Are risk managers better off without the federal government looking over their shoulders? In the long run, I don't think so, yet the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is supposedly taking a more passive role when it comes to regulating workplace exposures, according to a major piece in today's “New York Times.”
The article–headlined: “Loosening The Rules: OSHA Leaves Worker Safety In The Hands Of Industry”–reports that “since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.”
The reporter–Stephen Labaton–added that OSHA “has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others. For example, OSHA has repeatedly identified silica dust, which can cause lung cancer, and construction site noise as health hazards that warrant new safeguards for nearly three million workers, but it has yet to require them.”
In addition, the reporter noted that “in one of his first acts in office, President Bush signed legislation repealing one of OSHAs most-debated accomplishments during the Clinton Administration–an ergonomics standard intended to reduce injuries to factory, construction and office workers from repetitive motions and lifting. Business groups and manufacturers had lobbied against the measure, saying it would cost $100 billion to carry out.”
(For the complete Times story, click here.)
Some would see this development as good news. Get the government off the backs of business, and you'll lower costs and improve profits–perhaps even allowing more workers to be hired along the way. But I am skeptical. Without a legitimate threat of government oversight, will more firms take the easy way out on safety, if it saves them money in the short run? I suspect so.
I am a capitalist who believes in the power of the free market to provide the most wealth for the most people at the lowest cost. And I appreciate how government oversight can be misguided or overly costly at times. But I do not buy into the notion that government is always the problem, never the solution. In fact, when it comes to issues like worker safety, government has a crucial role to play in protecting the powerless, especially at a time when unions are disappearing as a major player.
Risk managers, their brokers and insurers can make a difference here. They understand that worker safety and loss control doesn't just mean grudgingly meeting government standards or avoiding OSHA fines. It means keeping your employees healthy, on the job and productive–while keeping your insurance costs down. The fewer claims you file, the lower your premium, the less work-time is lost, and the better the bottom line comes out for the company.
That can be a hard sell for some risk managers at myopic firms–invest in safety systems because it will save money down the road–when the heat is on to meet quarterly profit targets. But absent government oversight, risk managers could be all that stands between a safe workplace and a minefield for employees.
Besides, OSHA's robustness ebbs and flows according to the party in power. Should a Democrat seize the White House next year, no doubt OSHA will be back with a vengeance. Why wait until then to make your workplace safer? It's like being at the mercy of the hard-soft insurance market cycle all over again. It's far better to take control–and responsibility.
What do you folks make of this?
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