Cal/OSHA Returns on May 1 to Its Safety Task

State officials will resume enforcement of job safety and health laws at California’s private sector workplaces on May 1, California and federal authorities jointly announced Monday in San Francisco.

The announcement was the product of lengthy negotiations and an outgrowth of the victory last November of an initiative--Proposition 97--to restore the state program.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration assumed responsibility for protecting California’s 10.5 million private sector workers on July 1, 1987. Federal officials stepped in after Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed funding to continue the state program, which had been in existence for more than 70 years.

Organized labor, public health groups and some business interests opposed the governor’s decision. Signatures were gathered, and a vigorous campaign waged to persuade voters that the state’s workers would be better protected by the California program than the federal one.

Deukmejian asserted that the federal program was just as good and that the state would save $8.5 million by not having the state program. Voters spurned this argument by a margin of 54% to 46%.

The plan announced Monday calls for federal OSHA to continue to play a role in enforcing safety and health laws while the Cal/OSHA program is phased back in from May 1 to Oct. 1.

Specifically, federal OSHA will conduct targeted inspections in selected industries that are particularly hazardous. In the interim period, Cal/OSHA will conduct investigations based on complaints. It will also investigate accidents and conduct follow-up inspections of sites where a prior Cal/OSHA inspection found a serious violation.

State and federal officials made public a memorandum of understanding, signed March 30 by Frank Strasheim, federal OSHA’s regional administrator in San Francisco, and Ronald Rinaldi, director of the California Department of Industrial Relations, on the transition, detailing the respective roles of the two agencies for the next few months.

“As soon as Cal/OSHA can mount a fully operational worker safety and health program,” federal OSHA will relinquish the power it has held for nearly two years, Strasheim said.

Rinaldi said that by May 1 the state expects to have 136 of the 214 inspectors it ultimately plans to have in the field.

Robert W. Stranberg, chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said Cal/OSHA plans to reopen the same 21 district offices it operated before Deukmejian’s veto. He said many will have the same street addresses and telephone numbers as before.

Cal/OSHA has had three offices open for the past 21 months as it continued to fulfill its responsibilities for protecting the work sites of 1.7 million state and local government employees in the state. It will continue to have that responsibility under plans announced Monday.

The federal government will retain responsibility in California for the safety and health of federal government workers and areas not covered by Cal/OSHA, such as maritime employees on navigable waters, civilian workers on military bases and other federal installations and at sites where national defense work is being done and state officials are unable to obtain the necessary security clearances to gain entry.

One issue state officials will have to confront soon is bringing some of California’s health and safety standards into conformance with more rigorous federal rules that have been adopted since July, 1987, when the state stopped promulgating new standards.

Many of California’s standards are tougher than federal standards, and that was an argument used frequently by proponents of Proposition 97 during the 1988 initiative campaign to restore the California agency. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act provides that any state safety and health standard must be “at least as effective” as the comparable federal standard.

Cal/OSHA officials have agreed that in specific areas where state standards are not as tough as federal standards, the more stringent ones will be applicable. California officials have also agreed to promulgate new standards that conform to more protective federal standards “as quickly as possible.”

Jan Chatten-Brown, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s special assistant for safety and health, said she is pleased about Monday’s announcement. However, she said that it might take some time before Cal/OSHA is functioning the way it used to and that there could be a period of confusion for workers who are not sure where to file complaints.

Chatten-Brown also said she hopes that Rinaldi will soon reconvene the Cal/OSHA Advisory Committee, which was disbanded when the state program was eliminated nearly two years ago.

Cal/OSHA has already rehired several of its former district managers, lawyers, safety and industrial hygienists.

However, it is unclear whether Stranberg will continue to head the agency. President Bush is considering awarding Stranberg a ranking position with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, according to several sources.

Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson), one of the most vocal supporters of Proposition 97, has asserted that Stranberg should be replaced because he opposed restoration of the state program and therefore is an illogical choice to run it.