Center of Attention | FEATURE
OSHA and Congress have occupational safety
issues moving again—and AIHA® is along for the ride
BY ED RUTKOWSKI
After the 2008 presidential election, re- porters kept calling Aaron Trippler. They all had the same question for AIHA’s di- rector of government affairs: What was the first thing he wanted to see OSHA do under the new administration?
Trippler’s answer: Anything.
As jokes go, this response had more
than its share of black humor. In most
people’s estimation, OSHA hadn’t done
anything since…well, even the agency’s
successes tested the limits of memory.
Bickering among labor and industry
groups combined with legislative, judicial and political impediments to gum up
the regulatory works. OSHA was—always
in perception, and often in reality—the
agency where issues went to die.
Congress, in general, was more effective in at least drawing attention to OHS
issues. Occasionally, committee hearings
threw light onto workplace safety and
health, but at the end of the day, the
constituencies invested in OHS issues
simply didn’t have the political clout to
drive legislative action. As recently as
November 2009, Trippler lamented in
this magazine the inability of Congress
to achieve anything significant in OHS.
How times have changed.
Some eighteen months after the
Obama administration came to power,
OSHA is a whirlwind of activity. From
handing down record fines to initiating
rulemaking that would make the Globally
Harmonized System (GHS) part of
OSHA’s hazard communication standard,
it’s difficult to find an issue of promi-
nence that the agency hasn’t touched
since Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and
current Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab joined the
administration. The addition of David
Michaels as OSHA administrator late last
year rounded out the leadership team
with a visionary whose stated goal is
nothing less than to “change the culture
of workplace safety.”
And this year, Congress started get-
ting into the act. Prompted by the tragic
deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big
Branch Mine explosion in West Virginia,
the Senate and House of Representatives
are considering legislation that, if en-
acted, would represent the most signifi-
cant changes to occupational safety laws
since the OSH Act in 1970.
Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010
Until last month, the best hope for leg-
islative reform of occupational safety
and health laws was the Protecting
America’s Workers Act (PAWA). This bill
would amend the Occupational Safety
and Health Act of 1970 to expand OSHA
coverage, increase protections for
whistleblowers, and increase penalties
for violators. Introduced in August 2009,
PAWA received some consideration in
both the House and Senate, but stalled in
committee as Congress dealt with health
care and financial reform.
