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TO BE READY BY SUMMER
By early summer, OSHA's Comprehensive Safety and Health Standard--25 years in the making--will be in the hands of newspapers and other companies. Newspapers large and small must establish a program of "finding and fixing hazards" and involve employees in safety compliance and education after the rules are fully adopted in two to three years, said a senior OSHA official.
Marthe Kent, the new director of the office of safety at the federal agency, asked newspaper safety managers to involve themselves and their companies in shaping the final rules. The proposal is posted on OSHAÕs Internet site.
Kent said 25 percent of all employers have formal safety programs, though those programs cover 55 percent of all workers. Still, OSHA estimates 60 percent of employers in the general industry category are not complying with existing rules. "What we hope to gain...is to increase compliance," she said.
She cited injury rates (excluding death and injury) of 2.4 per 100 workers in presumably safe businesses like banking. Newspapers, she said, average about 6.5 injuries per hundred workers. OSHA estimates 50,000 deaths yearly from workplace-related illness are not included in the agency's figures. In places where formal safety programs exist, injury rates are lowered by 25 to 60 percent.
The rules use simple language and include guidelines for enforcement, a first for an OSHA rule. Compliance officers won't cite a violation and also cite the company for violating safety program rules, she said. All compliance officers have been trained on the program. Companies with existing safety programs will be "grandfathered" into the new rules, Kent said.
Some 18 states now mandate such safety programs and another 14 require them through Worker's Compensation plans. Insurers often require companies to have specific programs.
The agency's Cooperative Compliance Program, allowing industries with higher than average lost workday, illness and injury rates to voluntarily create programs, was stayed by a federal appeals court and could be out of the court system this year, said David Pines of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Roy Flores spoke earlier Tuesday. The Texan's message: Change attitudes and you can have safety success. Every business claims safety is the No. 1 priority, he said, urging participants to "change it from a priority to a value."
--by Bob Sims