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Passage of I-841 Provides Opportunities to Meaningfully Address Ergonomics |
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Written On: November 7, 2003 |
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Employers breathed a sigh of relief in 2001 when Congress and President Bush repealed the punitive federal ergonomics rules – except for employers in Washington State who were dealing with newly promulgated state ergonomics rules. On November 4, the passage of I-841 changed that.
In the years before I-841, public, private and non-profit sector employers in Washington worked with our state’s Dept. of Labor and Industries (L&I) in an attempt to make the proposed ergonomics rule clear, more workable, and cost-effective. But despite evidence that the rule was ambiguous, unreasonable and prohibitively costly, L&I went ahead and adopted the rules with Gov. Locke’s blessing. In the ensuing years, attempts by the legislature to repeal the rules stalled in the House after passing the Senate, and the lawsuits continue.
At that point, a coalition of employers became frustrated and circulated I-841 asking voters to repeal the onerous rule. It passed by a 53-47 percent margin, giving employers, regulators and workers an opportunity to collaborate on ergonomics programs that will work.
Even with the repeal of the federal and state egonomics rules, federal protections remain in place. In fact, OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) has adopted a comprehensive strategy to wipe out musculoskeletal disorders, and can enforce workplace safety standards with citations and fines under the agency’s General Duty Clause.
Still, skeptics claim that without a formal rule, employers will just ignore ergonomics. Hogwash! Thousands of employers across the country have been addressing ergonomics without being forced by federal or state bureaucrats.
An example of an ergonomics strategy is the cooperative effort by management and labor at Toyota’s Kentucky operations. It has cut ergonomics injuries in half in just three years. Forty-five full-time workers serve on the company’s “Early Symptoms Team” of employees, nurses, doctors, and ergonomics specialists who investigate reported ergonomics problems and propose solutions within 48 hours. As a result, now only a handful of the Kentucky plant’s 8,000 workers visit the on-site clinic for cumulative trauma injuries.
In our state, employers have been working cooperatively for years to address ergonomics issues.
For example, almost 20 years ago, management and labor at Crown Zellerbach’s Camas mill (now owned by Georgia Pacific), the oldest pulp and paper operation on the West Coast, formed a team to address ergonomics. This collegial and cooperative effort between the company and Local 5 of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers led to hundreds of positive job and work station modifications. Even though the mill has been sold twice since then, ergonomics continues to be a central focus at the mill.
Another example can be found in our offices at the Association of Washington Business (AWB). As part of our commitment to working cooperatively on ergonomics, we volunteered to be part of an ergonomics pilot project. AWB is a small operation with fewer than 30 workers, and with L&I guidance, we evaluated work stations and procedures, replaced old desks, computer keyboards and monitors in the problem areas, developed new procedures for lifting and carrying heavy and awkward items, and set a process in motion to continually upgrade our operation to make it ergonomic friendly.
No state or federal rule mandated Crown’s efforts, just as no regulation forced us to volunteer for a pilot project. Crown and AWB are just two of the millions of employers across the country who are proving there is a better approach to reducing ergonomics injuries than edicts from federal and state regulators.
The point is, efforts to effectively reduce ergonomics injuries will continue even with the repeal of the L&I rules. Employers have voluntarily worked hard to reduce the number of injuries and illnesses in the state’s workplaces and have succeeded. L&I reports more than 28% decline of musculoskeletal disorders since 1990.
That commitment will continue because employers in the private, public and non-profit sectors know the best way to reduce workers comp costs, keep people on the job earning wages and benefits, and improve productivity is to prevent on-the-job injuries. If that fact hasn’t hit home, surely the next round of worker comp rates increases will be a shocking reminder.
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