A First for Workplace Safety : California regulators address explosion in repetitive motion injuries

Adding to California’s list of breakthroughs, state regulators last week approved the nation’s first ergonomics standard aimed at preventing repetitive motion injuries on the job. The controversial new standard is an important step toward recognizing and preventing the condition, which some critics have dismissed as a deception by malingering employees.

Labor unions had to go to court to force the state Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to issue the standard, required as part of a legislative agreement reached in 1993. But the solution is far from perfect. Intended to cover every working Californian, the standard in fact will cover many fewer employees. Both industry and labor groups immediately blasted the new rule and vowed new court challenges.

Repetitive stress or motion injuries are real, painful and exploding in number, affecting workers in both blue- and white-collar occupations. Nationally, such medical problems as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and muscle sprains affected more than 330,000 workers in 1994. During that year, 31,000 Californians claimed to suffer these ailments, up nearly 15% from the year before and eightfold since 1984.

The new state standard is vaguely worded, and job safety advocates rightly complain that resistant employers can easily get around it. Employers in turn point out that the rule could be exploited by malingerers.

Here’s what the rule would do: Require employers with 10 or more employees to provide special training to injured workers and others handling the same task. It further asks employers to consider other corrective measures. Those could include providing more rest breaks for factory workers with bad backs, for instance, or supplying ergonomic keyboards to typists with sore wrists. Penalties for noncompliance are not specified. The new standard will take effect early next year if it survives the promised court challenges.

The standard sends a clear signal about the need to fully deal with the growing problem of repetitive motion trauma. Already, a general state rule requires most employers in California to formulate and deploy an illness and injury prevention program addressing the risks specific to their workplace. But many farsighted employers no doubt would do so voluntarily because they recognize the payoff--lower workers’ compensation costs, lower employee turnover and improved morale.