ERGONOMICS IN PLAY AGAIN

On the surface, OSHA’s Site Specific Targeting program usually is an unremarkable regulatory exercise.

SST is the agency's primary programmed inspection plan for non-construction workplaces with the highest rates of injuries and illnesses. OSHA typically will tweak the plan each year, and changes arrive largely with very little fanfare.

But not this year.

Judging by a number of significant changes recently announced to the program, OSHA’s new leadership, buoyed by sweeping new approaches to labor policy by the Obama administration after eight years of GOP control, seems intent on using the SST process to address a number of its enforcement priorities -- particularly ergonomics.

Jordan Barab, who is running the agency as acting administrator, has expressed his frustration publicly in the past that OSHA dropped the ball on moving employers to ergonomics compliance during the Bush administration.

SST Protocol

Under SST, OSHA compiles inspection lists via its annual Data Initiative that surveys 80,000 employers with in industries with historically high injury and illness rates. The agency then develops primary and secondary inspections lists calculating case rates based on "days away from work, restricted work activity or job transfer," called the DART rate, or "days away from work injury and illness," the DAFWII rate.

OSHA staff then forwards the lists to its regional and area directors throughout the country to proceed with inspections. Always haunting for business owners and employers is the letter from OSHA informing them that their establishments are on the lists. Typically, about 4,000 workplaces receive inspection visits.

Effective July 20, OSHA began implementing a number of significant changes to SST, including using the program to advance ergonomics compliance.

SST Program Changes
Here are some key changes in the SST program for 2009-2010, which were announced in a Sept. 4 OSHA news release:

• Unlike in the past, establishments selected for the primary and secondary lists are divided into three sectors with specific DART and DAFWII thresholds. The sectors are manufacturing, non-manufacturing and nursing homes. The SST primary list includes 3,100 manufacturing workplaces with a DART rate of 8 or more or a DAFWII rate of 6 or more; 500 non-manufacturing worksites with a DART of 15 or more or a DAFWII of 13 or more, and 300 nursing homes with DART or DAFWII rates of 17 or more or 14 or more, respectively. The secondary list will have incrementally lower DART and DAFWII rates and includes nursing homes for the first time.
• OSHA’s recently announced Recordkeeping National Emphasis Program is replacing inspections of low-rate establishments in high-rate industries that formerly were conducted under SST. This change will free up resources for SST while placing greater scrutiny on through the recordkeeping initiative on workplaces that OSHA suspects might be "cooking the books."
• Adds to the primary inspection list some establishments that did not respond to the 2008 OSHA Data Initiative survey. This change means OSHA will be aggressive at ferreting out workplaces that did not return injury and illness data. By placing them on the primary list, it increases their chances for an inspection. "The agency's intent is to deter employers from not responding to avoid inspection," OSHA said in its SST directive.
• Clarifies how establishments will be selected for industries that do not have permanent workplaces. OSHA area offices will visit the employer’s central office to determine which worksites are available based on the type of work scheduled and the length of time remaining before the worksite closes up shop.
• Changes the threshold of workplaces subject to SST inspections as establishments with 40 or more employees rather than 10 or fewer. OSHA will direct its inspections to larger worksites -- thus creating the potential for greater enforcement sanctions.
• Changes the way it addresses employers with multiple worksites under SST. When two or more establishments of the same employer are included in the same Data Initiative survey sheet returned to the agency, OSHA will make its selections based on each establishment’s DART and DAFWII rates.
• Clarifies that OSHA compliance officers will not wait until the employer’s records are produced to begin the walkaround part of the inspection. This change is in keeping with the Recordkeeping National Emphasis Program. While employers have four hours to provide the required records, that won’t stop inspectors from getting started with the inspection.

When OSHA talks about SST, it emphasizes that the program helps the agency direct its precious enforcement resources to workplaces where workers are getting hurt the most. Manufacturing and nursing homes are viewed as refuges for musculoskeletal disorders, and OSHA intends to use SST to address these. In the manufacturing sector, meatpacking, automotive and poultry processing are among industries likely to receive greater scrutiny.

Impatience on Ergo
Barab, a former organized labor official and more recently an adviser on workplace issues for Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee, is impatient with industry’s contention that ergonomics compliance is costly and based on shaky science.

Barab recalls 2001 when he served at OSHA during the Clinton administration. OSHA promulgated an ergonomics standard during Clinton’s waning days, only to have the Republican-controlled Congress repeal it under the Congressional Review Act shortly after President Bush’s first term began. The act allows Congress the opportunity to overrule new federal regulations.

That move delighted industry, but drew eight years of complaints among organized labor and others that Bush had let industry off the hook on ergonomics.

Despite the Democrats returning to power under President Obama, Barab cannot summarily reinstate the ergonomics standard because under statute once repeal occurs it "may not be reissued in substantially the same form," according to the act.

But adept use of enforcement programs like SST shows indeed there there is more than one way to skin a cat.

More: OSHA's Site Specific Targeting directive

Photo: Jordan Barab (Source: OSHA)