Workplace Hazards: OSHA's New Look

If there had been an award for the least popular, least respected, and least effective federal agency during the early and mid-1970s, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor would have been among the top contenders.

Union leaders called it ineffectual or worse. Business spokesmen called it capricious and complained of harassment. Health and safety professionals lamented the poor quality of staff and policies. Those who had welcomed the enactment of the legislation in 1970 as a great step forward in the effort to improve the quality of working life were disappointed—especially in view of estimates of 390,000 new cases and 100,000 deaths from occupational disease annually in the early 1970s. Within OSHA, morale was often low as the agency floundered under successive reorganizations and turnover of top leadership—five secretaries of labor and four assistant secretaries of OSHA.

Meanwhile, public concern about health and safety conditions at the workplace was rising. Scare episodes, such as the diagnosis of cancer among vinyl chloride workers, illnesses among the kepone workers at Hopewell, Virginia, and sterility among workers in some lead manufacturing plants were given wide press and television coverage. In October 1977, reports of a survey by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health indicated that one American worker in four is exposed on the job to substances believed capable of causing disease or death. The survey, based on the inspection of over 4,500 plants in 67 metropolitan areas, also showed that industrial hygiene services are rare except in firms with more than 500 employees, and that most employees exposed to benzene, asbestos, and similar hazards were not given periodic medical checkups to determine whether their health had been affected. The survey was taken in the 1972-74 period.

Signs of a fresh approach at OSHA became apparent in 1976, and under new leadership in 1977 the agency began acquiring a better image. Many of its pronouncements and actions seemed to make sense both to critics who never had much faith in the occupational safety and health program and to those who had hoped that OSHA could become the instrument for reducing the workplace toll. Of particular importance was a commitment to emphasize protection of workers from health hazards instead of compliance with detailed safety regulations of dubious value.

Underlying issues. Even if OSHA had been especially well directed, well staffed, and generously financed from the outset, it would have had great difficulty in meeting its goals. It was moving into a highly complex and controversial area, characterized by a lack of information and conflicts between management and workers.

Although the causes of industrial accidents are generally easy to determine, causes of illnesses are not. Workers are exposed to diseases in the home and the environment at large, as well as in the workplace, and so the sources of a particular disease may be difficult to determine—especially since symptoms such as fatigue or coughing may be similar for a great number of illnesses. Moreover, many illnesses have long latency periods. Years may elapse between exposure to a carcinogen, for example, and the onset of symptoms or measurable physiological changes, and the link may be difficult to establish.

An enormous research effort is needed to determine what substances are toxic, how much exposure to such substances is safe, and how stress, heat, and so on affect the workers' health. Little is known about the synergistic effect of combinations of these various hazards.

There was no credible base of statistics in 1970 that would show the real dimensions of the problems and the areas most in need of attention. A lot of numbers had been bandied about during the hearings on safety and health legislation, but no one had much confidence in them. Thus, a major provision of the legislation creating OSHA was the requirement for systematic record keeping, including an annual survey of deaths, accidents, and illnesses by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even where problem areas are clearly identified, the establishment of standards is difficult. At some level, the volume of noise can induce fatigue, cause stress, and damage hearing. Also, at some point, expenditures to reduce noise levels become excessive. Negotiations of a standard that will protect health without bankrupting firms in instances such as this, where there is considerable uncertainty about consequences of exposure, can be difficult and prolonged. The relationship of costs to the value of benefits was not explicitly considered in the 1970 legislation.

Because only a very small percentage of firms can be inspected (an estimated 2 percent a year), the effectiveness of the safety and health program inevitably depends heavily on voluntary cooperation by business firms and on an increased awareness by workers of the hazards they face and the best ways to cope with them. The OSHA legislation made no provision for an economic incentive system that might encourage voluntary compliance.

Beyond these issues of special significance for OSHA are the delays, administrative expenses, and ineffectiveness that plague the regulatory process throughout government.

New directions. Historically, the biggest source of OSHA's embarrassment—though not its most serious shortcoming —was a host of so-called consensus standards. These were hundreds of detailed regulations adopted wholesale from voluntary industry codes by congressional mandate in the 1970 law.

Although originally drawn up by trade associations, these regulations ironically became the central target of many business critics when they became mandatory since they included such trivial requirements as open fronts on toilet seats, locating fire extinguishers a certain height above the floor, etc. One of OSHA's first announced goals in 1977 was to get rid of these "nitpicking" regulations and to concentrate on the serious hazards. By early December it had completed its review of the standards, and it proposed dropping about 1,100 of them, about 10 percent of the total. But red tape doesn't untangle easily: because of federal procedural requirements, about five months would be required before the regulations could be eliminated. Meanwhile, OSHA said it would stop issuing citations for violations of these regulations.

