How We Deal (at great length) With Concepts Like "Moderation," "One-Sidedness," "Objectivity," Pro- and Anti- Regulation "Radicals" and "Bringing People Together"
I first covered the creation of OSHA and its early implementation as a reporter for a manufacturing publication back in the early '70s. And now as the owner of a little manufacturing business, I try to live by the spirit of OSHA and EPA as well as ADA and labor laws. This costs money but allows me to sleep nights, and we've had no serious injuries or other complaints.
That's good. Really.
I am an economic Republican and a blogger.
Which makes you a sleepless person with too much to say, no one to listen, a serious anger management problem who can't live within his means.
With that background and partial disclosure of my conflicts of interest and experiences, I have to ask a few policy wonk, news junky questions:
1. Are there "objective" experts on OSHA and workplace safety?
Of course. You're reading one of them.
Seriously. What is "objective?" I consider those experts to be "objective" who spend time in workplaces, talk to workers, study the causes of hazards and how to prevent them use the evidence to establish best practices, guidelines and OSHA standards. I don't consider those experts to be "objective" who, for example, call ergonomics "junk science" and OSHA "the gestapo?" Nor those affiliated with the National Coalition on Ergonomics who criticize legitimate ergonomists for being "unabashed advocates" of "the disputed theory that physical risk factors are a primary cause of musculoskeletal disorders"
2. We know unions and employers are on opposite sides of these issues and that academic and consulting "scientists" frequently are caught standing up for their grants and sponsors rather than for science. So how can either side sell its answers to the working public?
Now that's a really good question. With so many charges out there of "junk science" and "sound science," how is a non-technical person to know who's right?
Well, sometimes you find some good reporters, like David Barstow at the New York Times or you can try to read the documents and studies and talk to workers and figure out for yourself who is lying and who is telling the truth. You can look at who's funding the scientists. But sometimes you just have to decide which side you trust more instead of just giving up.
When it comes to figuring out which side to trust, and whether it's worth trying to find the truth, I turn to the following quote by George Orwell in "Reflections on the Spanish Civil War."
When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor and futility of war -- and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings -- there is always the temptation to say: "One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral." In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, play-boys, blimps and what-not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay....If [the war] had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened. It was lost, and the dividend drawers all over the world rubbed their hands. That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface.
In other words, sometimes you have to ask yourself which side you trust more and who will best represent your interests.
Well, when it comes to political battles over health and safety issues, my "objective" experience is that the business side usually wins these days by selling its message with money and lies and more lies and distortions, while labor unsuccessfully attempts to use reason and facts.
3. Most businesses believe in some regulation, if for no other reason than that they want their competitors to be regulated so that everyone has similar costs.
That may be true for many individual businesses, but you wouldn't know it by listening to the business associations -- the Chamber, NAM, NFIB, etc -- or to the Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao who has called OSHA regulations "unfair."
And many unions have backed off on onerous regulations in the face of having their members' jobs outsourced to non-union states and abroad.
News to me. I'm not sure what "onerous" regulations you're talking about. I can't think of any, offhand. Despite business claims that "onerous" regulations will drive them out of business, every OSHA standard that has been studies has actually ended up making businesses more profitable and saving money, as well as lives. And I haven't seen much backing off by the unions. In fact, most union members and leaders call threats to outsource jobs because of OSHA regulations "job blackmail."
Under Democrats, OSHA, EPA, etc. are run by pro-regulation radicals, and under Republicans by anti-regulation radicals.
I'd agree with you about the current crowd of rabid Republican anti-regulation radicals. But Republicans weren't always that way. OSHA was created under Richard Nixon's presidency. Work on the ergonomics standard was begun under the Bush I presidency. And Bush and Reagan actually issued more significant standards than Clinton. Unfortunately, ever since the Gingrich ascendency in 1995, Republicans have delared holy war on OSHA in particular and regulation in general.
On the other side, I only wish the Democrats were a bit more radically pro-regulation. You can hardly call the Clinton administration "radical." The only major regulation released in the second term was the ergonomics standard (since repealed), which could hardly be described as "radical." The other standards that came close to seeing the light of day during the Clinton Administration -- tuberculosis, employer payment for personal protective equipment or health and safety programs -- are more common sense best practices than "radical" or "onerous" regulations,
Who are the reasonable moderates in these fights?
Can't get much more reasonable or moderate than Bill Clinton's OSHA. I was there, I should know.
4. Pro-OSHA writers demonize business and anti-OSHA writers demonize labor. How can this blog and other information resources be effective if they are so shrill that they turn off people who would like to do the right thing? Is there a moderate voice that's respected for objectivity, experience and expertise?
You mean aside from Confined Space? Check the links on the left under "Health and Safety Websites and Resources."
