Setting Ergonomics Standards

Even as President Bush officially revoked federal workplace safety rules last week, a nonprofit organization was moving ahead on a voluntary standard for ergonomics that could be used nationally.

Coordinated by the National Safety Council under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute, the recommendations have been 11 years in the making. But the question of whether any one-size-fits-all set of rules can be effective--let alone voluntary ones--is still open to debate.

“The workplace is so varied, from office work to agriculture to manufacturing,” said David Rempel, a professor of medicine and bioengineering and director of the ergonomics program at UC San Francisco. “The kinds of work, the risk factors are all different. Any [ergonomics] law trying to cover those things almost has to be written in a general way.”

Ergonomics, as defined by the safety council’s draft proposal, is a multidisciplinary approach that studies human physical and psychological capabilities and limitations. It’s used to modify working conditions or workstations to prevent injury and to improve performance.

It was recently the focus of a virulent and partisan fight in Congress between the outgoing Clinton administration and the newly installed Bush regime.

In the waning days of his administration, President Clinton forced through Congress a set of mandatory regulations to reduce repetitive stress injuries, or musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpel tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. Federal statistics show that at least 600,000 workers annually are forced from their jobs by such ailments.

It was a showdown that also pitted organized labor against big business, which had argued that enforcing the rules would be prohibitively expensive.

The rules, which briefly took effect Jan. 16, required businesses to inform employees about potential hazards. Among other things, the rules also ordered employers to remedy the problem once verified complaints of injuries had occurred.

The mandatory national standards were summarily wiped from the books earlier this month at the behest of Bush, first by the Senate and then by the House largely along party lines. Bush has since asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to devise a cheaper way of addressing workplace safety.

Experts in the field of ergonomics and musculoskeletal disorders say the fight has left them in a curious position.

On the one hand, they are armed with more proof than ever that ergonomics programs save money for employers and not only protect workers but also increase productivity.

The evidence comes from sources as diverse as the National Academy of Sciences, the federal General Accounting Office, individually sponsored research from academicians and from countless businesses that have worked to reduce injuries among members of their work force. On the other hand, the fight over standards won’t end any time soon.

“Ergonomics is not about products,” said Marvin Dainoff, director of the center for ergonomics research at Miami University of Ohio. “It’s about the problem solving. If you have someone with a work-related injury, you have to address the situation. They don’t tell you how, and that’s where the problem is.

“The real question, given the broad variety of jobs out there, is, can you have a fair and uniform set of enforcement rules?” Dainoff said. “This is not like a medical problem” that can be caused by asbestos, for example. “You just get rid of the asbestos. In [ergonomics], we don’t have that same kind of specificity. It’s not just cut and dried, where you can lay out a set of solutions.”

And the voluntary national guidelines that might emerge from the American National Standards Institute face a political fight too.

“Voluntary national standards didn’t get employees a 40-hour workweek or the ability to take care of their families for medical problems through family and medical leave,” said a spokesperson for Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “The country needs real regulations.”

Some Republicans also were against voluntary standards, but for very different reasons.

“Generally, when a group comes out with voluntary standards, it still means, ‘You better do this.’ The big boys who can afford to will say yes,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “But then the smaller [businesses] get forced to the corner for not complying. Big business sometimes uses this to filter out the competition.”

Since 1918, the institute has approved thousands of voluntary standards, ranging from the instrumentation and methods used to measure air quality to the materials and general criteria for the ultraviolet rating of sunglasses. Its mission is “to enhance both the global competitiveness of U.S. business and the U.S. quality of life by promoting and facilitating voluntary consensus standards.”

The institute does have its supporters, including Rani Lueder, a consultant on workplace ergonomics and product design in Sherman Oaks.

“I think that there are changes that need to be made, but it is still heading toward a good standard,” Lueder said of workplace safety recommendations. “These are reasonable minimum guidelines that are based on best available knowledge of the current literature.”

The standards, if approved by a Board of Standards Review composed of a volunteer group of experts at the institute, would cover everything from the responsibilities for the evaluation and management of injuries to suggestions for involving employees in the process. The draft proposal also says that “professional judgment is required to apply the program to specific work situations.”

California and Washington are the only two states that have their own ergonomics rules. California’s 3-year-old ergonomics regulations are generally considered weak. They provide little in the way of specificity and kick in only after two employees working under roughly similar conditions are injured. To some, that may simply be the nature of this beast.

When trying to create a standard “for a large variety of jobs, this is probably all you could hope to do,” said William S. Marras, professor and director of the biodynamics lab at Ohio State University. “It’s very difficult to formally control this. You need approaches that are adaptable, and process-oriented controls are about all you can do. Track it. Figure out what the problems are and then try to find solutions.”

But ergonomics programs will not disappear because of the fight over national standards. These programs seem to be thriving on their own as more and more companies understand the savings that can accrue from protecting workers from preventable strains and ailments.

Seattle City Light, for example, is a public power utility providing electrical power to about 380,000 Puget Sound region customers. It won an award for its ergonomics programs last year from the Center for Office Technology, an association of employers and manufacturers dedicated to improving the office working environment.

“We saved $875,000 in 1999 in workers’ compensation costs because of our ergonomics programs,” said Delores Nizich, safety and health manager. “Those are tangible dollars for us because we know what we have had to pay out in the past. For the first time since 1990, we have seen a decrease in musculoskeletal injuries.”

Bob Royer, a Seattle Light employee who bills himself as the utility’s poster boy for ergonomics, is even more emphatic.

“It’s definitely part of the culture of this place now,” said Royer, whose nagging neck and back pain were cured by a few simple ergonomic tricks, such as a headset and a better working station. “It’s made a fabulous difference.”

Workers need to be involved too. Employees have to become more informed and speak up about problems. This will work, the experts say, only if those who complain aren’t immediately labeled as malcontents.

“People have to be their own experts. That is part of the bind,” Dainoff of Miami University said. “They can’t assume that the normal condition of work is that your back is supposed to hurt.”

Ohio State’s Marras agreed. “You’re supposed to be able to put in a productive day at work and still be able to come home at night and play with your children.”