Document gn8vkyMRQ1XkpnomqqKYq2ZQ

* BUSINESS WEEK: April 6, 1981 | order requiring agencies to | justify clearly the need for i a standard, to perform | cost-benefit analyses and, b door at OSHA where possible, to choose the cheapest route of com opens up to industry pliance. Cutting co*ta. "The ques tion of the least costly ap The Occupational Safety & Health Ad proach has an awful lot of ministration was surprisingly unscathed merit," says Auchter. "If in the Administration's budget-cutting we can come up with a approach to regulatory control. But 36- method that incurs lower year-old Thorne G. Auchter, Assistant cost, then that makes the Labor Secretary for OSHA, will try to most sense, provided we accomplish administratively Reagan's can reach the objective." promised reform. He will emphasize a Many industry observers mix of programs beyond standard- view the approach as open setting--state-run OSHA programs, en ing the way for the use of forcement, voluntary compliance, con personal protective equip sultation, and training--to achieve ment, such as respirators, worker protection, "osha can be a ter instead of expensive pro rific tool if it's managed properly, if it cess controls. goes in the right direction," says Auch On inspections, the Rea- ter. It is increasingly clear that the ganites will continue to direction will be significantly different evaluate pilot programs for in both style and substance from that of S ^ targeting osha visits to the his predecessor, Eula Bingham. The "new" osha began to emerge even OSHA's Auchter: Seeking ways to lower costs and "stem the tide of overregulation and inflation." most hazardous plant sites. And the new Administra before Auchter moved in on Mar. 17. The tion is looking with re Reagan Administration froze last-min review of noise and carcinogen rules; newed interest toward state-run health ute rules issued by Carter's OSHA. And similar requests for lead and electrical and safety programs. "Standards make a on Mar. 24, Labor Secretary Raymond J. standards are pending. Final decisions lot of headlines, I guess," says Auchter. Donovan formally proposed cancellation are a long way off, but these initial "What we're going to do with this agen of the three rules involved: a require- moves, along with signs that osha is try cy is cut down on the number of things, that employers pay "walk-around ing to work out a review of the contro but what we do, we are going to do very *to workers who accompany osha versial $656 million cotton-dust stan ctors; a revised rule on lead expo dard in the face of an imminent Su sure; and moves to stop Indiana's state preme Court decision on it, have labor well." Industry officials were at first skepti cal about Auchter's youth and lack of osha operation. A month earlier, Donov unions frantic. Says George H. R. Tay technical credentials in safety and an had granted the chemical industry's lor, head of the afl-cio's Occupational health. His OSHA-related experience pri request that Bingham's proposed rule on Safety & Health Dept., "You want to marily involved setting up the safety and labeling hazardous materials be with know about whither OSHA? Just take out health program at his family-owned con drawn, following pleas that the rule was the first `h' in whither." struction company in Jacksonville, Fla., impractical and would cost more than Auchter says that he is open to sug and working on a state osha task force. osha's $800 million estimate. gestions from unions, but Bingham was He was special events director for Rea The frantic unions. Donovan's Mar. 24 order also grants industry requests for in closer step with them. She nearly dou gan's Florida campaign. bled the number of major health stan But now industry representatives be dards, calling for costly engineering con lieve that Auchter's management expe trols as the primary approach to worker rience could be a plus. Although some protection. quietly caution the new leadership not to Bingham also issued controversial be too zealous in totally gutting the noise rules giving employees and the govern standard, for example, they are pleased ment access to company-kept medical that the door to OSHA is more open for and exposure records. And she encour them. aged in-plant activism among workers on both safety and health issues. Vindi cated by the Supreme Court's benzene decision last July, which ordered OSHA to rethink its health standards policies, in dustry took several tales of regulatory and enforcement overkill to the new Ad RECEIVED ministration. Auchter promises that osha will not APR 3 1981 stop issuing health and safety stan dards--asbestos exposure in construc tion is one possible area--but Auchter's B. J BROCKA standards may not resemble previous osha rules. Both Auchter and Donovan fully endorse Reagan's Feb. 17 executive CTL005852 Labor Troubled OSHA Faces the Schweiker bill will Ik- held soon, and supporters predict that it will lie |Kissed by the Senate later this year. Further Loss of Power Doth the APL-CIO and the (inter administration vow to op|X)sc Schweiker's hill, which would exempt from ms|XTtion by OSHA all workplaces that report no deatlis and few injuries dur Th Occupational Safety and health Administration, plagued tjy a whole series of setbacks, braces for even more attacks in the Senate, courts. I'bcx of government regulation now are quietly winning a decade-long bat tle against oik- of thoir favorite- targets, the Occupational Safely and Health .administration. 