Caution: going to work may still be dangerous to your health

May 1990

Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole supports changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Act that would increase the maximum fines allowable under the law from $1,000 to $7,000 for serious violations and from $10,000 to $70,000 for repeated and willful violations. Additionally, cases of willful violations that resulted in serious bodily injury or recklessly endanger human life would be reclassified to be felony violations, carrying a maximum prison sentence of six months. “It [is] the first time OSHA has taken a stand on increased penalties,” the Portland Oregonian reports. Business groups, however, tell the Oregonian that the legislation could harm innocent business owners. “Decent and respectable employers will have greater exposure to criminal penalties than bank robbers, drug dealers, and common criminals,” says one industry leader.[9] Despite that opposition, Congress increases fines. It does not, however, enhance criminal penalties. Willful violations resulting in the injury of a worker are not subject to criminal penalties, and willful violation resulting in the death of a worker remains a misdemeanor.

September 1990

The NSWI releases report that calls occupational disease “the most neglected public health problem in the U.S. today,” blaming under-funding of OSHA for both the agency’s lack of adequate standards and for its inadequate enforcement of existing weak standards (particularly having to do with toxic chemicals). Professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City Phillip Landrigan tells the Seattle Times, “The government has relied on industries to decide whether new chemicals should be tested and what tests should be applied to new chemicals. Industry reviews the literature and claims there is no need to test.”

OSHA responds by saying that NSWI’s reports did not have to contend with the same limits as OSHA standards: “[The report] recommends a standard that deals solely with the health of the worker,” said Diane Porter, the agency’s assistant director. “OSHA must consider technological feasibility, economic feasibility, and they must go through a public rulemaking process.” Deputy Assistant of Labor Alan C. McMillan, however, acknowledges that, “We at OSHA are concerned and have been concerned about improving our collection of fatality information.” Sen. Kennedy comments that the report “documents in chilling detail the scope and seriousness of occupational disease in this country, and underscores the need for stronger federal laws to assure safe and healthy work conditions.”[10]

Industry petitioned OSHA to develop updated standards on cranes and derricks in the early 1990s after a number of workers were killed or injured. Even with industry and labor support, OSHA took ten years to develop the standards — a period during which over 200 workers died in crane and derrick-related accidents.

May 1992

Responding to the fact that it takes OSHA an average of seven years after it has presented draft rules for comment to get those rules finalized, Sens. Kennedy and Metzenbaum propose that the OSH Act be amended to increase maximum criminal penalties (including increasing the maximum penalty for a willful violation resulting in the death of a worker from six months to 10 years), extend OSHA’s jurisdiction to federal workers, and require OSHA to issue a standard within 18 months of drafting it. Threatening a veto, the Bush administration opposes legislation in favor of using more voluntary regulation programs, which it says would make OSHA more effective than the proposed changes. OSHA director Dorothy Strunk says, “Maybe we don’t need to do standards anymore. […] Maybe we should do health and safety programs requiring employers to do their own hazard analysis.” Rep. Richard Armey (R-Texas) says that “This so-called reform bill will burden the economy and impair out economic recovery.” Echoing his colleagues’ claims that the bill would “bury us in paper,” Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.) says that the bill “pits employee versus employer, and big government versus small business.”[11]

Newsday, however, reports that “health and safety experts say OSHA’s befuddled rule-making process is fraught with built-in delays.” Labor groups, however, say that voluntary programs will not work without clear federal standards. “One of the biggest objections our employers have to putting in new work standards is that they’re not convinced that it’s going to make a difference. They really need some sort of pressure like a standard to get them moving,” said an International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union spokesperson.[12] After going through several committee hearings, consideration the bill is indefinitely postponed by the Senate by unanimous consent.

July 1992

Federal appeals court throws out standards on maximum air contamination levels that had been established for 428 toxic chemicals. OSHA had finalized these rules in 1989, only to have them challenged by a suit by both the AFL-CIO, which wanted to have the standards strengthened, and by industry groups, who wanted the standards thrown out altogether. “Although we strongly criticized the standard, we asked the court to keep the standard in place, while ordering OSHA to adopt more protective exposure limits,” a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO said.

The court, however, ruled that OSHA had “insufficient” evidence to justify to the standards.[13] In its opinion, the court states, “Given OSHA’s history of slow progress in issuing standards, we can easily believe OSHA’s claim that going through detailed analysis for each of the 428 different substances regulated was not possible, given the time constraints set by the agency.” Nevertheless, court holds that law does not permit the kind of “short-hand approach” that OSHA had used to adopt the standards.

Court insists that, for each substance, OSHA analyze the estimated harm at levels sought to be proscribed. An approach of erring on the side of safety where some level of contamination is reasonably thought to pose some level of risk is not acceptable, the court rules.

Newsday reports that “if the ruling stands, standards for evaluating about half of the chemicals would be abolished, while the others would be covered by less stringent rules.” The court suggests that OSHA needed to gain congressional approval in order to pass broad standards, and OSHA says that a case-by-case approach to making standards is too slow.[14]

1993

Senate Labor and Human Resource Committee holds hearings on a Senate bill that would make willful violations of OSHA rules resulting in the death of a worker subject to criminal penalties; mandate that employers and employees form safety committees; and give OSHA the power to review, certify, and bolster safety programs for federal employees. The business community calls the changes costly and unnecessary. Specifically, it is opposed to preventative regulations that would require employers to pay for training and education programs. Labor Secretary Robert Reich says these kind of programs would actually save employers from incurring worker compensation and other injury-related expenses.[15] The bill dies in committee.