Is OSHA broken? Yes, says Obama’s nominee to head agency
July 30, 2009 by Jim BurgerPosted in: Chemical safety, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, OSHA news, Recordkeeping, enforcement, ergonomics
Does OSHA work for working people? No way, says David Michaels — the man President Obama will nominate to run the agency.
Michaels, a professor at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, detailed his views in Congressional testimony two years ago.
To paraphrase, he saw the agency as weak, unmotivated, understaffed, heavily impeded and generally ineffective.
Here are a few excerpts, which clearly signal his views on recordkeeping, ergonomics, rulemaking and the General Duty Clause, among other topics:
- “Preventable work related injuries and illnesses … are unacceptably high. Furthermore, the true incidence of these conditions is far higher than reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
- OSHA enforcement does not appear to be effective in further reducing injury rates. … Statistical analyses indicate that (any reported) decrease can be attributable to changes in OSHA recordkeeping rules.
- “For most hazardous chemicals, OSHA’s standards are either inadequate or totally absent. One could write a book about the hazards that OSHA has failed to regulate adequately.”
- “The primary blame (for OSHA’s failure to issue appropriate health standards) rests in a system that makes OSHA standard setting inordinately difficult and resource-intensive.”
- “OSHA has abandoned the general duty clause. It is time for the agency to start using it again.”
- “Ergonomic injuries cost employers $15-20 billion annually in workers’ compensation costs alone, yet this number one workplace safety and health problem is not even mentioned on OSHA’s most recent regulatory agenda.”
- “OSHA doesn’t have the staff to work on more than one or two standards at a time, and … each standard takes years to complete. Unless things change radically, only a handful of the thousands of chemicals in daily use in American workplaces will ever be the subject of an OSHA standard.”
There’s no question that OSHA will change radically if Michaels is approved by the Senate and moves his agenda forward — an aggressive approach that Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and interim OSHA head Jordan Barab appear to have already set in motion.
Do you expect OSHA to make your job tougher in the coming years? Tell us what you think in the Comment Box below.
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Tags: agenda, David Michaels, OSHA
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July 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Certainly an increased focus by OSHA would have the net result of making our jobs harder. So what? Our jobs shouldn’t be easy anyway if we are doing them properly. The attention should be on getting injuries reduced. Anything beyond that is just something that our profession will have to bear.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:47 am
So what will happen to Mr. Barab? Will he become the assistant to Mr. Michaels? He seems to have gotten things all stirred up… would make sense to keep him involved.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Ergonomic injuries cost employers $15-20 billion annually in workers’ compensation costs alone, yet this number one workplace safety and health problem is not even mentioned on OSHA’s most recent regulatory agenda.
Wow does this guy read or study safety? Like most Bureaucrat he wants the job and is going to bad mouth everyone and state how he can do a better job. Heard it all before. Most of this is repeated retoric. OSHA recinded it’s laws on egronomics due to the lack of ability to enforce them. By enforcing the laws they came up with you’d basically have to have machines instead of office personnel. It was an impossible task for the employer to eliminate all the egronomic problems an average office has.
OSHA tries but is mired in red tape and lack of training to new inspectors. We had one new inspector who took pictures of everything to turn into her boss so he could search them for violations. This was on a high rise construction project in Las Vegas.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
And we are supposed to keep jobs here in the U.S. how? Don’t get me wrong we must be safe in the work place but most of these OSHA regulations are nothing more than usless paperwork called “documentations” and implementing safety rules that a 12 year old would know better not to do. All this does is one thing, cost companies millions of dollars. And guess what, unsafe workers will still be unsafe workers. Throw in workers comp, EPA rules, family meical leave and all the other benefits and it will be easier to close up shop and build a factory in China or Malaysia. Good luck.
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I would simply offer the opinion that the cost of overregulation to business and our economy could possibly be as great or greater than the cost of underregulation (worker’s compensation, loss time, etc.). Everything has an equilibrium, right? It may be that past administrations have erred in the direction of the underegulation and thus did not achieve equilibrium. However, this administration seems to have the attitude that there are no boundaries to regulation, and that regulation is the solution to everything. The effects of overregulation could be disastrous for business, and certainly still not reach a state of equilibrium.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:29 am
If you spend enough time on a jobsite out in the field you will notice, many of the craft personnel are children when it comes to safety. Many dont know all the requirements OSHA has as a minimum. Many rebel against the safety regulations, prefering to push the work and the limits untill someone is hurt. Folks should not look at OSHA as the police but as a resource.
August 6th, 2009 at 7:03 am
Before panic sets in, let’s all understand that OSHA regs are a minimum requirement. Many of us go beyond what is required by OSHA in order to keep our employees safe. Is it a hassle to comply sometimes? Sure it is, but it’s our job. Things are always going to change. You have to roll with it and focus on the objective. Send you people home injury free every day. You don’t need anyone else to tell you that.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:16 am
There are a lot of big numbers thrown around in the bullet points without any back up for them for shock value. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE A HORRIBLE NON-ERGONOMIC DEATH AT WORK IF WE DON’T DO WHAT THIS GUY SAYS!
If he came out and said things were great his annual budget for inspectors and regulators would dry up and blow away. Hard to rationalize your salary and benefits under those conditions.