OSHA Backtracks on Proposed Workplace Injury Rule
It seems simple enough. Employers already keep a record for workplace injuries and illnesses—why not add a column to the report for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)—ergonomic injuries? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would provide the form and employers would simply put a check mark in the right place to identify which injuries are MSDs. But now OSHA is withdrawing the rule, which applies only to small businesses, from final review to get further input from small businesses.
From 1970 until the Bush administration in 2003 deleted the MSD column on the injury and illness form, employers were required to identify these injuries. But when OSHA proposed to restore the MSD record-keeping rule, the business community went into a tizzy, claiming it was a costly burden and government overreach. That’s not a surprise.
MSDs are the biggest source of workplace injury and illness and AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario says the proposed rule would help employers, workers and the government to identify the extent of the problems and to take action to prevent them. Read the rest of this entry »
Labor Department Says Focus is on Worker Safety, Fair Wages
New rules to improve workplace safety, monitor employer compliance, track ergonomics injuries, bring union-busting consultants out of the shadows and ensure fair wages and overtime pay top the U.S. Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda.
Says Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a video statement on the department’s website:
Protecting wages and working conditions is the key mission of our department. Insuring workers have a voice on the job is also vital….We are committed to ensuring that workers are paid a fair wage and have a voice in the workplace.
BushWatch: Job Safety and Health Took Big Hits
This is our second look back at eight years of BushWatch. Today we review an area where outgoing President George W. Bush’s actions have a daily, and maybe deadly, impact on men and women who go to work every day—job safety and health.
Whether it was via regulation, legislation, executive order, policy decision or inaction, Bush repeatedly carried out the wishes of Big Business—less enforcement, weaker safety laws, lighter penalties or no regulation at all.
If there was any doubt whom he served, Bush erased that when he ended decades of practice and refused to name union representatives to serve on job-safety study and advisory groups, which also include academic, professional and management representatives.
Here are just some of the lowlights. For the complete accounting, go to BushWatch and click on Health and Safety in the top box.
