Occupational Safety and Health-Can We Rise Again?

Our Government Protections Face Attacks on Four Fronts

Administration policies and practices which conciliate industry. The Bush Administration poses an extreme new threat. OSHA inspections were near a ten-year low, and new standards were stalled in the Clinton Administration. Now OSHA is dominated by management. Their rhetoric is to substitute inspections and orders to abate hazards with vague promises of "partnerships." The fundamental problem remains that there are barely 2,000 inspectors nationwide for six million workplaces and 100 million workers. Health and safety standards are frozen in the 1960's even after we have entered the 21st Century.
Budgets that starve enforcement and research agencies. We need more federal and state OSHA inspectors, not fewer. We know that level funding of worker protections agencies is really a cut due to inflation and increases in the workforce. Having squandered the budget surplus on tax cuts for the rich, congressional conservatives now plead budget poverty against requests for more protection.

In addition, conservatives in Congress and the Administration try to divert OSHA funding from inspections to providing free consultation visits to employers. Although research on workplace health hazards is a life and death matter for workers, NIOSH lagged behind other health agencies' funding even when the federal budget ran a surplus.
Legislation to undermine the fundamental structure of OSHA and MSHA. Conservative-dominated labor committees in both the House and in previous Senates passed comprehensive OSHA "deform" packages in past sessions of Congress. These bills limit rights of workers to get OSHA inspectors to investigate workplace hazards and allow warnings instead of citations even for serious violations of the law. These bills also allow management to establish employer-dominated safety and health committees and other employee participation schemes that are in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. They seek to penalize workers while immunizing employers who violate the law. Because moderates now control the Senate, we expect piecemeal attempts to chip away at workers' rights rather than a full frontal assault.
Interference from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could make it harder to set new health and safety standards. OMB, a branch of the White House, can block OSHA standards directly or order new procedures that would place more obstacles to implementing needed OSHA and EPA protections. President Bush appointed a well known opponent of health and safety standards, John Graham, to head that part of OMB and we are concerned about his role as regulatory "czar." In addition, we must remain vigilant against "risk assessment" and so-called "regulatory reform" legislation which would also make it more difficult to enact public health and safety protections. Such legislation was barely defeated in the past and unfortunately has support among some key Democrats.