Of much greater significance in the long run was a plan announced in October to try a new approach to the regulation of cancer-causing substances. It was spurred by the widely accepted estimate that 60 to 90 percent of cancer cases are of environmental origin, and it is in the work environment that exposures are most intense and most prolonged.

Since its inception OSHA had proceeded on a case-by-case effort to control carcinogens one at a time. As a result of this agonizingly slow process, government succeeded in regulating only 17 toxic substances out of 1,500 suspected of being carcinogenic. In view of the hundreds of new chemicals coming into industrial use annually, the one-at-a-time approach was like "trying to put out a forest fire one tree at a time," in the words of Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall. The new plan envisioned a comprehensive approach that would identify the key issues involved in regulating carcinogens in the workplace and develop model standards to be applied to individual substances deemed to be hazardous.

In OSHA's view, this approach would greatly speed up the regulatory process as well as save considerable money. Again, this would be only a first step. It would take two or three years or more to work out the details of a plan that would meet industry criticism and court tests. Two key issues are expected to be at the center of the discussions: criteria for making standards on the basis of animal tests and the steps to be taken if a substance is found to be carcinogenic.

In other action during the year, OSHA:

• Proposed a permanent standard to reduce worker exposure to benzene, which has been identified as a cause of leukemia, from 10 parts of benzene per million parts of air to 1 part per million. An estimated 150,000 workers are exposed to benzene, which is used in the production of other organic chemicals, detergents, and pesticides. Permanent standards now cover asbestos, vinyl chloride, a group of thirteen carcinogens, and coke oven emissions.
• Joined with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration in announcing an emergency standard to limit the exposure of workers to the pesticide DBCP (dibromochloropropane) following the discovery of sterility among a high proportion of workers in a California plant handling the pesticide.
• Certified three state plans to take over administration of occupational safety and health regulations within the state, as provided by the 1970 federal legislation. After a trial period, the federal government will relinquish its jurisdiction over the states—Vermont, California, and Alaska—but it will continue to help finance the state programs. Five states had been certified earlier: South Carolina, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Utah. Certification of sixteen other state plans is pending. However, union opposition to turning over safety and health regulation to the states remains strong.
• Lightened the administrative burden on business by streamlining its record-keeping requirements. It simplified the log of injuries and illnesses that some 1.5 million firms must maintain. It also reduced by 50 percent the number of firms that have to participate in the annual survey of occupational hazards conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A court challenge and other issues. The year was not without its setbacks, however. OSHA began 1977 under the cloud of a court order challenging its right to inspect businesses without prior notice. The challenge came in Idaho where a U.S. district court upheld the right of an employer to refuse to admit an OSHA inspector on the grounds that such an inspection violated his Fourth Amendment protection from "unreasonable search and seizure." OSHA argued in vain that its inspections are conducted at "reasonable times" and on the presentation of "appropriate credentials," as required by legislation. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is pending. Meanwhile, the agency pushed ahead with efforts to strengthen its inspection and enforcement activities.

OSHA also sought to discourage employers from docking workers' pay for time spent walking around an establishment with an inspector checking safety and health conditions. Its rationale was that time spent on "walk-arounds" with OSHA inspectors is as much a part of working hours as coffee breaks, time spent on grievances, and so on, and should be compensated. It called employee participation in inspections essential because workers are often in the best position to point out hazards and answer questions.

One of the first acts of Dr. Eula Bingham, the new assistant secretary for OSHA appointed in 1977, was to assert that 95 percent of the inspection activities would be aimed at the industries with the most serious health and safety hazards and that 70 percent of all staff activity in field offices had to be devoted to inspection-related activity.

The work environment may not yet be much safer and healthier than it was before job safety and health legislation was passed, but public awareness of hazards in the workplace has clearly increased. Moreover, millions of business firms, which have been required to keep logs of accidents and illnesses on the job, have became much more sensitive to the issue than before. Labor unions, which with few exceptions were generally willing to trade safety and health improvements for wage increases or greater job security, have been putting more stress on the quality of the work environment, not only in collective bargaining but on the Hill in court suits, and in education of members. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which initially helped give the issue greater visibility as much by ineptitude as by accomplishment, has made a fresh start. The increasing credibility established by the agency during 1977 augurs well for the future, though it is only a beginning. Still to be answered is the extent to which the enactment of regulations and their enforcement will pay off in reducing the rates and severity of accidents and illnesses—and most importantly, in saving lives.