The number of significant (proposed penalties more than $100,000) and egregious cases climbed from 125 to 165 as the agency attempted to balance its cooperative "reinvented" approach with the message that "OSHA also must continue to be the cop on the beat," according to Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
OSHA Chief Joseph A. Dear announced his selections to fill three national office positions. The candidates, John F. Martonik, Steven F. Witt, and Bonnie A. Friedman, are all longtime OSHA employees. Martonik will move up to Director of Safety Standards from 15 years as deputy director of health standards at OSHA. Witt has been with OSHA since 1987 as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of labor and will take over as director of technical support. Friedman has been with the Labor Department for 20 years in various positions. She will become director of the Office of Information and Consumer Affairs.
An OSHA/NIOSH ergonomics conference scheduled for Jan. 8-9, 1997, will cover topics specific to particular industries where ergonomic injury rates are high -- including apparel, health care, and data entry. The conference, slated to be held at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers will also host discussion on a NIOSH primer on musculoskeletal disorders. Business, academia, labor, and government will share methods for combating work-related musculoskeletal disorders, the nation's most costly category of workplace injuries and illnesses. For updates and information on the conference, visit NIOSH's World Wide Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html.