'Decent actions hy the courts and by Congress have substantially cut back 0,SIIA's authority to protect workers against health anti safety hazards on the job. Already, an estimated 1.5 mil lion small businesses have l>ecn de clined olT limits to OSHA inspectors. Vet OSllA's opimnonts still are not satisfied with their success. Over the next few months, they are looking to tlic Senate and the Supreme Court to further weaken the agency. "We think thy time for OSHA reform is ri|K\"says Mark de Dcrnardo, labor attorney for the Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., ber of major changes in OSllA's prac tices in the past few years ill an effort to answer employer complaints. The best-publicized effort involved the repeal in I97S of about I,(KM) regu lations that business managers saw as nil-pickmg. Unsatisfied by these ef forts, many company officials now ar gue that there has l>een no significant drop in worker deaths and injuries de spite the spending of billions of dollars since Congress enacted the Occupa tional Safely and Health Act in 1970. Probably the biggest new setback for OSHA came in the last few days of 1970, when Senator Harrison A. Wil liams (D-N.J.) agreed to support legisla tion promised by the agency's leading opponents in the Semite. Nine out of It) businesses would be exempt from OSHA inspections under the measure, which was drawn up originally by Sen ator Diehard Schweiker (R-Pa.). While scores or similar anti-OSHA hills have been introduced in Congress over the past 10 years, most of them have been blocked by Williams--who ing the previous year. Uoyd McDride, president of the United Steelworkers, argues that the bill would strip the agency of its "preventive influence" and encourage employers to file false OSHA reports. Mazzocchi describes the bill as "a transjiarenl attempt to gut the law." Switching side*. laibor leaders view Williams's supixirt of the bill as a be trayal. even though the senator argues that the measure would serve to locus OSHA's limited resources on the most hazardous workplaces. Itolx-rt Hunter, legislative aide to Senator Orrin I latch, (D-Utuh), an oulsjKiken OSHA foe and cosponsor of the Schweiker hill, says that Williams saw "the handwriting on the wall--the mood in the Senate is to get OSHA reformed." Kven before Williams threw bis sq|y port behind this legislation, (iongrass was chipping away at the authority of OSHA. Kuch of these measures was in troduced on the Senate floor us an amendment to legislation appropriat ing money for the agency. That wav. ope of several business grou|)s critical of OSHA. "The mood's there--both in the country and the Congress. The votes are there, loo." is chairman of the Senate Lilwr Com mittee, author or the original OSHA law and an ally of organized talxir. Hut with Williams's support, heuriugs on Senate opponents of OSHA circum vented Williams's committee. The most recent appropriations restriction, enacted in late 1979, prohibits OSIJA -Kvcn one of OSllA's staunchest defenders, An- llitmv Ma/./.occhi. health ailfl safely director for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, agrees thill momentum is build ing against this controver sial federal agency. Says Behind the Debate Since the first full year of operation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration-- Injuries Down ... ... But More Time L st Milzz.occhi:''ll won't be long before OSHA is a meaningless shell." Some groups, including the American (Conserva tive Union, say their in- thiit is to ubolish OSHA. Officials of the Chandler of. Commerce and others elAim they are trying only tef improve the agency. Dpt OSHA Director Eula llpigham views the objec tive as a larger one. "It's no longer an anti-OSHA drive," she says. ''It's com pletely antiregulation. '' .Recognizing the grow ing strength of these grpups, the Carter admin istration has made a num- U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT. Feb. 11, 1980 o 79 CTL005853 from ins|X't'ling businesses w itli HI or fewer employes, us long u.s they ure in industries that have a g<xx! salety rec ord. It is this measure that exempts 1 5 million workplaces with 5 million workers. OSHA's ability to make inspections also is limited by a 197B Supreme Court decision that employers do not have to admit in.s|X'ctors to their work place without a M'arch warrant Using this decision, the American Conserva tive Union has published a booklet tell ing business owners how to lorn away an unwanted inspector. Hut govern ment officials estimate that no more than 1.000 employers tefiise to admit the insjx'ctors each year. Cost of cutting risks. Pending be fore the Supreme Court is yet another case that could cut more deeply into the authority of OS1IA. Opponents of the agency have asked the High Court to uphold a ruling hy the Filth Circuit Court of Ap|x`al.x in New Orleans that the government must weigh the bene fits of its regulations against the costs. The case grew out of OSI lA'.s proposed regulation limiting worker ex|Misure to benzene, a compound that OSf/A views as a potential leukemia risk to more than 000,000 workers--most of whom work in jx'troleum refineries. Industry contends that OSIIA's order to reduce benzene to the "lowest feasi ble level" in the workplace would be too ex|X'ii.sivr. OSH A Director Bingham says an ad verse ruling by the Supreme Court in the benzene ease could cripple her agency's ability to protect workers. "It would lx- a very distressing decision," says Bingham. "1 cannot