The Way Out of the
OSHA Ergonomics Debacle

• Labor is trying to prove that workers are suffering from Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs).  But no one doubts that anymore, at least in the worksites where I go.  A decade back, managers and engineers were mystified by this sudden, new set of disorders.  But not now.

• OSHA is trying to prove that ergonomics makes good business sense.  But I am not aware of any health and safety professional in industry who doesn’t know that.

• Industry lawyers are claiming there isn’t enough scientific proof on the whole subject.  But that’s a losing battle; there will be very specific data soon, if not already.  Anyone who has ever spent any time working in an industrial setting knows there is a relationship.

In short, the battle lines have been drawn around the wrong turf.  The real issue is not ergonomics at all, rather it is OSHA itself.

The root problem where we should be focusing our energies is on how OSHA has gone about its daily business over the past 30 years and how it should continue for the next 30.  Solve that, and the ergonomics debate dissolves to nothing (along with about 45 other disputes).

Serious Problems in OSHA

In my dealings with OSHA over the past several years, I have lost all respect for the agency (I’m referring to field staff, lawyers, and bureaucrats, not some of the capable ergonomics professionals within OSHA).  I have supported OSHA over the 30 years of my professional career, but no longer. 

My personal evidence of OSHA’s deficiencies include:

• On repeated occasions I have seen the results of OSHA inspections where the compliance officers were plainly wrong in what they were advocating.   The issues included misinterpretation of injury data, inappropriate use of quantitative methods, and dubious recommendations for task improvement.  (Once again, I am referring to individuals who are not ergonomics professionals, rather inspectors who have taken a few classes.)

• I represented the meat industry in working with OSHA to develop the ergonomics guidelines for meatpacking.  In drafting those guidelines, the OSHA personnel in Washington D.C. provided sensible interpretations of their intent.   However, many of the field staff have gone their own direction and have cited companies in ways that are inappropriate and contrary to the understandings of our discussions in preparing that document.

• I have observed OSHA field staff insist on actions that have wasted money without helping any workers.  I find it sobering when I end up advising companies to set up a two-track approach — one for worker safety and the other to satisfy OSHA.  This is no way to run the nation’s workplace safety process.

• Whole industries often never know where they stand on particular issues.  There are few, if any, mechanisms to sit down ahead of time and find meaningful approaches to difficult problems.  One simply waits for some OSHA inspector somewhere to cite somebody and let the chips fall where they may.  Countries like Sweden, which leads the world in ergonomics and workplace safety, have much better procedures for this.

• Congress enacted OSHA in 1970 explicitly to serve as police, not as educators or advisors.  This probably was appropriate then, but not now, and has led to glaringly unsuitable policies.  I was told by an inspector regarding a company with an admirable ergonomics program, “I know [this company] has a good ergonomics program; my job is to poke holes in it.”  OSHA should instead have held a press conference to highlight a success story, but they chose to cite the company for some minor shortcomings.

• The relations between OSHA and industry have been unnecessarily adversarial, and I have observed little or no trust, even in companies that have outstanding safety efforts.  Even I do not trust OSHA any longer.

Resolution

In many ways, the OSHA system is not working now for the very reason that it has worked in the past.  Thirty years ago when OSHA was instituted, it replaced a mishmash of state programs, some of which were terrible.  OSHA successfully highlighted the whole issue of insidious chemicals, dusts, and fumes at a time when many of these hazards were unrecognized.  OSHA insisted on formalizing employer safety practices.

But times are different.  I’ve conducted evaluations in over 1000 different facilities in the past decades and I’ve seen huge improvements with my own eyes.  Today there is a massive cadre of dedicated safety and health professionals in industry, which makes the efforts of 30 years ago look miniscule.  Education among workers and managers alike regarding hazards is much elevated.  Actual conditions are unarguably better.

But, as I tell my clients a bit tongue in cheek, “once in every 20 or 30 years you should take a look at what you do.” 

It’s time for a 30-year check at the Federal level.

We need a new approach to regulation, one suited for this century, not the past one.  It sounds trite to say we should focus on goals rather than petty details, but the basis of enforcement as we know it relies on the petty details.

There is opportunity here.  Ergonomics is all about innovation.  The ambiguities of this proposed standard give us the chance to be creative.  We need to create new mechanisms for employers, employees, and OSHA to communicate and make decisions together.  We need to develop new procedures for insuring that employers behave as they should.

The remedies are not unknown.  What we need is a new, progressive effort to revamp OSHA.  In the past years, all efforts to reform OSHA have been instigated by forces that were more interested in gutting the agency than making it effective.  I believe that by addressing these problems from a from a pro-worker safety perspective, the agency could become more beneficial to workers with considerably fewer burdens on employers.

The debate about ergonomics provides us that opportunity.  The premise of ergonomics is that by designing for people we can simultaneously improve human well being and increase overall efficiency.  I suspect this principle applies to Federal regulations and agencies as much as it does to powered hand tools and assembly workstations.