Four Corners
Monthly Presentation for January
Ray Singer , NM OSHA, PRESENTATION;
DAVID MICHAELS , Assistant Secretary of Labor, For Occupational Safety and Health, talk of where he wants OSHA to head.
Clearly one of the best ways to move forward on worker safety at the same time that we move forward on green jobs is to ensure that workers are more engaged in the work process and in the development of green jobs. It's clear that we must move toward a permanent system where employers and workers come together, on a basis of mutual respect, to assess and abate hazards. This is OSHA's "Green Reform Principle Number One."
I've long advocated that every employer establish a Comprehensive Workplace Safety and Health Program that features management leadership, worker participation, and structure that fosters continual improvement. While thousands of responsible employers already operate this way with excellent results, many other employers haven't gotten the message.
Another part of the big picture is chemical safety, as I outlined earlier. This is Principle Number Two. For example, the European Community's REACH program will provide industry and American workers with more and better information about the chemicals they are exposed to. More important, REACH is also, finally, challenging the old paradigm where chemicals are considered innocent until proven guilty - and all too often proven guilty by the sick and dead bodies of American workers.
The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals will also contribute consistency, efficiency, and more and better information - leading to greater worker safety and health.
Congress is working closely with the EPA and Lisa Jackson to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Now, if this administration and this Congress can see fit to move forward with TSCA reform, is there any reason we shouldn't move forward at the same time to reform the way worker exposure to chemicals is regulated and controlled? I don't think so, and I hope to ensure that OSHA participates with NIOSH and EPA in all discussions about chemical regulation in this country.
Progress has not come easy for American workers. Improvements in safety conditions did not come because a politician thought it would be a good idea, or a scientist decided that a chemical was too dangerous.
Every incremental improvement in working conditions has been earned with the blood and broken bones of working people, as a result of the battles fought - some won and some lost - in thousands of workplaces and union halls across the country.
Too many of those advances came too late, only after we counted the bodies destroyed by workplace hazards that could have been prevented.
As we build the green industries of the future, we can break this tragic pattern; we can learn from history; we can move from reaction to prevention.
As green industries grow, OSHA will be fully involved in the movement toward Prevention through Design. This is OSHA's Green Reform Principle Number Three. Prevention through Design is about fundamental change that integrates safety efficiently and thoroughly.
Prevention through Design asks: Why should we go back and expend precious time and resources retrofitting hazardous industries to make them safer when we have the ability and the opportunity to begin fresh and make work safe from start to finish?
I don't have the answers to all these problems. In fact, right now I'm still concentrating on the questions. But it's clear that your help is absolutely essential to ensure that we're not only asking the right questions but also using this important time in our history to make major progress toward good answers.
Once we have some of those answers, what will we do with this knowledge?
OSHA has been fortunate in 2010 to receive a substantial budget increase - enough to significantly increase the number of inspectors we can put into the field. Armed with answers to some of the problems we've finding in green jobs, this can save a lot of lives and prevent many illnesses.
Still, we haven't nearly enough inspectors to visit even high hazard workplaces on any kind of a regular basis - unless you count decades as a "regular basis." In addition despite the best daily efforts of our able field staff, workplace hazards are changing while our standards haven't kept up.
There's only so much a dedicated inspector can do when many of our standards are out of date.
This leads us to Principle Number Four: Where, and when possible, OSHA must move ahead on rulemaking for urgently needed standards - and to create good standards, we'll need the input of scientists and engineers, academics, students and workers. We'll also need allies in the progressive business community who will say "yes" to sensible changes and participate in the rulemaking process with constructive comments and insight.
OSHA's Green Reform Principle Number Five: Enhancing workers' voice in the workplace. To get us up to date and move into a safer, healthier future, it's also clear that workers must have a stronger voice in workplace safety than they have now. Giving that voice impact and value means that workers must have much better information about their rights, the hazards they face and controls for those hazards.
OSHA is trying to make this happen. Very soon, we'll announce a new round of Susan Harwood training grants. One major new subject of these grants will be Green Jobs.
Another way to enhance workers voices is to ensure that they receive accurate information. Accurate injury and illness statistics are essential for workers and employers to be able to identify workplace hazards. OSHA also needs accurate numbers to ensure that we focus our scarce resources where the most problems are.
As you may be aware, numerous studies and Congressional hearings have cast serious doubt on the accuracy of workplace injury and illness reporting.
A recent Government Accountability Office study confirmed those problems, but also noted serious concerns about incentive and disciplinary programs that discourage workers from reporting injuries and illnesses.
Most upsetting was a GAO finding that a high percentage of health care providers reported being pressured by employers to under-diagnose and under-treat workers and otherwise manipulate information to avoid reporting injuries and illnesses on the OSHA log. This is irresponsible and unacceptable.
To ensure the accuracy of injury and illness numbers, OSHA has launched a focused National Emphasis Program. We'll also take a hard look at incentive and disciplinary programs to ensure that they do not discourage workers from reporting.
Ultimately, of course, counting injuries, illnesses and fatalities is counting failure. The more we design safety into the workplace the less we'll have to worry about injury and illness statistics.
So, here we have some overarching principles to carry us and carry OSHA into the future.
It's been OSHA's pleasure to participate in this workshop. Thanks to your contributions now and in the future, we can look forward to developing a reliable roadmap to help employers drive their industries in the proper direction - toward a safe and healthful future.
The challenge now is to get everyone else on board across the Nation. We need to make the expression "green jobs" synonymous with "safe jobs" - because green jobs are good jobs only when they are safe jobs.
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..........OSHA NEWS...........
Remarks Prepared For
DAVID MICHAELS
Assistant Secretary of Labor
For Occupational Safety and Health
NIOSH Going Green Workshop
Making Green Jobs Safe:
Integrating Occupational Safety & Health into Green and Sustainability
Washington, DC
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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