Priorities
May 26th, 2005 at 9:21 am by Susie
Remember, it’s about cheap, disposable labor. Everything they do is geared to de-stabilize the workforce:
One of our favorite Congressmen, Charlie Norwood (R-GA), Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, held a hearing last week on voluntary safety programs and contracting out OSHA third-party safety and health audits, where, instead of OSHA inspections, employers could hire third party auditors to inspect their workplace. (After all, it worked so well with Arthur Anderson and Enron, why not try it in every workplace?)The “highlight” of the hearing was a statement by Congressman John Kline (R-MN), according to a BNA report. Referring to AFL-CIO figures that it would take OSHA 108 years to inspect every worksite under its jurisdiction, Kline said that OSHA does not have the resources. He noted that in light of expanding the nation’s defenses against terrorism, the notion of enlarging OSHA to police more worksites is “just not reasonable at this time.”
Reasonable? Let’s see, in 2003 5,559 workers were killed in workplace “accidents” (not to mention the 50,000 - 60,000 workers who die each year of occupational disease). That means that more people die on the job in this country last year than were killed on 9/11, in Afghanistan and in Iraq put together. OSHA’s budget request this year is somewhere between $400 and $500 million, while we’re spending around $5 billion a month in Iraq.
Sounds pretty damn reasonable to me to spend a few more bucks to hire more OSHA inspectors.
I am a contrarian on this. I have had experience with OSHA and with third party audits (in my case, a technical assistance arm of our workman’s compensation carrier). I think that OSHA’s role is to goad indifferent management to make a committment to safety. The OSHA people I saw were unhelpful, generally inexperienced, and bureaucratic. Their audits were relatively quick and their results were mostly about paperwork. OSHA’s role is not insignificant; there are indifferent managers and they can do a lot of damage.
I know that there are exceptions, but most managers I worked with were not indifferent. There are good reasons for this. Poor safety undermines a manager’s efforts at leadership and reduces the productivity of the unit. In any labor intensive industry, the cost of poor safety is prohibitive. Assuming reasonably competent oversight in large corporations, and the vulnerability of small businesses, managers indifferent to safety should be weeded out as a normal part of business.
By contrast with OSHA, the third party audits conducted by our insurance company personnel were direct, forceful, and positive. They had time, a financial interest in success instead of a bureaucratic interest in assessing fines, and they could discuss both the regulations and the practical extra steps we could take to really make a difference. So, they would spend a week or so to understand each of the work steps on all of the equipment as used in each operation. They wanted to know about start-up, shut-down, and operating procedures. Their recommendations were negotiated, with the regulations acting as the minimum level of compliance not the goal. Implementation of their recommendations was an ongoing process involving follow-ups and revisions as our operation changed. In short, they were able to help where OSHA did not.
For these reasons, it seems to me that putting a lot of extra resources into OSHA enforcement is probably not the best policy choice. A third party safety audit program works better where there is management committment.
Allow me to respond.
First, I don’t disagree that most employers are concerned about safety, just as most people are good drivers. But there are plenty that aren’t, and those are the ones we have to worry about.
Second, I have nothing against private audits, but I do object to them as replacements for OSHA inspections and enforcement. Good employers will get audits anyway. Bad employers won’t — unless they can “buy” a good audit that will exempt them from an OSHA inspection.
OSHA inspections would undoubtedly be more thorough if we had a well-funded agency with a sufficient number of inspectors; instead we starve the agency.
The way the audit legislation is written, neither workers nor OSHA would have access to audit results, so there is no way to know what hazards have been identified or corrected.
The best way to “audit” a workplace is to have well-trained employees who don’t have to fear retaliation for complaining about safety problems. Under the current administration, OSHA is getting rid of its already-too-small ttraining budget.
OSHA is much like traffic enforcement: You’re never going to have enough cops/inspectors to monitor everyone; and most people try to drive/operate their workplace safely anyway. But there are a signficant number of employers who take dangerous and often deadly shortcuts, just as there are plenty of people who drive too fast or drive drunk.
We should encourage and require training in safe driving and how to run a workplace safety, but we also have to have strong enforcement and penalties for those who break the law and endanger others.
And just as a cop isn’t going to let you out of a drunk driving citation just because you got an “A” in your safe driving class, there should be no exemptions from OSHA inspections and penalties just because you had yourself audited.