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Unions Want Ergonomics Regulations
.c
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Labor unions, struggling to block an attempted repeal of
new safety rules, brought out workers like Ursula Stafford, a classroom
assistant from New York, on Friday to describe careers wrecked and lives
ruined by workplace injuries.
``Why did they use me and abuse me?'' Stafford, 24, said, sobbing at a news
conference arranged by the AFL-CIO. She said she was permanently injured when
she had to lift a paralyzed, 250-pound student from a wheelchair.
She added the new federal ergonomics rules, under fire from businesses and
their GOP allies in Congress, would have prevented the injuries.
For their part, business groups who oppose the regulations conducted their
own lobbying effort in the run-up to an expected showdown vote next week.
``OSHA's rush to issue an ill-conceived, expensive and unscientific
ergonomics standard is irresponsible government at its worst,'' said a U.S.
Chamber of Commerce summary being handed out on Capitol Hill. ``The rule will
cost businesses billions of dollars, yet the benefits to workers - if any -
are uncertain.''
Several Democratic aides conceded privately the barring last-minute switches,
the GOP likely has the votes to prevail in an attempt to overturn the
regulations.
``It's going to be a tough battle, but we're going to win it,'' said Randy
Johnson, vice president of the U.S. Chamber for labor and employee benefits.
As a result, Democrats were trying to determine whether they have the option
under Senate rules of filibustering the measure.
GOP aides, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bill would be
brought up quickly in the House if it passes the Senate, possibly within two
or three days.
President Bush has not said whether he would sign the measure, although
Republicans say they expect he would.
The Clinton administration issued the more than 600-pages of regulations in
mid-November after a decade-long struggle by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration to regulate repetitive motion injuries.
The rules took effect Jan. 16, four days before President Bush took office.
Businesses have until October to comply with the first regulation by
distributing information to employees and begin the process of receiving and
responding to injury reports.
Organized labor supports the rules, which could force companies to alter work
stations, redesign facilities or change tools and equipment once employees
are found to have sustained work-related injuries.
Business groups generally oppose them as too far-reaching, costly and
unscientific and threatening to override existing workers' compensation laws.
Several lawsuits have been filed to block them.
Republicans plan to bring the issue to the Senate floor as early as Tuesday
under rules that require a swift vote, according to lobbyists, union leaders
and GOP officials.
``Congress has no choice but to head off the devastating side effects of the
Clinton ergo rule by dismantling it,'' Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said Friday.
Stafford, a member of the United Federation of Teachers union, said she
eventually fell while trying to lift the student, who toppled on top of her
and caused spinal disc injuries that have delayed her pursuit of a college
degree and require her to take pills daily, go to physical therapy twice a
week and remain under the care of a neurologist and an orthopedist.
``I'm a young girl, and it hurts when I wear heels,'' she said, in tears.
Unions protested this week outside a National Association of Manufacturers
meeting that Vice President Dick Cheney addressed. They also have been
distributing information at work sites, showcasing workers with injuries,
bombarding lawmakers with e-mails and phone calls and specifically targeting
freshman lawmakers and several Democratic senators who voted against the
rules last year.
The U.S. Chamber and other business groups also have been lobbying heavily
and want lawmakers to move under the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law
that permits the House and Senate to pass legislation rejecting regulations
issued by federal departments and agencies. The act would kill the
regulations and prevent similar standards from being issued.
Unions contend that would effectively kill hope for any ergonomics standards.
OSHA estimates the rules would cost businesses about $4.5 billion in
compliance costs but result in $9 billion in benefits by reducing injuries.
Officials say 1.8 million workers in the United States have injuries related
to ergonomics, with 600,000 missing work each year as a result.
Business organizations put the cost of compliance much higher, at more than
$90 billion a year.
On the Net: Occupational Safety and Health Administration:
http://www.osha.gov
U.S. Chamber of Commerce on ergonomics standards:
http://www.uschamber.org/-Political+Advocacy/This+Week/-Face+Off.htm
National Association of Manufacturers on ergonomics:
http://www.nam.org/tertiary.asp?TrackID=&CategoryID=4&DocumentID=226 34
AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.org/home.htm
AP-NY-03-02-01 1813EST
Senate showdown
looms on U.S. workplace RSI rule
By
Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the urging of big business, Senate Republicans plan
to launch an expedited attack next week on new workplace safety standards
aimed at combating repetitive strain injury, aides said Friday.
A senior Republican aide said Republicans plan to introduce a resolution in
the Senate on Tuesday to repeal a workplace rule on ergonomics, and had the
votes to pass it. "We have the votes," the aide told Reuters. The
House could
take the matter up the day after the Senate passes it.
At issue is a standard for workplace ergonomics that was approved Jan. 16,
four days before the Bush administration came to power.
The AFL-CIO, the labor federation that represents 13 million U.S. workers,
supports the standard as helping employees and spurring productivity.
Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National
Association of Manufacturers oppose it as expensive and burdensome.
Ergonomics, the science of designing equipment to reduce fatigue and
discomfort, is at the heart of the debate over the cause and treatment of
what scientists call musculoskeletal disorders.
Workers who perform certain tasks over and over again, such as those who work
on computer keyboards, at meat-cutting plants and in health care facilities
where they repeatedly lift or turn patients or medical equipment, can be
prone to these injuries, according to the National Academy of Sciences.
In a study released in January, the academy said these injuries "can be
attributed to particular jobs and working conditions -- including heavy
lifting, repetitive and forceful motions and stressful work environments."
The report said these disorders affect about 1 million U.S. workers and cost
between $45 billion and $54 billion in compensation expenses, lost wages and
decreased productivity, and that the problem might be eased by well-designed
intervention programs.
The AFL-CIO cited the academy's report as bolstering its case, while the
National Association of Manufacturers has called the report "a bit of a
Rohrshach test, in that both sides found support for their point of view in
its findings." The manufacturers group also said the report did not say
what
caused the injuries.
SENATE DEBATE EXPECTED NEXT WEEK
Both sides are mobilizing campaigns among their members and lobbying members
of the Senate, where debate could begin next week. The legislative tool that
will be used to attack the ergonomics standard is the Congressional Review
Act (CRA), which lets Congress overturn rules with debate limited to 10
hours.
Any such repeal would be permanent, preventing the agency that issued the
rule -- in this case, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) -- from making a similar one ever again, unless
Congress approved it.
The AFL-CIO called the review act "the death penalty for regulations,"
and
noted at a news conference that the five-year-old act has never before been
used. If employed now, it would be the first time in OSHA's 30-year history
that a worker protection regulation has been overturned.
"Now, with George W. Bush in the White House, it is highly likely that
conservative Republicans in Congress will take action on behalf of the
industry groups and attempt to use the CRA to kill ergonomic protections and
other important safeguards they oppose," the AFL-CIO said in a statement.
However, Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who has been active against the
ergonomics rule on Capitol Hill, wrote on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Web
site: "OSHA sidestepped the will of Congress and issued a 1,600-page
ergonomics rule the agency says will prevent repetitive stress injuries. It
won't.
"It will force employers and workers to comply with this questionable
standard at the expense of other safety needs," Enzi wrote.
"For Republicans to turn that over and reject it is a callous disregard for
the well-being and the health of workers in this country," Sen. Edward
Kennedy of Massachussets, the ranking Democrat on the Health and Education
Committee, said when asked about the Republican effort to repeal the
standard.
17:16 03-02-01