July 11, 2005
Congress Moves to Further Erode Workplace Safety and Health
Less than a week after the latest terrorist assault in London, our business-friendly Congress has other things on its mind -- like screwing workers.
This week, the House of Representatives will consider a suite of bills aimed at reducing the Occupational and Safety and Health Administration's ability to enforce the nation's workplace safety laws. Rep. George Miller (C-Cal.) and Rep. Major Owens (D-NY) last week sent out a "dear colleague" letter outlining the stakes in the four bills. I'm reprinting the letter below. For more on this issue, and to learn more about workplace safety activists' efforts to stop these bills from passing, you can visit the Confined Space blog, which is a must-read for anyone concerned about the 5,500 Americans who die and the hundreds of thousands who get injured every year on the job.
Here's the letter:
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
U .S. House of Representatives
July 8, 2005
OPPOSE Bills that Weaken Enforcement of Safety and Health:
Let's Make the Workplace Safe for America's Workers
Dear Colleague:
On Tuesday, July 12th the House is expected to consider four bills amending
the Occupational Safety and Health Act - H.R. 739, H.R. 740, H.R 741, and
H.R.742. Taken together, these one-sided bills rollback safety and health
protections for millions of American workers. These bills are strongly
opposed by the AFL-CIO. We urge you join us in opposing these OSHA
rollbacks.
Every day, fifteen workers are killed as a result of occupational injuries.
Almost 6,000 workers a year die due to workplace accidents. Another
estimated 50,000 to 60,000 die every year due to occupational illnesses.
12,000 workers a day are injured or made ill as a result of workplace
accidents or exposures. Liberty Mutual, the largest workers' compensation
insurance company, estimates that the direct cost of occupational injuries
and illnesses is $1 billion a week. These bills are intended to do
absolutely nothing to reduce this horrendous cost. Neither do any of these
bills address the heightened need to improve safety conditions on-the-job
for Americans. Instead, they make it easier for employers to challenge OSHA
citations, unnecessarily expand the Occupational Safety and Health Review
Commission (OSHRC), undermine the enforcement authority of the Secretary of
Labor, and punish OSHA for substantially justified enforcement actions if
the agency does not completely prevail.
H.R.742 poses the greatest threat to worker safety and health. The bill
requires OSHA to pay attorney's fees and costs for employers with 100 or
less employees and a net worth of $7,000,000 or less in any administrative
or judicial proceeding in which OSHA does not prevail. OSHA, as is almost
every other federal agency, is already required by law to pay attorney's
fees and costs in any proceeding in which the agency's charge is not
substantially justified. H.R. 742 singles out OSHA, alone among all federal
agencies, to require it to pay attorney's fees and costs in any proceeding
in which it does not win, regardless of why it loses and notwithstanding the
fact that the position of the agency was substantially justified. In
effect, unless the agency can guarantee that it will win every case it
brings, H.R. 742 punishes the OSHA for trying to enforce the law. The OSH
Act does not afford workers a private right of action. If OSHA fails to
enforce the law workers have no other means of doing so.
H.R. 741 provides that OSHRC shall have deference to override the Secretary
of Labor's reasonable interpretations of her own standards. OSHRC is a
quasi-judicial review commission. It is not a regulatory agency and should
not have regulatory authority. The Commission is already empowered to
disapprove and nullify or correct unreasonable actions of the Secretary of
Labor. However, in a unanimous decision the Supreme Court has said, because
interpreting regulations is a necessary adjunct to the rulemaking and
enforcement powers that are vested in the Secretary, the Secretary should
receive deference with regard to her reasonable interpretation of the
regulations that she has issued.
H.R. 740 unnecessarily expands the size of OSHRC from three to five members
and unjustifiably seeks to ensure that only lawyers are appointed to the
Commission. The Commission has functioned with three members since its
establishment in 1970. The authors of the OSH Act did not feel there was
sufficient work to justify more than three members and experience has not
shown otherwise. Experience has also shown that there is no basis for
limiting Commission membership to those with "legal training" and that, in
fact, the Commission has benefited from the participation of knowledgeable
non-lawyers.
Finally, H.R. 739 creates a legal loophole for employers' obligation to meet
the 15-day deadline for contesting an OSHA citation or notice of a failure
to abate a hazard. The deadline for an employer's response was set at the
15-day mark to encourage both the timely correction of cited workplace
hazards and expeditious handling of cases. The Commission already has
authority to review any missed deadlines on a case-by-case basis in a manner
that protects both employers and workers. H.R. 739 alters this process in a
one-sided manner that disadvantages workers, encourages litigation, and
undermines health and safety protection.
In summary, these four OSHA bills would impede the enforcement of worksite
safety and health provisions at the very time when more and more Americans
have identified safety as one of their foremost concerns. According to a
poll conducted in April by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, six out of ten
Americans want Congress to pass legislation that ensures greater workplace
safety and health. By seriously weakening the enforcement of U.S. safety
standards, these bills would take us in exactly the opposite direction. We
strongly urge you to join us in opposing and voting against H.R. 739, H.R.
740, H.R. 741, and H.R. 742.
Sincerely,
/s/
/s/
GEORGE MILLER
MAJOR OWENS
Senior Democratic Members
Committee on Education and Subcommittee on Workforce the Workplace Protections