State Division of Safety to close its doors July 1

State and local agencies are left to regulate their own workers' safety.

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 1, 2000

TALLAHASSEE -- On July 1, the state will no longer have an agency to regulate worker safety in state and local public agencies.

State Division of Safety Director Lee Weaver said public agencies essentially will be left to regulate themselves after state lawmakers this year chose not to renew the agency and repealed its rules.

"I'm disappointed because I think there's a public policy need for safety," said Weaver, who plans to spend the next month closing shop and trying to find jobs for his 144 employees. "I think we'll probably see in the next several years an attempt to reauthorize it (the division) in some form."

The Republican-controlled Legislature's plan to dismantle the safety division was set in motion last year, urged on by business lobbyists who argued the division overstretched its authority and placed unreasonable safety restrictions on businesses. Lawmakers already had reduced the authority of the division, allowing it to oversee only public agencies.

Karen Phillips, a lobbyist for small businesses and longtime opponent of the safety division, fought hard to ease the safety rules. Phillips said she is less concerned about the fate of private sector companies than she is about government operations.

"This is not the end that I ever envisioned for the Division of Safety," Phillips said Wednesday.

Weaver, head of the agency since 1998, said there "may be a grain of truth" in the complaint that the division sometimes went too far. The division "certainly took some positions that were not popular," he said.

Elizabeth Hirst, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said the governor is "interested in exploring alternatives" that will ensure the state continues getting nearly $2-million in federal money the division uses to consult with private companies and collect statistics on worker illness, injury and death.

Bush also is considering whether to require government agencies to create and enforce their own safety regulations, or even whether to revive a modified version of the division.

Its demise leaves both critics and supporters worrying about what will become of the division's strict work-safety regulations in the public sector.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will still oversee the private sector.

Phillips, a critic, cited two of the state department rules that had frustrated private businesses. One prevented any employee at any business from lifting more than 50 pounds.

Another, she said, unfairly treated construction workers and office workers the same. "If you've had three accidents on the job in three years ... you were labeled as an unsafe unemployer. It could have been a paper cut. A roofer is going to have a lot more accidents than an office worker."

Last year, the business-friendly Legislature voted to "sunset" the division this summer, but left open the possibility of reauthorizing it this year.

When they returned for the 2000 session, Republicans supported plans to renew a greatly scaled back division, demoting it to a bureau with roughly half its current number of employees. But they included the measure in a bill they knew Democrats and labor unions would fight: a plan to dismantle the Department of Labor while moving worker safety and other department responsibilities to other agencies.

In a rare victory this year, Democrats defeated the attack on the labor department, but lost the safety division in the battle.

"The labor organizations were in a difficult position there," Weaver said. "Symbolically, perhaps, losing the Department of Labor may have been more important to them than losing safety. That's a hard position to be in."

Rep. Tony Hill, a Jacksonville Democrat who serves as secretary and treasurer of the state's largest labor union, said the revamped safety division Republicans wanted to preserve "wasn't a division. It was just a bureau, just a little thing."

But Weaver, noting the state's high accident rate in the booming construction industry, said it would have been worthwhile. Weaver said a Tampa office of the division will also close on July 1.

"I really thought that there would be reauthorization," he said. "There seemed to be a consensus with the business groups and the public sector that they didn't want safety to go away. They wanted it to be smaller and more effective."

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