And I don't consider myself to be anti-business. When I ran AFSCME's health and safety program, a high percentage of the trainings I organized and conducted were done in cooperation with the employer, on work time. And the best safety programs were in workplaces that had an educated, active union AND an employer who was sincerely interested in making the workplace safe and who was secure enough to work with the union as an equal partner.
I am only anti businesses who knowingly send workers into unsafe conditions where they're injured, made sick or killed. And I'm extremely anti-business association when those associations lie to their members and to Congress (see below).
5. Why are all the links and stories on this site one-sided; why not link to trade associations the U.S. Chamber, OSHA, the Labor and Commerce Departments, trade pubs that cover the issues.
First, I did link to OSHA, in the form of OSHA's Worker Page. I neglected to link NIOSH. My bad. Thanks for reminding me. There. It's linked. The Commerce Department? I'm not aware of any OSHA pages there.
As far as the trade associations are concerned, the purpose of this blog is to promote workplace safety, not to attack it, which is what associations like the Chamber, NAM, NFIB, Food Marketers, etc. do. Personally, I think these associations are betraying the members they claim to represent. In theory, they serve a purpose. Small businesses have an understandably difficult time keeping up with what's going on in Washington, so they join associations to represent them and to inform them. But the associations don't do that in an honest way.
Let me give you one example. When the ergonomics standard was released, OSHA and Congressional offices were flooded with faxes and mail from small and medium businesses outraged that they would have to comply with a 600 page regulation that wasn't based on sound science. Well, if I was a small businessman and was faced with a complex 600 page regulation, I'd complain too. Grocery stores were justifiably outraged that they wouldn't be able to sell large turkeys any more because checkers and baggers would be forbidden from lifting anything over 15 pounds. Arrogant desk-bund bureaucrats again.
The problem, of course, was that it was all a bunch of lies. The regulation wasn't 600 pages, it was 8 pages. (The "preamble" -- economic and scientific evidence mandated by Congress and the White House Office of Management and Budget -- made up the rest.) Most businesses didn't have the time or knowledge to go to the OSHA web page to actually read the standard -- all 600 pages (sic) -- for themselves, so they relied on the associations -- their "representatives" in Washington, the associations to whom they were paying their dues. But all they got were lies.
One of my biggest disappointments during the exhaustive public hearings on the ergonomics standard, OSHA received shockingly little testimony from businesses who had actually read the proposal and provided reasoned criticisms based on their experience. 9Instead, 98% of what was received were almost identical "comments" written by -- you guessed it -- their representatives in Washington, claiming that the standard wasn't based on science (despite hundreds of studies and three exhaustive reviews by NIOSH and the National Academy of Sciences.)
I could (and often do) go on and on, but you get the idea. I'm trying to provide an objective perspective of the health and safety environment in this country, and the Chamber and NAM and NFIB and all the rest have no place there. In fact, if I was a member of any of these organizations and I was sincerely concerned about workplace safety, I'd ask for my money back.
This is a great looking blog, well-written and authoritative,
Thanks, don't forget to vote for Confined Space to win the Koufax Award for Best Single Issue Blog.
but---from the little I've seen--- terribly one-sided.
OK, let's cut to the chase. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: There is something very like a war going on in the occupational safety and health field right now. The regulatory process is all but dead, killed by the business associations and right-wingers in Congress. OSHA is on its way to becoming nothing more than an information clearinghouse, good research and the researchers that conduct it is under attack by initiatives such as the Data Quality Act and associated rules, and regulatory protections are being overturned in Washington and in the states by a combination of lies and big money.
I don't believe that we can make workplaces safer just by distributing hazard warnings and fact sheets unless we're also talking about politics. Because if we try to be "moderate" and leave the "shrill" politics to the other side, the real, truly objective scientists and experts will get squashed like bugs, workers will continue to get injured, sick and die in high numbers, and the legal guarantee of a safe workplace will be more of a fantasy than it already is.
Call me "one sided," but that's where we're at. This war was not of our making. We're just trying to protect workers and enable them to gain some control over their working conditions. The real question is not whether we're one-sided. The real question is "which side are you on?" These are the real issues. All else is froth on its surface.
(And by the way, Your Blog strikes me as a bit one-sided as well.)
You have an opportunity to bring people together, to create your own little think tank. Go for it.
Thanks. I'm trying. But the people I'm trying to bring together are those who have lost friends or family members in workplace incidents, those who go to work in fear every day and those who are fighting to improve working conditions in this country. I'm trying to bring together people who are not just looking for information, sympathy or recognition, but also for the news and analysis they need to organize the fight for safer workplaces and cleaner environments within their workplaces, within their communities and nationally .