Unions Back Ergonomic Proposal
Trying to keep alive efforts to fight widespread repetitive motion injuries, unions and other job safety advocates have decided to support a stripped-down ergonomics standard being considered by California officials.
The qualified backing from organized labor marks progress toward adoption of a standard that--even in its current narrowed form--would be the nation’s first comprehensive regulation to prevent injuries stemming from repetitive job tasks.
Drafted by the all-Republican California Occupational Safety and Health Standards board, the ergonomics plan faces its first public hearing today in Los Angeles.
Repetitive motion injuries--including painful carpal tunnel problems and recurring muscle strains--have emerged as the nation’s fastest-growing occupational ailment. The latest figures show these injuries striking 332,100 workers annually, from assembly-line workers to supermarket cashiers.
The debate over the proposed California standard, a scaled-back version of a plan rejected in late 1994, vividly illustrates how far the regulatory climate has shifted to the political right nationwide in little over a year. Labor leaders just last month expressed outrage over perceived shortcomings in the proposed ergonomics standard that they now are supporting, albeit with serious reservations.
Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers in Washington have succeeded in thwarting the Clinton administration’s once-ambitious ideas for a federal standard. While unions urge government officials to take action against repetitive stress injuries, their opponents have prevailed in Congress with the argument that too little scientific evidence has emerged to warrant costly regulations.
“We realize that people are suffering, but to say to them that we can create a cure when we really can’t is the same as being a quack,” said Albert Lundeen, spokesman for an employer group, the Coalition for Common Sense.
In California, ergonomics regulation is being pushed forward by a court order mandating adoption of a job safety plan by December. A Republican-backed bill to repeal that mandate is expected to pass this month in the Assembly but to die later in the Senate.
California employer groups continue to oppose the standard or any ergonomics regulation, but the criticism in some quarters has softened. As a result, many union officials and other pro-regulation safety advocates believe their best strategy is to seek approval of the scaled-down standard now--and to try to strengthen it later.
“I do see the standard, even as weak as its language is, as a step forward,” said Diane Factor, co-chairwoman of WorkSafe South, a coalition including union officials.
The proposed standard would require employers to take action any time two or more workers at a job site are diagnosed with similar repetitive motion injuries in a given year. The employer measures would involve training, work site evaluations and such possible “controls” as increased rest breaks.
The earlier proposal was more pro-active, requiring all employers--even those reporting no injuries--to take preventive measures.
Business groups are happier with the two-injury threshold, saying that employers with no documented problems should be freed from regulation. But unions fear that many employers will refuse to report bona fide injuries, or that they will misclassify injuries to avoid triggering the two-injury threshold.
Today’s hearing begins at 8:30 a.m. and will run as late as 6 p.m. at the Airport Marina Hotel, 8601 Lincoln Blvd., Westchester.
