Congress Should Back Off On Ergonomics Regulation
Just when you thought it was safe to relax and no longer worry about the government imposing ergonomic standards, a bill was introduced in Congress calling for federal action.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently announced its initiative to work with the private sector to make information available that could bolster ergonomic loss control. This was welcome news after the Clinton Administration's more onerous mandates were thrown out by Congress shortly after the Republicans took power in early 2001.
Now risk managers and insurers must be prepared to lobby on Capitol Hill once again to prevent passage of S. 2184, which would mandate that OSHA reissue an ergonomics regulation within two years.
While the bill would try to avoid the Clinton Administration's mistakes by forcing OSHA to clearly define what would be required of employers, as well as by prohibiting any monkeying around with the tried-and-true state workers' compensation system, the move is still premature.
Congress should give OSHA at least two years to field test its still developing program, allowing them to work with employers to shape industry and company-specific guidelines, rather than force feed the private sector an arbitrary cookie-cutter regulation.
If OSHA's voluntary, collaborative approach fails to lower the incidence of injuries, then Congress should step in and insist upon a more aggressive regulatory stance. But not now, not after the Risk and Insurance Management Society just entered into a deal to work together with OSHA to promote workplace safety and health.
Give OSHA a chance to succeed before determining that Washington has all the answers, which it clearly does not on ergonomics.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, May 6, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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