Dave Johnson’s safety beat 8.18.2010 – taming OSHA, record number of egregious cases, results of I2P2 meetings
Good Wednesday morning,
HEARTBREAK:
An 8-year-old boy was killed Sunday morning when he went to work with his father in Woodland, Texas, reports KCRA.com. The boy was struck by a passing forklift in the parking lot of a business, according to police.
SERIOUS FLAWS IN FED OVERSIGHT
From the Houston Chronicle: “Rather than a collection of random incidents, (recent) deadly disasters and the congressional inaction that generally follows illustrate a seriously flawed system of federal oversight in the United States.”
"It's as though the nation is walking into a casino and spinning the roulette wheel every day," says Michael Livermore, a government regulation specialist and executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University law school. "It's only a matter of time before we're going to come up with snake eyes and have another disaster."
And the problem is? Or… the problems are?
Agencies like OSHA are famously underfunded. Former government workers, like several recent OSHA chiefs, leave their lofty position to become consultants or join law firms representing industry. These are not the “cozy” relationships found, say, in the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry, and have not proven detrimental to OSHA.
OSHA does suffer, quite a bit, by another factor that hamstrings federal regulators: lack of public support for major-scale federal intervention in the private sector. One reason: the belief that compliance costs jobs. In this scary economic moment, it’s very tricky to argue for more oversight of American business.
“The American public decided probably 20-30 years ago it had bought all the occupational safety and health it wanted,’ says a former Ford Motor Company industry hygiene exec.
The result: OSHA, like other fed oversight bodies (and many industrial safety departments) is reactionary, not proactive. "Too many of our regulatory agencies suffer from inertia and lack of resources," Adam Finkel, a former OSHA official who directs regulation studies at University of Pennsylvania law school, told the Houston Chronicle. "Agencies devote most of their efforts to investigating accidents rather than looking into long-term hazards that claim far more lives over time."
You can argue that OSHA doesn’t suffer from inertia, but from sometimes spectacular swings in mission philosophy as Republicans and Democrats take turns running the agency. As the Chronicle states: “The workplace safety agency has a reputation for abruptly changing course with changing administrations.”
We are seeing that abrupt change right now, with safety expert and George Washington University professor David Michaels replacing John Henshaw, who had spent 22 years at Monsanto.
LOOK UPSTAIRS
But this change is not so much Michaels versus Henshaw as Hilda Solis versus Elaine Chao as Labor Secretaries. Solis is an activist who has given OSHA the green light to be “the new sheriff in town.” Chao was an obstructionist who saw little reason for the OSHA sheriff and put the handcuffs on Henshaw, according to those in positions to know, when Henshaw was prepared to pursue an ambitious agenda. Instead, he was left to say, “I’m a sailor, and you have to go with the prevailing winds.”
One last obstacle for OSHA: political antipathy, and sometimes outright disdain. There is a reason the law creating OSHA 40 years ago has never been seriously amended, not once, by Congress. How many votes back home is a lawmaker going to win by supporting the current White House-backed legislation to dramatically increase the agency's powers, versus the number of irate phone calls from businesses back home, potential campaign donors?
Plus, according to the Chronicle, Congress is lobbied by 152 organizations interested in OSHA issues.
So to many in Congress, OSHA is toxic: the source of complaints from constituents far more than applause. It’s thoroughly politicized. It won’t win you votes. So lawmakers, with the exception of Rep. George Miller (D-CA), don’t want to touch it, let alone empower it.
WHAT A SURPRISE: OSHA ANNOUNCES RECORD NUMBER OF EGREGIOUS CASES
"There's a new sheriff in town," Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis warned during her 2009 swearing-in ceremony. Sure enough, during the past year and a half, OSHA investigators have issued citations for egregious violations in 17 cases.
This is more than twice as many egregious cases as were issued during the two years before the current administration took office.
OSHA inspectors cite egregious violations when an employer shows multiple instances of willful and flagrant indifference to correcting workplace hazards. "We will not tolerate this type of blatant and egregious disregard for the health and safety of workers. Employers need to know there will be consequences," said OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels.
MORE THAN 200 STAKEHOLDERS PARTICIPATE IN SERIES OF MEETINGS ON INJURY AND ILLNESS PREVENTION
About 200 participating attendees providing input and 350 observers forced OSHA to add two extra stakeholder meetings on its Injury and Illness Prevention Program standard.
Representatives from unions, trade associations, professional organizations, large and small businesses, and other governmental agencies shared their thoughts on OSHA's proposed rule to require employers to develop plans to identify workplace hazards and fix them before they cause an injury, illness or death. Attendees provided input on possible regulatory approaches and the scope and application, organization and economic impact of the proposed rule. Summary notes from the meetings are available on the Safety and Health Programs page of OSHA's Web site.