believe that those justices' would say that we should weigh the costs of saving a human life. I low do you decide what somelxidy s life is worth?" At the same lime, OSHA's right to protect workers who refuse unsafe working assignments also is under at tack before the Supreme Court. The government is challenging the dismiss al in 1974 of two Whirlpool Corpora tion employes who refused to accept a task that a week earlier led to the death or a fellow worker. OSIIA con tends that these workers had a right under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to refuse such an assign ment without disciplinary action. Agency of controversy. Virtually nothing that OSIIA has done in (lie last few years has gone unchallenged. Hcglilations governing worker cx|x>surc to both benzene and cotton dust are cur rently tit'll up in the courts. Just a few w<vks ago, oil and chemical-industry attorneys raced mtu court to challenge OSIIA's new cancer policy--even Ih'- fore it w.ls officially announced. The policy sets forth a comprehensive strat egy for regulating an estimated 500 substances that are suspected of caus ing cancer. On the cancer issue, business leaders are quarreling with OSIIA's decision to rely almost exclusively on amnia! tests to determine whether a chemical sub stance causes cancer "Tests on labora tory rats make for sus|X`ct science," ar gues the Chamber of Commerce. Business groups also contend that the government would require business to sjx'nd billions of dollars to create a "risk free" work environment. Money lies at the heart ol each of these disputes between OSIIA and its opponents. Business groups say the government is forcing them to spend billions of dollars to clean up work places without any evidence llt.it these improvements save lives or prevent in juries. One controversial study predict ed that business might be forced to spend as much as BB billion dollars to comply with the cancer |x>liry. The Chamber of Commerce esti mates that since 1971 business has spent 25 billion dollars anil the govern ment I billion dollars on occupational safety and health. Despite this, the group argues, there has been an in crease in the total number of workdays lost as a result of occupational injuries. Says Chamber President Richard U. I/wher "I'd like to see that 20 billion dollars spent on cancer research.*' Fewer accidents. OSIIA officials re ject the argument that the ageney has had no impact on job safely. OSflA chief Bingham cites another statistic showmg that the total accident rate in the workplace has declined. She asks, "What would it have Been il OSIIA had not been around to protect these people?" I'.scu il business succeeds in its latest efforts to limit OSIIA's power, the bat tle still may not lx* over. De Bernardo says the chamber will lx* seeking addi tional "reforms" in the future, includ ing government payment of attorneys' lees for businesses that successfully challenge the agency's decisions. "No one bill in Congress could handle all tin* inequities we see," he says. Such threats do not disturb Bing ham, who contends that business is fighting a losing battle to abolish OSIIA. She predicts that OSIIA will survive this new wave of deregulation sentiment Ix'caiise American workers are concerned about health and safety. Says Bingham: "The message is there that people' don't waul as much bu reaucratic piqx'r work. But the mes sage is also there that they don't want their arms cut off." 80 Trends in Labor j Wages up--and down. In large union contracts negotiat'd dormg 1979. first->'cnr pay rinses av eraged ,S.9 percent--up from .S 3 percent in I97S These figures, published annually by the I.ihnr Depai tmcnl. represent the avciuge first-year wage increase pmsided in contracts covering more than 5.000 workers. But m con tracts affecting 1,000 nr more workers, the average first-year increase was 7 4 percent--down from 7.0 |X'reent in the previous year. Nearly 50 percent of the contracts negotiated h|st year had clauses promising Inture automatic increases based on the rising cost of living--a )nci alive provision. In all existing labor contracts in 1979, these cost-ofliving allowances provided work ers with additional \yage in creases averaging 3 (xircent. | ! Strike lull. The mimixT of work days lost to strikes durjng 1979 (i'll to a five-year low, according to another iaihor Department re port. Strikes last year caused 1.5 lost workdays for evefy 1,900 workers--the lowest number since 1973. A total of 4,800 work stoppages Ix'gan tu 1979, the sec ond smallest annual tqtal since 1907. The iuuiiIxt ol1 workers idled by strikes last year--1.7 million--was the .second-lowest total since' 1905. Almost one third of all these idle workers and lost workdays were a direct re sult of 13 major walkouts. Among, them were a 1 D-day strike-lockout in tlu- trucking industry and strikes bv the United Avpn Work ers against tiiree farm-imple ment inanul.ieturers. ` Productivity snag. American business during 1979 registered its worst productivity perfor mance since the last recession. The l-ilxir Department reports a decline of 0.9 |K'reenl in output |x-r worker-hour. This is only the second annual decline' for a full year .since 1947. The last .such de cline was in 1974, when produc tivity fell 3 percent. Irfilxir costs rose 10.4 percent during 1979. Administration officials antici pate modest improvement in prixluetivity during 19B0. partis due to n rise in unemployment. U SMEWS a WORLD REPORT. Fob. 11.1? CTL005854 i /