Workplace Safety Shouldn’t Be Voluntary
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
In the course of eight years the Bush Administration greatly expanded the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). VPP was established in 1982 by the Reagan Administration to recognize companies with excellent safety records and free them from routine OSHA inspections. The Bush Administration more than doubled the number of companies in the program, however, and in doing so threw safety under the bus.
Last week the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on VPP that said, in effect, the program’s a mess.
OSHA lacks internal controls to monitor the VPP program, the GAO said. During the Bush Administration companies that didn’t meet the safety criteria were allowed to participate, and other companies with poor safety records were allowed to remain in the program. One such site had three fatalities in a five-year period but remained a VPP participant in good standing.
Further, 12 percent of VPP workplace sites had injury and illness rates that were higher than their industry averages. One workplace had an injury and illness rate that was four times its industry average. Another was cited for 10 violations related to a fatality, yet was not asked to leave the program.
The GAO report made no specific mention of asbestos contamination. However, workplace safety is particularly critical where it comes to asbestos, since most asbestos exposure happens in the workplace. Diseases caused by asbestos exposure include mesothelioma, a deadly lung cancer, and asbestosis.
Essentially, the Bush Administration was so eager to relieve business of meddlesome government oversight that it threw out the regulation book. This was part of a long-established pattern with President Bush. As governor of Texas, George W. Bush also favored volunteer rather than mandatory compliance with many regulations, such as clean air and water standards. As a result, when George W. Bush left the office of Texas governor, Texas led the nation in plant emissions of toxic and ozone-causing chemicals and carcinogens; industrial airborne toxins, clean water standards violations, and toxic waste in underground wells. Oh, and in his last year as governor, Houston surpassed Los Angeles at having the worst air pollution in the nation.
But, we’re told, free markets solve everything, and keeping government out of industry’s hair is great for business. During the Bush Administration OSHA was headed by former industry lobbyists who had the profits of their former clients at heart. And now, after eight years of mismanagement, the agency has no system of controls or metrics and appears unable to regulate its way out of a wet paper bag.
At the blog OSHA Underground, blogger Kane is pessimistic. “The real question that the GOA missed was not even looked at,” he writes. “Do the VPP companies lie on their records to get in?” Does anyone know?
Barbara O’Brien
June 23, 2009
