Battle brews over OSHA ergonomics standard

Critics vow to fight proposed standards they say will add millions of dollars to distribution costs.

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 3/1/1999

Business groups are mobilizing their forces on Capitol Hill to defeat, or at least soften, proposed new ergonomics regulations issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The federal agency charged with ensuring workplace safety last month released a proposed draft ergonomics standard that could result in broad changes in warehouse and transportation work practices.

OSHA has said that the new ergonomics standard might help stem the more than 647,000 work-related musculoskeletal disorder (WMSD) injuries and illnesses that plague American workers each year. Industry leaders have countered that such regulations are based on poor science and would impose an undue economic hardship on them.

Distribution activities, particularly in warehouses, would be especially affected by these new federal safety rules. "This sweeping regulation would affect businesses across the country and cost untold millions of dollars in compliance costs without guaranteeing the prevention of a single injury," says Jon Eisen, director of government relations for Food Distributors International, a Falls Church, Va.-based organization that represents wholesale grocers.

OSHA released the long-awaited draft ergonomics regulations as the first step on the long road to regulatory approval. Under federal law, a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Act panel consisting of officials from OSHA, the Small Business Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget must review the regulations to determine their impact on small businesses before they can be issued for public review and comment. OSHA's current plans call for a formal standard to be issued in the Federal Register this September. Following a period of public comment and hearings, the agency would issue its final version of the rules, probably sometime in the year 2000.

The draft proposal would automatically require certain industries that historically have had a high rate of WMSDs to establish an ergonomics program. Such a program would include management and employee participation, hazard identification, job analysis, training, medical management, and a compliance evaluation. In addition, any company that has a manufacturing or materials-handling operation would have to establish an ergonomics program if even a single worker were to report a WMSD.

Many trade associations whose members are involved in logistics and warehousing have expressed concern about the proposed rules' impact. They charge, for instance, that the medical-management section would require employers to change the way employees do their jobs or the equipment they use. Industry groups fear that may force members to make such changes as limiting case sizes or restricting workers' picking activities--actions that could impair efficiency in a distribution center. "You'd end up with smaller cases, which would cause a package reconfiguration," says Michael Jenkins, president and CEO of the International Warehouse Logistics Association, a Park Ridge, Ill.-based group that represents warehouses and third-party logistics companies. "Warehouses would have to curtail picking. If a worker can only do so much lifting per hour," he says, "it impacts efficiency."

Business groups are particularly incensed that OSHA has put forward the regulations despite an ongoing scientific debate on the subject. "We have always maintained issuing a regulation is premature until the science exists to understand the root causes of musculoskeletal disorders," Eisen says.

Jenkins, for one, predicts that a number of industry trade associations will begin lobbying Congress to stop OSHA's efforts to implement the standard. "To get this standard held back or toned down," he says, "the business community opposing this standard will have to go to Capital Hill."

Some members of Congress already are considering taking up the fight on behalf of business groups. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has said he may file legislation that would delay the new ergonomics regulation until the National Academy of Sciences completes a study of the issue. "It's hard to believe that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be rushing to make regulations that are likely to result in a loss of jobs without agreement in the scientific and medical communities on what causes repetitive-stress injuries," Rep. Blunt said in a recent statement. "OSHA's announcement of draft regulations should increase congressional pressure for regulations based on sound science."

Editor's Note: The full text of OSHA's draft ergonomics standards can be found on a link on the Logistics Web site at www.logisticsmgmt.com.