Labor Dept. Retreats on Ergonomics Ruling : Workplace: No other major push on repetitive injuries appears likely in near future. Congressional pressure cited.

The Clinton Administration, bowing to pressure from business interests and congressional Republicans, signaled a further retreat Monday in its plans to battle carpal tunnel syndrome and other painful workplace injuries stemming from repetitive activities.

Labor Department officials said they have abandoned plans for the foreseeable future to issue ergonomics regulations aimed at so-called cumulative trauma disorders, which have increased explosively in recent years to become the leading occupational illness in America.

Administration officials acknowledged that they were backpedaling in response to pressure from Congress, where Republicans have been crafting proposals to rein in the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“In the face of congressional intervention in OSHA standard setting, it is not possible now to publish a standard which has the breadth necessary to attack this problem,” OSHA director Joseph A. Dear said.

Dear emphasized that his agency is still working on a regulatory standard but that the ultimate proposal is likely to be narrower and take longer to adopt than previously expected.

His remarks continue the Administration’s succession of pullbacks over the past year in its once-ambitious ergonomics plans.

In September, 1994, the Administration missed its self-imposed deadline to issue a proposed ergonomics standard, and “from that point, it’s been rolling downhill to its ultimate conclusion,” said Michael G. Gauf, managing editor of CTDNews, a newsletter that focuses on cumulative trauma disorders.

Workplace safety advocates were also dealt a disappointing blow late last year when Cal/OSHA, after deliberations that were watched nationally, defied a California legislative mandate and declined to adopt the first comprehensive state ergonomics standard.

Still, union leaders--some of whom began lobbying for an ergonomics standard in the late 1980s--were bitterly disappointed by the latest news.

“ It’s a betrayal of working people,” said Teamster President Ron Carey. “It’s just another step in the Republican effort to abolish and weaken safety standards.”

But business lobbyists expressed relief, maintaining that OSHA’s plans would have forced employers to launch costly evaluations of all of the potential ergonomic hazards facing each of their employees.

“I’m pleased to see that they finally determined that something as massive and broad and intrusive as the rule they [originally] envisioned, or even the modified rule, required significantly more thought and a lot more scientific backing than we’ve seen from OSHA so far,” said Peter J. Eide, manager of labor law policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Eide said the types of plans OSHA has considered would be an onerous burden on small and medium-size businesses. At the same time, he said, many companies have already adopted ergonomics safety programs out of self-interest as a way of curbing their workers’ compensation insurance costs.

“It’s an extremely expensive workers’ compensation issue irrespective of OSHA, and the employer who doesn’t want to lose his shirt is going to have to do something about it,” Eide said.

With OSHA’s retreat from issuing a standard, no other major regulatory push appears likely in the near future, experts said. Advocates for an ergonomics standard in California recently won a court ruling compelling the state to come up with an ergonomics standard within 18 months. But some of these advocates fear that the state’s effort could eventually be blocked by a Legislature that has grown more conservative.

“The thing not to lose sight of is that it’s a real problem, not the matter of a few slackers,” said Louis Slesin, editor of VDT News, a newsletter focusing on computer-related health and safety issues.