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Archived News Release--Caution: information may be out of date.

ANALYSIS SAYS CONGRESSIONAL PROPOSALS WOULD LEAD TO 50,000 ADDITIONAL WORKPLACE INJURIES, REVERSE 25 YEARS OF PROGRESS

Tues., Aug. 1, 1995

For more information call: 202/219- 8211.

More than 50,000 additional American workers will be injured at work every year and unscrupulous industries will be rewarded for ignoring worker safety if Congress approves measures to cripple federal enforcement efforts, according to an analysis released today on Capitol Hill.

The report focuses on four pieces of legislation. Individually they represent a retreat from 25 years of workplace protection that now cover 93 million working Americans at six million job sites. The alterations also would bring about a spike in the workplace fatality rate, which has been cut in half in the two decades since President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation creating OSHA.

"One, two, three, four. They've adapted a popular crime policy and aimed it at American workers: four strikes and you're out," said U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in releasing the report prepared by analysts at the labor department.

"Over the last 25 years, the country has made impressive strides in workplace safety. The workplace fatality rate has been cut in half. The American workplace is safer than at any other time in history. But problems remain. Today, 17 fathers, mothers, sons or daughters will die on the job -- every 84 minutes, another death. Conditions will only get worse if Congress repeals workplace safety laws."

The analysis, entitled "The Cumulative Impact of Current Congressional Efforts on American Working Men and Women," focuses on the impact on workplace safety from proposed budget cuts, regulatory reform, tort reform and repeal of workplace safety measures. According to Reich, the legislation seeks to chip away at enforcement measures that save lives. Collectively, the legislation would tie in knots workplace safety enforcement capabilities.

"Congress proposes shutting half the workplace safety offices and firing a third of the nation's safety officers, even though we have only 2,000 for the entire country," Reich said. "Further stretching an already stretched agency will make millions of workplaces more dangerous."

The report states that 50,000 additional workers would be injured and 50,000 more would suffer from increased exposure to workplace related illnesses. These spiraling rates would push through the ceiling the current $100 billion a year cost to the economy from workplace accidents, according to the report.

• The House appropriations committee measures would slash hazardous workplace inspections and redirect enforcement funding to paperwork pushing.
• OSHA reform measures in the House would rip to shreds the safety compact between employers and workers. The measure eliminates penalties for ignoring hazards until a worker is killed or injured. It effectively repeals employers' obligation to provide safe workplaces and forbids workers from reporting workplace dangers.
• The liability reform measure in the Senate would absolve employers if workers are injured and would even prevent injured workers from suing in some circumstances. The legislation would strip millions of American workers of long standing legal rights.
• Regulatory reform legislation proposed in the Senate would delay life-saving standards and create duplicative bureaucracies. The legislation would mandate that the lowest cost safety alternative be mandated without regard to the safety benefits that might be reaped.

President Clinton and Reich announced earlier this year complete reform of OSHA, the nation's workplace safety enforcement agency. The agency is now charged with rewarding industry efforts to prevent injuries rather than simply punishing those that ignore workplace safety standards.

"These congressional proposals send the wrong message," Reich said. "They intend to punish innocent workers and industries. The effect of these proposals is clear. American workers will be injured more often and industries that do protect their workers will receive very little support from a crippled enforcement agency. Meanwhile, unscrupulous industries that operate without regard to protecting the lives of their workers will be rewarded with fewer enforcement actions for willful violations of the law."

Archived News Release--Caution: information may be out of date.