HEARTBREAK:
An 8-year-old boy was killed Sunday morning when he went to work with his father in Woodland, Texas, reports KCRA.com. The boy was struck by a passing forklift in the parking lot of a business, according to police.
SERIOUS FLAWS IN FED OVERSIGHT
From the Houston Chronicle: “Rather than a collection of random incidents, (recent) deadly disasters and the congressional inaction that generally follows illustrate a seriously flawed system of federal oversight in the United States.”
"It's as though the nation is walking into a casino and spinning the roulette wheel every day," says Michael Livermore, a government regulation specialist and executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University law school. "It's only a matter of time before we're going to come up with snake eyes and have another disaster."
And the problem is? Or… the problems are?
Agencies like OSHA are famously underfunded. Former government workers, like several recent OSHA chiefs, leave their lofty position to become consultants or join law firms representing industry. These are not the “cozy” relationships found, say, in the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry, and have not proven detrimental to OSHA.
OSHA does suffer, quite a bit, by another factor that hamstrings federal regulators: lack of public support for major-scale federal intervention in the private sector. One reason: the belief that compliance costs jobs. In this scary economic moment, it’s very tricky to argue for more oversight of American business.
“The American public decided probably 20-30 years ago it had bought all the occupational safety and health it wanted,’ says a former Ford Motor Company industry hygiene exec.
The result: OSHA, like other fed oversight bodies (and many industrial safety departments) is reactionary, not proactive. "Too many of our regulatory agencies suffer from inertia and lack of resources," Adam Finkel, a former OSHA official who directs regulation studies at University of Pennsylvania law school, told the Houston Chronicle. "Agencies devote most of their efforts to investigating accidents rather than looking into long-term hazards that claim far more lives over time."
You can argue that OSHA doesn’t suffer from inertia, but from sometimes spectacular swings in mission philosophy as Republicans and Democrats take turns running the agency. As the Chronicle states: “The workplace safety agency has a reputation for abruptly changing course with changing administrations.”
We are seeing that abrupt change right now, with safety expert and George Washington University professor David Michaels replacing John Henshaw, who had spent 22 years at Monsanto.
LOOK UPSTAIRS
But this change is not so much Michaels versus Henshaw as Hilda Solis versus Elaine Chao as Labor Secretaries. Solis is an activist who has given OSHA the green light to be “the new sheriff in town.” Chao was an obstructionist who saw little reason for the OSHA sheriff and put the handcuffs on Henshaw, according to those in positions to know, when Henshaw was prepared to pursue an ambitious agenda. Instead, he was left to say, “I’m a sailor, and you have to go with the prevailing winds.”
One last obstacle for OSHA: political antipathy, and sometimes outright disdain. There is a reason the law creating OSHA 40 years ago has never been seriously amended, not once, by Congress. How many votes back home is a lawmaker going to win by supporting the current White House-backed legislation to dramatically increase the agency's powers, versus the number of irate phone calls from businesses back home, potential campaign donors?
Plus, according to the Chronicle, Congress is lobbied by 152 organizations interested in OSHA issues.
So to many in Congress, OSHA is toxic: the source of complaints from constituents far more than applause. It’s thoroughly politicized. It won’t win you votes. So lawmakers, with the exception of Rep. George Miller (D-CA), don’t want to touch it, let alone empower it.
WHAT A SURPRISE: OSHA ANNOUNCES RECORD NUMBER OF EGREGIOUS CASES
"There's a new sheriff in town," Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis warned during her 2009 swearing-in ceremony. Sure enough, during the past year and a half, OSHA investigators have issued citations for egregious violations in 17 cases.
This is more than twice as many egregious cases as were issued during the two years before the current administration took office.
OSHA inspectors cite egregious violations when an employer shows multiple instances of willful and flagrant indifference to correcting workplace hazards. "We will not tolerate this type of blatant and egregious disregard for the health and safety of workers. Employers need to know there will be consequences," said OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels.
MORE THAN 200 STAKEHOLDERS PARTICIPATE IN SERIES OF MEETINGS ON INJURY AND ILLNESS PREVENTION
About 200 participating attendees providing input and 350 observers forced OSHA to add two extra stakeholder meetings on its Injury and Illness Prevention Program standard.
Representatives from unions, trade associations, professional organizations, large and small businesses, and other governmental agencies shared their thoughts on OSHA's proposed rule to require employers to develop plans to identify workplace hazards and fix them before they cause an injury, illness or death. Attendees provided input on possible regulatory approaches and the scope and application, organization and economic impact of the proposed rule. Summary notes from the meetings are available on the Safety and Health Programs page of OSHA's Web site.
