Working Toward a Safer California

My views on occupational safety are admittedly shaded, a thing that probably stems from growing up around occupations that were inherently unsafe. The men in our family cut paper wood, an occupation that, back then, had all sorts of safety rules but only two real safety habits: Keep your fingers out of the chain saw, and watch out for falling trees.

At dawn, they would head out--my father, his brothers, his nephews, his cousins--to the thick of the woods, big men in work boots and sweatshirts, poor men who didn’t buy themselves hard hats because hard hats were wimpy and cost too much. One day, my father’s cousin, Jim--the one who looked like Doug McClure, only even more handsome--felled a big tree that landed on a sapling, bending it double. It was just before quitting time.

As I said, there were rules, but they weren’t necessarily habits. The sapling was like a spring-loaded weapon. He should have waited for the skidder to come back and pull the tree clear. He should have called for some backup. He should have worn a hard hat. But he was stubborn and no one was watching and it was almost quitting time.

When he went in and tried to finish the job by hand, the sapling suddenly snapped skyward, killing him instantly. Overnight, my father turned from a carefree workingman to a haunted advocate of forest safety laws. He organized conferences, lobbied lawmakers; by the time he retired, there were stronger rules. But when you asked whether those rules could have saved his willful cousin, he’d falter.

“Maybe,” he’d confide, sadly. “Maybe not.”

*

That was in another state in another era, but the issue of workplace safety--one of America’s great quandaries--is no less nuanced in California in 1999. Case in point: the recent investigation by Cal/OSHA into the Disneyland accident that left one dead and two maimed on Christmas Eve.

The man who died and his wounded wife were patrons at the park--Cal/OSHA has no oversight on their safety. But the other injury was to a park employee, an assistant manager who was covering for the regular operator of the now-infamous Columbia sailing ship.

There were rules about how to dock the ship. Unfortunately, the rules weren’t habits. Or if they used to be habits, they got broken that day. Cal/OSHA found that the assistant manager brought the ship in even though she hadn’t gotten the training she should have under the park’s own policy.

Cal/OSHA’s report was scathing, and yet, between the lines, it underscored all the human variables that make workplace safety so hard--and yet so imperative--to enforce. She was management. She should have known better. She should have shut the ride down or said “no” to the person who begged off from morning duty. But the park was crowded, and no one was watching, and it was Christmas Eve.

Disneyland should have done more training, should have been more careful, the report implied. And yet, compared to, say, your basic assembly plant in the bowels of Los Angeles County, Disneyland is a paragon of safety and health.

Then there was the $12,500 civil penalty assessed by Cal/OSHA. Viewed one way, it was the most the state could legally add to the private lawsuits and bad P.R. Viewed another, it was 11 minutes’ worth of what Michael Eisner took home last fiscal year.

*

People hate it when an emotional issue lacks easy answers. Still, worker safety is way past due for a long and nuanced airing in this state. For 16 years, Republican governors have treated California businesses as if they were made of cut crystal; Cal/OSHA, which darn near died during the Deukmejian administration, is a shadow of its former self.

Inspections last year were about half what they were in 1984--this despite the fact that some 780 Californians will die this year in workplace accidents. An AFL-CIO study found last year that, at Cal/OSHA’s staffing levels, it would take 96 years to inspect all the state’s workplaces just once.

To that end, with a Democrat now in office, organized labor has launched an effort to beef up Cal/OSHA and toughen the penalties it can impose. Prepare for arguments that are long on emotion--evil bosses, evil unions, the threat that California might become a “bad product” again if it cracked down.

It would be interesting, however, if this time, in this state, we could stipulate to the general humanity of all involved. Maybe the right set of rules is all there is to protecting ourselves and each other. Then again, maybe not.

*

Shawn Hubler’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.