OSHA Tries Again on Ergonomics

OSHA released its latest plan to address ergonomics in the workplace last month, but unlike the previous plan this one did not set off a barrage of criticism by businesses.

The previous plan, announced in the waning days of the Clinton Administration, raised howls of protests from the business community who said the agency’s approach would be costly and could create more problems than it would solve. Business groups that organized to fight the new rules in court were saved the trouble when Congress struck down the regulations and ordered OSHA to come up with something different. A year and a month later, and after a series of hearings last summer, OSHA did just that.

The new plan was received with cautious approval by business organizations. Labor groups, however, were unhappy, calling the new plan “weak and unenforceable.”

Under the new plan, OSHA will develop industry-targeted guidelines which, in combination with

workplace outreach, research and enforcement, are intended to reduce ergonomic injuries.

“Our goal is to help workers by reducing ergonomic injuries in the shortest possible time frame,” said Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao in announcing the plan April 5. “This plan is a major improvement over the rejected old rule because it will prevent ergonomics injuries before they occur and reach a much larger number of at-risk workers.

Ergonomic injuries are generally described as musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that result from a particular activity, usually involving repetitive or stressful physical action. The definition itself is still open to debate, as are the precise causes, means of diagnosis, cures and the cost in terms of human health and lost work time.

OSHA will begin working on developing industry and task-specific guidelines to reduce and prevent such injuries that might occur in the workplace. The first guidelines will be available for “select industries” this year, but OSHA did not say which industries those will be. OSHA will also encourage businesses and industries to also develop additional guidelines on their own.

OSHA will provide compliance assistance tools to help business reduce and prevent injuries. This could include specialized training and information on guidelines and implementation of successful ergonomics programs.

Also part of the plan is creation of a national advisory committee that will advise OSHA on research. OSHA will work with the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health to encourage research in this area.

For enforcement, OSHA said it will “crack down on bad actors” by coordinating inspections and using special ergonomics inspection teams, combined with a legal strategy designed for prosecution. Special emphasis will be placed on industries with the types of serious ergonomics problems that OSHA and the Department of Labor attorneys have addressed successfully in the past.

OSHA acknowledged that many employers are already working to reduce ergonomic risks without government mandates.

“Bureau of Labor Statistics data show the musculoskeletal disorders are already on the decline,” said OSHA Administrator John Henshaw.

OSHA said it chose the guideline approach over another rule-making because several factors that make creating new rules difficult. These include the variety of different hazards and combinations of different hazards to be addressed; exposure to the hazards is not readily measured in some cases; the exposure-response relationship is not well understood; the cost and feasibility of abatement measures may be uncertain and may be very high in some cases; and it is very difficult, except in the most general terms, to prescribe remedies for abating such hazards in a single rule.

OSHA is not precluding the possibility of creating a new ergonomics rule in the future. The agency plans to regularly review the injury and illness rates for MSDs and make decisions based on the best-available information about what approach to take to protect workers from MSDs.

An employer’s failure to implement the new guidelines will not in itself be a violation of the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act. Instead, OSHA said the guidelines will provide information to help employers identify ergonomic hazards in their workplaces and implement feasible measures to control such hazards. OSHA said it will not focus enforcement efforts on employers who have implemented ergonomic programs or who are making good-faith efforts to reduce ergonomic hazards.

However, OSHA cautioned employers that even if there are no guidelines specific to their industry, they are still obligated under the General Duty Clause to keep workplaces free from recognized serious hazards, including ergonomic hazards.

OSHA’s new plan was generally well received by business groups.

“With researchers on all sides scratching their heads about the causes of these types of injuries, we must take the time to craft rules without sacrificing science,” said Randel Johnson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for labor policy. “It remains to be seen how new and increased enforcement under these guidelines will play out, but overall the Department of Labor has proposed a balanced approach.”

“The Bush administration has rightfully put science ahead of politics in laying out its proposal on ergonomics,” he added.

Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said OSHA’s “focus on education and training to prevent ergonomics injuries promises to be more effective than reliance on new regulation and litigation, and far less disruptive of the workplace. The Labor Department’s determination to advance research into ergonomics and aggressively disseminate information to employers and their employees is the most effective way to reduce injuries related to repetitive motion.”

A less welcome response came for the AFL-CIO, whose president, John Sweeney, called the announcement “a meaningless measure that yet again delays action and provides no protection against ergonomic hazards — the nation’s biggest safety problem.”

The new plan is the culmination of more than 20 years of ergonomics study by OSHA. The agency hired its first “ergonomist” in 1979. The first citation for ergonomics hazards was issued in 1987. The first notice of an ergonomics rule-making was issued in 1992, just as President Clinton was beginning his first term. The first ergonomics rule was issued in November 2000, just before Clinton finished his second term.