Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

WORKPLACE SAFETY :

Work cut out for next OSHA chief

Even with optimism that comes with new president, many battles to be fought

Frustration permeated a Washington hearing room in June as a House labor committee took testimony on construction safety that focused on fatalities in Las Vegas and other places.

What a difference five months — and one election — has made.

In June many Democratic lawmakers and labor advocates expressed concern that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration was not living up to its promise to curtail workplace injuries and deaths, and they criticized OSHA for failing to draw up stricter safety rules and enforce existing regulations.

Concern had crescendoed in Las Vegas after 12 workers died in 18 months on the Strip. Those sites were inspected by Nevada’s own safety agency, which is monitored by federal OSHA.

FedOSHA chief Ed Foulke’s laid-back demeanor at the June hearing frustrated lawmakers.

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas told him: “I don’t want to turn on the TV and find out more workers died at another site, so there’s a bit of urgency.”

For Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, who leads a House subcommittee on workforce protections, the take-away message was that “OSHA needs a complete overhaul.”

Today, many of those advocating safety for workers anticipate change.

But they also say it won’t come easily.

Foulke left OSHA just after the election. (He joined a law firm that, among other practices, represents companies under investigation by OSHA.)

President-elect Barack Obama recently named a team to examine agencies in the Department of Labor, including OSHA. Members of the team aren’t talking, but Obama has said that he would reverse the Bush administration’s practice of “cutting staff, dramatically reducing funds for training, promoting weak voluntary programs at the expense of proven enforcement mechanisms, and reversing key protective standards.”

He said he would increase OSHA’s funding and provide more health and safety training for small business employers and construction workers. Obama also said he would reinstate controversial ergonomic standards that were overturned by the Republican Congress.

In the short term, worker advocates with the ear of the next administration say they expect to see OSHA shift emphasis more toward enforcement of safety standards and away from voluntary partnerships with employers. Those partnerships were a mainstay of President George W. Bush’s OSHA and are popular among business groups.

“The problem is the balance,” Peg Seminario, health and safety director for the AFL-CIO, said. “This is an agency that is supposed to be setting the standards of enforcement. Partnerships, cooperative programs and voluntary efforts have taken on a level of importance and of resources that is really disproportionate to what it should be.”

Advocates are also optimistic that the Obama administration will be more aggressive in writing new safety standards. They’re eager to see movement on key regulations they say have stalled, including new standards for construction cranes and several workplace health provisions.

But strong resistance to some changes is expected.

The Chamber of Commerce, for example, is gearing up to fight ergonomic standards and other possible OSHA initiatives.

“We believe we have a very significant role to play in the OSHA debates,” said Mark Freedman, director of labor policy for the Chamber of Commerce. “It will indeed be a battle.”

Several construction safety professionals affiliated with the Association of Safety Engineers said they do not want Obama’s administration to shift the emphasis back toward enforcement and away from cooperative relationships.

“It’s important to recognize private businesses many times go beyond OSHA basic compliance simply because it makes good business sense,” said Neil Webster, a safety director for a construction company in Massachusetts. “That’s something that needs to be put into the script somewhere.”

Some former OSHA officials also caution that the next OSHA chief faces many fundamental challenges, including low morale at an agency with inadequate budget and staff levels. Other problems include faulty injury data and interference from Department of Labor attorneys who make settlements with employers that whittle down citations.

“I wouldn’t wish that job on anybody,” said Celeste Monforton, a researcher at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and former policy analyst at OSHA. “The agency doesn’t have the resources to do what it needs to do. You can quadruple the budget and you’re still never going to have that, given the political climate in terms of regulation.”

Michael Silverstein, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, says that in the long run, changes at OSHA are going to require an overhaul of the legislation that created the agency 38 years ago and has barely changed since.

Silverstein was a director of policy at OSHA under the Clinton administration and his name has been bandied about, along with several others, as a possible OSHA chief under Obama.

“OSHA has never been free enough from political turmoil to address the limitations” of the original act that created OSHA, Silverstein wrote in a paper recently published in the American Journal of Public Health. “Even when OSHA has been especially visionary and creative in pushing the margins of the OSH Act beyond routine regulation and enforcement, these inventive efforts have failed to overcome legal and political barriers.”

In his paper, Silverstein brainstorms several major changes to OSHA, including requiring inspection of every business every year by private inspectors who would be audited by the government. That could solve the problem of the government’s limitations on workplace inspections, he says.

Several other former OSHA officials, along with interest groups, are also circulating policy proposals.

Adam Finkel, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a former regional administrator and director of health standards at OSHA, has proposed finding a new way to target establishments for inspection, establishing more enforceable partnerships, and writing rules to require companies to use the best available technology to decrease health risks.

Any changes that require new legislation are not likely to happen right away, advocates acknowledge.

Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has written legislation, co-sponsored by Obama, to make modest changes to OSHA law. That’s likely to be revamped and reintroduced, eventually, but for now Kennedy is consumed with health care legislation. And labor unions — key supporters — are wrapped up in the Employee Free Choice Act, which would change union elections.

The question, for now, becomes how much a new OSHA chief can do under existing OSHA laws.

Silverstein said in an interview that although sweeping change might take time, he hopes an energetic and determined OSHA leader could quickly improve safety standards, enforcement and other areas.

“That person has to be extremely strong and has to get an agreement before they accept the job that the Secretary of Labor is behind you,” said Jerry Scannell, who headed OSHA during the administration of president George H.W. Bush. “I believe there’s a lot that has happened but a strong OSHA can get people’s attention and employers will start doing what they should do.”

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