[PEN-L:172] Re: Re: Safety at work - talking the language of business

["Ellen Dannin" <ejd@xxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, July 09, 1998 7:34 AM
>Subject: [PEN-L:169] Re: Safety at work - talking the language of business
>the US OSHA has been a scam in a lot of ways since it started. Initially,
>all it did was use the already-existing industry standards for health and
>safety. It's also always had insufficient staffing. OSHA gets tough in
>response to pressure, i.e., from unions or lawsuits.

I think this is in the nature of blaming the victim. OSHA came under fierce
attack from business groups from its inception and was kept busy fighting
lawsuit after lawsuit filed by employer groups to strike down the
regulations - ie revised safety and health standards - it proposed. The
attack also extended to insufficient funding which then leads to
insufficient staffing. The third problem has been trying to mesh standards
of scientific proof with the evidentiary and legal standards required under
the Administrative Procedure Act (the law that governs how US administrative
agencies promulgate regulations) and the Rules of Evidence. In other words,
lawyers and judges in particular (and especially those at the court of
appeals level who are unlikely to have any training in science) have often
talked past scientists who and not understood scientific proof. Throughout
much of OSHA's history review has been by federal judges appointed by the
Reagan / Bush administrations - not exactly friends to either government
regulation or workplace regulation. When you read the Ct. of Appeals
decisions it's maddening to see useful and reasonable regulations struck
down for fairly technical reasons, resulting in enormous delays and even a
decision to give in.

One key failure of the statute as drafted has been the failure to give
standing either to employees or unions to take an active role in the key
initial parts of OSHA cases.

Ellen Dannin
ejd@xxxxxxxx