The Voice of Business, Industry & the Professions Since 1942
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An editorial

Ergonomics

After hours and hours of unsuccessfully trying to solve a computer problem we had here at the office recently, I finally broke down and resorted to a final, desperate tactic. I read the manual, during which I learned that most of what I thought I knew about the problem was dead wrong.

Over the past year or so most major media outlets apparently have approached their reporting of the ergonomics issue the same way I approached my computer problem. They wrote reams on the subject but I doubt that few reporters actually read much past the executive summary of OSHA's lengthy and exceedingly complex regulation, which Congress had the good sense to toss out last month.

Much of the reporting contained a subtle bias against business leaders for opposing ergonomics, implying that they just didn't want to spend the money necessary to protect their workers from injuries. These stories often contained some alarming-sounding statistics on the number of workplace injuries. Let's look calmly at the situation, beginning with those scary on-the-job injury statistics.

In North Carolina (and our statistics are not unlike those of most states), workplace injuries and illnesses have declined for seven straight years even as the total number of workers increased every year. In 1999, the last year for which complete statistics are available, the roughly 3.2 million people employed in North Carolina suffered about 184,000 on-the-job injuries and illnesses. Of those, only 43,600 were serious enough to require time off from work.

The media only infrequently analyzed the complaint that the ergonomics regulations were overly broad and badly written, especially the fact that the rules defined “job related” to include complaints aggravated by work but caused by something else. I could strain my back mowing the lawn on Saturday, lift something at work Monday that made the pain worse, blame my employer and make the company foot the doctor's bill.

Moreover, I'd get paid more for this type of injury. Workers' comp insurance provides two-thirds of an employee's pay for real work-related injuries. The ergonomics rules would have required at least 90 percent compensation for injuries that may have only been aggravated — not caused — by the workplace. Finally, the rules had a grandfather clause so narrow that it would not — by OSHA's own admission — grandfather in a single employer.

OSHA's ergonomics rules are the classic example of a good idea gone horribly wrong. The business community won the battle to defeat a set of bad regulations but we should continue fighting an ongoing war to make our factories and offices as safe as they can be. Good employees are our greatest asset. Let's treat them that way.

-- Steve Tuttle

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