Keeping workers safe

Sunday, July 27, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

After the rash of construction deaths this year, a group of senators is pressing Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to take action to improve worker safety.

In a letter sent this past week, nine senators called on Chao to take steps to improve worker protections from falls, the leading cause of construction deaths. They also asked her to implement a proposed rule regulating cranes that hasn’t been updated since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created in 1971.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who put the group together, heads a Senate subcommittee on workplace safety and was moved in part by the Las Vegas Sun’s investigation into worker deaths on the Strip.

The issues of fall protection and crane safety are two prime examples of the Bush administration Labor Department’s efforts to delay or repeal regulation.

For example, under previous administrations, OSHA required ironworkers and others working high off the ground to use safety harnesses to prevent a fall. It also required netting or decking no more than two stories below them to break a fall and to protect workers below. The Bush administration repealed the requirement requiring netting or decking, arguing it was redundant.

As for crane safety, the Bush administration has stalled a new regulation from taking effect. Four years ago a committee of labor, industry and government officials signed off on new regulations for cranes, which have become increasingly sophisticated and complex.

The rule should have been in place long ago, considering all of the key players had a hand in creating it, yet OSHA chief Ed Foulke recently blamed the delay on the pace of the regulatory process.

That is nonsense. The real reason for the delay is the administration’s contempt for worker safety protections. The most recent example is a plan by the Labor Department to make it tougher for OSHA to regulate toxic chemicals. The plan is being reviewed by the White House, which will undoubtedly try to quickly push it through — a farewell gift to the president’s supporters in industry.

Sadly, the administration’s systematic attack on OSHA and worker safety laws has been costly to American workers. As the senators who signed the letter, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, D-Ill., noted, the delay in passing the new crane regulation “has resulted in more needless deaths and injuries in crane accidents.”

About 70 people die each year in crane accidents and more than 400 construction workers die in falls, according to Labor Department statistics. Given the administration’s stunning disregard for worker safety, Congress should move quickly to pass effective worker safety laws.