OSHA at 40: Part II

Like OSHA’s Jordan Barab (see yesterday’s Advisor), Peg Seminario, long-time safety and health director of the AFL-CIO, disputes the idea that the cost of regulation is stifling growth or that regulatory uncertainty is stopping employers from hiring. "There’s no truth to that whatsoever," she says.

Seminario cites an annual report by the Office of Management and Budget that estimates the costs and benefits of government regulation. According to Seminario, reports issued by both Democratic and Republican administrations have "found that the benefits of regulations to the public, workers, and the country far exceed their costs.

While Seminario wishes OSHA’s regulatory agenda could move forward at a faster pace, she praises the agency for its focus on significant hazards. She says the best way to counter the notion that regulation is the enemy is to remind people, including members of Congress, why the rules were originally promulgated.

Even if they have concerns about regulation, most people, she says, would not favor a rollback of basic worker protections. She points out that since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the advent of OSHA, workplace fatalities due to injuries have been reduced from 13,800 in 1970 to 4,547 in 2010. In other words, the fatality rate has dropped by 80 percent and over 400,000 lives have been saved.

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Major Incidents Cited

In testimony before the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Seminario said, "In 2010 we saw a series of catastrophes that claimed dozens of workers’ lives—the Upper Big Branch Mining disaster that killed 29 miners in an explosion, the BP Gulf Coast oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and caused an environmental disaster, the Tesoro Refinery explosion in Washington State that killed 11 workers, and [the] Kleen Energy explosion that claimed the lives of 6 workers."

Although investigations have not been completed, Seminario told members of Congress that likely causes are employer failure to comply with standards, a push for production, and inadequate government oversight.

"We do not agree that the government should roll back enforcement efforts and sit on its hands and do nothing to protect workers from serious harm and corporate neglect," she said.

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