A Times Editorial

OSHA's new regulations go too far

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 16, 2000

One third of all serious occupational injuries and illnesses in this country can be linked to repetitive motions. Constant bending, climbing, reaching over one's head and typing can all cause crippling work-related musculoskeletal disorders that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says afflict more than 600,000 Americans per year. To address the problem, OSHA is proposing new rules to give protection to employees who suffer from work-related back pain, hernias, carpal-tunnel and repetitive-stress syndromes.

Not surprisingly, business groups are not happy with the proposed rules. They have expressed serious concerns that the new regulations could lead to widespread fraud. They say the rules could open employers up to limitless liability for health problems that are hard to pin down as job-related. Business may be exaggerating their fears, but they do have some legitimate reasons to be concerned.

The trick is to strike the right balance between workplace safety and business interests.

During the public comment period that ended in March, OSHA received more than 7,000 comments. Last week the government concluded extensive public hearings on the proposed rules. The hearings were often contentious and ended up -- for different reasons -- pleasing neither business nor labor unions, both of which are threatening lawsuits to try to block the rules from taking effect. Labor's primary objection is a provision that triggers the new standard only after a company reports an injury.

Before making any final decision, OSHA should carefully review the concerns expressed and fine-tune the regulations.

Even OSHA admits that its new ergonomic regulations would require employers to redesign 4.5-million jobs in the first year. But its claim that the economic impact would be minimal, only costing employers $3.5 million, is far from a realistic estimate. The Small Business Administration, a government agency that evaluates the impact of government regulations on small businesses, disputes the figure. It believes the cost to employers could exceed $18 billion per year, while the benefits to employees in averted injuries would be far less than OSHA claims. The SBA's opinion is more realistic. Due to the broad and vague wording of the proposed regulations, relatively healthy employees would be encouraged to make injury claims.

Under the proposed regulations, the medical benefits would provide employees with 90 percent pay for up to six months if they have to take time off or change jobs within the company as a result of their musculoskeletal injuries. While OSHA argues that this is a way to ensure that employees come forward with complaints about injurious working conditions, employers rightly say that such a generous benefit will encourage malingering. The kinds of injuries covered by the new regulations are some of the toughest to medically ascertain. A soft-tissue back injury isn't like a broken bone, it's hard to confirm and just as hard to discern when it has healed. Fakers could have a field day, with employers on the hook for the tab.

Another problematic aspect of the regulations would force employers to evaluate the ergonomic safety of all similar jobs if one injury is reported that was caused by or contributed to by work. This "one injury" rule is too easily met. Employers could be burdened with spending millions to reconfigure warehouses and work stations triggered by one employee who hurts himself doing weekend gardening, if his work duties exacerbated the injury. A pattern of similar injuries that are demonstrably job-related should be required before an employer has to analyze and re-engineer a job site.

The idea of establishing ergonomic standards is not new and has been under consideration at the Department of Labor ever since Elizabeth Dole was secretary in 1990. While regulations protecting employees from repetitive stress injuries should be part of a comprehensive workplace safety regime, the broad applicability of the rules OSHA is now proposing would go too far. Ergonomic injuries are real, and workers need protection against them. But the proposed OSHA regulations are too vague and need to be revised.

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