At Long, Long Last: Workers to Get Protective Gear

by Mike Hall, Nov 15, 2007

After nine years, a lawsuit and some 400,000 workplace injuries, the Bush administration is issuing a rule requiring employers to pay for workers’ personal protective safety equipment (PPE)—a measure expected to prevent tens of thousands of workplace injuries every year.

The rule, requiring employers to pay for such safety items as hard hats, lifelines, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by an estimated 20 million workers, was first proposed in 1999, but it was pulled back when the Bush administration came to power. Nearly a year ago, the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) filed a lawsuit over the Bush’ administration’s refusal to issue the rule. The lawsuit and congressional appropriations legislation both set a deadline of Nov. 30 for final action by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—which itself estimates that some 400,000 workers have been injured and another 50 killed because the rule has not been in place.

On Wednesday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said:

It is unfortunate that nine years have passed since the rule was proposed, and that it took a lawsuit by the unions and congressional intervention before the Bush administration would act.

 

America’s working men and women deserve the proper equipment to keep them safe on the job, each and every day, and we will thoroughly review this rule to make sure it protects them.

Workers in some of America’s most dangerous industries, such as meatpacking, poultry and construction, and low-wage and immigrant workers who suffer disproportionately high rates of workplace injuries have been vulnerable to being forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of OSHA’s failure to finish the rule.

UFCW President Joseph Hansen says workers “should no longer be required to dip into their own pocket to keep themselves safe from harm at work.”

Along with the union group’s lawsuit, California Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D) and George Miller (D), who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced legislation (H.R. 1327) to require employers to pay for the gear. Says Roybal-Allard:

This employer requirement is particularly important for low-wage workers, many of whom are doing dangerous jobs, who rely on this equipment as their main form of protection from a wide variety of on-the-job hazards.

According to Miller:

It should have never taken the threat of a lawsuit and legislation to get the Department of Labor to take these simple steps to protect workers from everyday jobsite hazards and prevent thousands of workplace injuries each year.

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