Plan to Scrap 70% of Shipyard Standards Claimed

The shipbuilding industry and federal regulators are collaborating in an attempt to scrap 70% of the general standards that protect 115,000 workers in the nation’s shipyards, the steelworkers union said Friday.

A deregulatory program for shipyards has been under way at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for four years, the union says.

But labor unions whose members would be affected by any changes were not told of the campaign and did not find out about it until last fall, said Michael Wright, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America.

OSHA’s director of safety standards, Barry J. White, said unions have been notified of the proposals. He denied that the agency is proposing to do away with 70% of the standards.

Newport News Connection

The USW has 18,000 rank-and-file members working in Virginia at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., the driving force behind the campaign to revise the standards. Newport News is one of the biggest shipyards in the world.

The proposal, which OSHA employees refer to as the Newport News project, was revealed Thursday at a congressional hearing where OSHA chief Robert A. Rowland came under fire for his management of the agency. Rowland owns from $15,000 to $50,000 in stock in Tenneco Inc., the parent company of Newport News Shipbuilding.

OSHA “experts close to the work believe that 60% to 70% of the present safety standards covering shipyard workers will be deleted or watered down,” Michael Urquhart, president of Local 12 of the American Federation of Government Employees, testified. Local 12 represents 4,500 employees at the Labor Department, including 300 in OSHA.

Memos obtained by the USW in Pittsburgh suggest that the project grew out of problems Newport News Shipbuilding had with OSHA just before President Reagan took office. OSHA under the Carter Administration levied $786,000 in fines against the company for 617 violations of health and safety standards.