excluded place on the job site, leaving human wastes as a risk for hepatitis, cholera and other diseases.

The problem with the approach described in this report is that leaving the monitoring of OSHA requirements to the employer has not been a proven approach to worker safety, as is illustrated by the very first account in the report. Employers do not want to go through the paces of OSHA requirements, especially when many of these requirements cost money and eat away at profit margins. They do not want to step through what they perceive as hoops to assure safety on the job. They do not want to hire safety specialists and enforcement officers. And they do not want to respond to worker complaints and issues, nor the law suits that could result.

Leaving the process of safety in the hands of employers without stringent oversight and the enforcement options from outside the company is just wrong. This is especially the case under the Bush administration's hands-off approach to workplace safety where OSHA has been deliberately held back from enforcement, adding newer regulation and restricting actual workplace inspections, even after a complaint has been lodged and an investigation is warranted.

Seven years ago, a Missouri doctor discovered a troubling pattern at a microwave popcorn plant in the town of Jasper. After an additive was modified to produce a more buttery taste, nine workers came down with a rare, life-threatening disease that was ravaging their lungs.

Puzzled Missouri health authorities turned to two federal agencies in Washington. Scientists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates the causes of workplace health problems, moved quickly to examine patients, inspect factories and run tests. Within months, they concluded that the workers became ill after exposure to diacetyl, a food-flavoring agent.

But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with overseeing workplace safety, reacted with far less urgency. It did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill.

On Tuesday, the top official at the agency told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing that it would prepare a safety bulletin and plan to inspect a few dozen of the thousands of food plants that use the additive.

That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.

Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.

The agency has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others. For example, OSHA has repeatedly identified silica dust, which can cause lung cancer, and construction site noise as health hazards that warrant new safeguards for nearly three million workers, but it has yet to require them.

“The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency,” said Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health expert at George Washington University who has written extensively about workplace safety. “If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they’ve forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window.”

Agency officials defend their performance, saying that workplace deaths and injuries have declined during their tenure. They have been considering new standards and revising outdated ones that were unduly burdensome on businesses, they said, adding that they have moved cautiously on new rules because those require extensive scientific and economic analysis.