Organization opposes OSHA draft proposal
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/1/1999
The International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA) is opposed to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) proposed Safety and Health Programs regulation expected to be published in 1999."A major concern with the draft is that it would eliminate the need for the agency to create future, more specific standards," says Mike Jenkins, president and CEO of IWLA.
Under OSHA's current regulations, if the administration wanted to enforce specific air quality standards, it would have to do so through a rulemaking.
Under the draft pro-posal, using the general duty clause of providing a safe work environment, OSHA could implement clean air standards to regulate second-hand smoke without further rulemaking. The same would be true in regard to ergonomic standards.
The current draft also, according to IWLA, holds employers responsible for identifying and correcting instances that may be hazardous to workers, shifting the burden to the employer to conduct hazard identification and assessment.
"This could be one of the biggest issues in the recent history of OSHA," says Jenkins. "It would allow OSHA and individual compliance officers to make subjective decisions about whether an employer is in compliance. It is clearly a back door approach to regulate without issuing standards, for example ergonomics and workplace safety."
The International Warehouse Logistics Association believes the nature of the draft proposal is likely to result in inconsistent enforcement from location to location. Further, it could subject warehouse logistics companies to oppressive fines and paperwork to meet an individual compliance officer's unrealistic interpretation of the rule.
Check out Modern Materials Handling's web page at www.mmh.com for additional news and trends information.
Editor's postscript: Letters to the editor should be sent to Tom Feare, Modern Materials Handling, 275 Washington St., Newton, MA 02158. Letters may be edited for length. Our e-mail address is:
t.feare@mmh.cahners.com
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