OSHA Under Attack

When Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration four years ago, it acted out of justifiable concern about the shockingly high rate of U.S. job-caused injuries and illnesses (some 2.4 million disabling industrial injuries were reported in 1972 alone; many others doubtless went unreported). OSHA was empowered to set national standards to replace a welter of conflicting health and safety guidelines, send inspectors to factories, stores and offices to check on compliance, levy stiff fines on violators and even order unsafe businesses to close down. In operation, however, OSHA has pleased almost no one. Labor leaders complain, correctly, that job-accident rates have not dropped, and charge that OSHA lacks the money and manpower to begin to do its job adequately. Many businessmen protest that OSHA inspectors often enforce arbitrarily regulations that are too strict and prohibitively expensive to obey.

Last week the businessmen pressed their complaints at two sets of hearings. One was called by OSHA itself to hear comments on a proposed regulation that factory air must be cleansed of all "detectable" amounts of vinyl chloride, a gas that has been linked to liver cancer (TIME, May 13). Plastics executives testified that technologically such perfect purification is impossible. At the other hearings, held by the House Select Subcommittee on Labor, representatives of the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce voiced more general gripes. Speaking for the N.A.M., for instance, Michael Stinton, safety manager of Dow Corning Corp., contended that lowering factory noise levels from 90 decibels to 85, one proposal OSHA has studied, could cost U.S. industry a ruinous $31 billion.

Some of the business complaints seem clearly exaggerated. Big companies generally have little trouble complying with OSHA rules. The loudest protests come from medium-sized businesses--which have the highest accident rates. Many owners of these firms complain that the cost of obeying OSHA rules could drive them into bankruptcy. But when Democratic Representative Joseph Gaydos of Pennsylvania pressed Richard Berman, director of labor law for the Chamber of Commerce, to name a firm that had been put out of business by OSHA rules, Berman admitted he could not cite even one.

Yet some OSHA rules seem contradictory. For instance, at construction sites OSHA requires back-up alarms on vehicles--and also requires some employees to wear earplugs (as a protection against noise) that might make it difficult for them to hear the alarms. The critics' most telling complaint is that visiting OSHA inspectors by law cannot advise businessmen how to clear up unsafe conditions; they can only mete out fines. George Peters, president of Aurora Metal Co., a foundry in Montgomery, Ill., fumes: "If you call OSHA in for advice, they will issue you a citation."

Hearing Alarms. OSHA Chief John H. Stender, an Assistant Secretary of Labor whose former career as a boilermaker left him partly deaf, stoutly insists that no changes are needed in his agency or the law that set it up. He insists that the agency's 700 inspectors are enough --even though they have visited only 145,000 U.S. workplaces in the past three years, or a mere 2.9% of all those in the country--and contends that few businessmen want advice on how to remedy unsafe conditions.

Congressmen seem unpersuaded by Stender's defense. They have introduced no fewer than 90 separate bills to amend the OSHA act. Some would toughen enforcement, others loosen it. Republican Representative Steven Symms of Idaho is leading a drive to abolish OSHA entirely, with strong support from the John Birch Society, which likens OSHA inspectors to Gestapo agents. Fortunately, Congress is unlikely to do anything so extreme. It would be better advised to give OSHA more inspectors, increase its funding ($102.5 million for fiscal 1975)--and allow the inspectors to tell businessmen how to comply with safety rules rather than fine those seeking advice.

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