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Proposed Workplace Rules Could Put US Firms In A Cast

One-Size-Fits-All Regulation Is Not The Way To Curb Injuries On The Job

Susan E. Dudley, Wendy Gramm

November 29, 1999

Bridge New FORUM

Despite intense opposition from the scientific and technical community, the courts, Congress and businesses of all sizes, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has unveiled proposed ergonomic standards for workplaces across America.

For years, OSHA officials have campaigned for rules intended to reduce repetitive-motion injuries. The agency even has a slogan for its proposed regulations: "Real People, Real Problems, Real Solutions."

These injuries are real problems. Unfortunately, the agency's proposal to deal with these musculoskeletal disorders, or MSDs, is not a real solution.

Under the agency's guidelines, these ailments include any "disorder of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage and spinal disks." Disorders like carpal-tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, tennis elbow and lower- back pain fit this definition.

Significantly, earlier drafts of the regulations referred to "workplace MSDs." In response to concerns about employers' ability to distinguish between an injury occurring on the job and one that results from carrying groceries, the agency simply dropped the term "workplace."

Employers would be liable for all injuries likely "contributed to" by workplace conditions. All workplaces with manufacturing or manual handling operations would be required to establish ergonomic programs.

In other workplaces, a single report of a covered injury would trigger the requirement that the employer must establish an ergonomic program.

Employers would be required to identify "ergonomic risk factors" and correct them according to a rigid hierarchy of controls.

Businesses would also be required to offer "work restrictions." These would include modifications of the employee's job, as well as restrictions on it. These could include limiting or reducing the intensity or duration of the work.

Other solutions would be reassigning the worker to another job or even mandating the employee's "complete removal from the workplace" for up to six months-with pay.

OSHA estimates the regulations would cost employers (and ultimately consumers) $4.2 billion a year. The Small Business Administration suggests the actual figure could be up to 15 times higher.

The full cost of the proposals is hard to quantify. How many frivolous lawsuits would the new rules engender? Would they encourage employers to discriminate against individuals who may be susceptible to workplace injuries?

What about an employees who has an ax to grind against a company? The employee would be able to claim an injury and enjoy the same benefits of workers who truly had been injured on the job.

In short, a disgruntled employee could go from being just a pain in the neck to being a real drain on valuable company resources, reducing productivity and morale.

OSHA thinks the offsetting benefits would be enormous. The agency predicts employers would save $9 billion a year with a healthier, more productive work force.

Yet the agency never explains why employers need mandates to take advantage of such profit opportunities. In fact, the number of workplace injuries has declined significantly in recent years without new regulations, as employees and employers gain a better understanding of workplace hazards and how to alleviate them.

It's not lack of motivation but lack of knowledge that has hindered further innovations. Yet the proposed rules contribute nothing to the state of knowledge. Indeed, the rules would positively impede the learning process, by discouraging individual responsibility and hindering the creation of innovative programs to deal with problems.

After all, the ergonomic issues facing a heavy manufacturing company are different from those that office workers face.

Rather than mandating that workplaces adopt a one-size-fits-all ergonomic program, the government would be better off facilitating research into the causes of workplace injuries and disseminating the results to employers. That way, workers with real injuries would benefit from effective prevention and successful medical treatments.

But a government mandate that employers eliminate musculoskeletal disorders is the equivalent of trying to legislate away cancer. Although reducing workplace injury is an admirable goal, OSHA regulation is not the solution to the problem.

In their present format, a more apt slogan for the proposed regulations may be "Real People, Real Problems, Wrong Solutions."

This article was also picked up by newspapers across the country, including the Sun-Sentinel.