[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 135 (Thursday, October 2, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E1895]]
          THE SAFETY ADVANCEMENT FOR EMPLOYEES ACT [SAFE ACT]

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES M. TALENT

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 30, 1997

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the Safety 
Advancement for Employees Act [SAFE Act], a bipartisan bill introduced 
today that is designed to foster a partnership between OSHA and 
employees and encourage greater worker safety. In addition to the bill, 
the House Committee on Small Business prepared a paper entitled, ``Why 
Workers Need Change: The SAFE Act,'' outlining why the need for change 
and how the SAFE Act can succeed where the big stick methods of OSHA 
have failed.
  On any given day in the United States, 17 workers will die and 18,600 
workers will be injured on the job. The fact is that many of these 
accidents occur not because employers don't care about worker safety; 
on the contrary, even the Federal Government estimates that 95 percent 
of employers are striving to create safe environments for workers. The 
problem lies with the adversarial posture of the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration [OSHA], the Federal agency responsible for 
worker safety. Established by Congress in 1970, OHSA's mandate was to 
assure for all workers safe and healthful working conditions ``by 
encouraging employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the 
number of occupational safety and health hazards at their places of 
employment.'' The agency, however, has never seriously attempted to 
``encourag[e] employers and employees in their efforts'' to create safe 
workplaces. Instead, OSHA operates according to a command and control 
mentality, issuing burdensome and often incomprehensible regulations 
which may not relate to worker safety, and are, in any event, only 
sporadically enforceable. Small wonder that, though OSHA has been in 
existence for 27 years and has generated tens of billions of dollars in 
compliance costs, there is a serious question whether it has improved 
worker safety at all.
  For worksites to become safer, OSHA's ineffective, top-down approach 
must be overhauled. The agency in its present posture is simply 
incapable of handling the safety problems of millions of individual 
workplaces as America heads into the 21st century. As recognized by 
Vice President Gore, OSHA's system ``doesn't work well enough.'' In 
short, OSHA can lead the country to better workplace safety; it cannot 
command the country into better workplace safety.


                 Employers are Drowning in Regulations

  The sheer volume of OSHA regulations that employers are expected to 
read, understand, and implement is staggering. Many of the regulations 
bear no relationship to safety at the workplace. Others are so vague 
that discerning one correct interpretation is impossible. The result is 
that employers are left to fend for themselves, wasting valuable time 
and money misinterpreting regulations and making worksite improvements 
that are either not required by OSHA or not related to workplace 
safety, or both.


  Paperwork Requirements are Huge and Have No Tangible Safety Benefits

  Far and away the greatest number of citations are leveled against 
employers for OSHA paperwork violations. In 1994, the top 6--and 11 of 
20--of the most-cited violations involved paperwork deficiencies. 
Employers are thereby forced to create more and more paper without 
tangible safety benefits. Meanwhile, as OSHA focuses its sights on 
paperwork, serious safety concerns go in uninspected. For example, in 
1994 and early 1995, three-quarters of worksites in the United States 
that suffered serious accidents had never been inspected by OSHA during 
this decade. In fact, even OSHA officials acknowledge that their 
inspectors ``do not get to a lion's share of lethal sites until after 
accidents occur.'' The result is that incompetent or reckless employers 
go undeterred while good faith employers spend time and money on 
paperwork instead of safety.


                  So Many Worksites, So Few Inspectors

  OSHA has only 2,451 State and Federal inspectors to regulate 96.7 
million American workers. With a ratio of about one inspector to 3,000 
worksites, Federal OSHA can currently inspect workplaces under its 
jurisdiction only once every 167 years. OSHA inspectors cannot possibly 
understand the safety and health concerns of worksites that they rarely 
visit. Nor can they have knowledge of workers' needs in industries as 
diverse as manufacturing plants, funeral homes, and restaurants.


                   A New OSHA Requires a New Approach

  The adversarial model that exists to regulate worker safety between 
OSHA and employers does not get the job done. Pitting the employer 
against the inspector, the current model fosters distrust and 
suspicion, flying in the face of true partnership efforts that are the 
key to worker safety. Both the Government and the private sector waste 
enormous resources on the struggle to catch employers in violation of 
regulations that no one believes will advance worker safety. No wonder 
that the current system has so little credibility in the private 
sector.
  If we are to create a new OSHA, we must significantly change the 
culture that exists between employers and the agency--making them 
partners not enemies. It is not enough to threaten large fines for 
noncompliance when millions of safety-conscious employers don't know 
how to comply. Nor is it enough to weigh employers down with more 
compliance materials than they can possibly digest or understand.
  The answer to achieving safer work environments is to encourage the 
95 percent of employers who are concerned about worker safety and 
health to voluntarily seek expert advice on how to comply with OSHA's 
regulations and to implement and maintain the expert's recommendations. 
Creating true partnerships between employers and OSHA will empower the 
honest employers to improve worker safety, while allowing OSHA to 
concentrate its enforcement on the 5 percent of employers who 
constitute the bad actors.
  Vice President Gore strongly advocates using private sector OSHA 
compliance experts to help employers achieve greater worker safety. 
Acknowledging that OSHA ``doesn't work well enough,'' because there are 
``only enough inspectors to visit even the most hazardous workplace 
once every several years,'' the Vice President has called on OSHA to 
rely on private inspection companies in its efforts to ensure the 
safety and health of America's workers. In this way:

       [OSHA] would use the same basic technique the federal 
     government uses to force companies to keep honest financial 
     books: setting standards and requiring periodic certification 
     of the books by expert financial auditors. No army of federal 
     auditors descends upon American businesses to audit their 
     books; the government forces them to have the job done 
     themselves. In the same way, no army of OSHA inspectors need 
     descend upon corporate America.

  By creating partnerships with employers through the use of private 
sector compliance auditors, the ``health and safety of American workers 
could be vastly improved.''


            The SAFE Act: The Solution for Safer Workplaces

  The Safety Advancement for Employees [SAFE] Act reflects a new 
partnership approach to worker safety. By encouraging employers to seek 
individualized compliance assistance from qualified third party 
auditors, the SAFE Act will ensure that more worksites are in 
compliance with OSHA, and more workers are protected. The SAFE Act does 
not waive any of OSHA's power to inspect workplaces, but it recognizes 
that employers who actively seek expert assistance to improve safety 
should not be treated as adversaries. Under the SAFE Act, employers can 
choose to enlist the aid of an entire field of compliance experts, 
thereby allowing OSHA to concentrate its resources on policing those 
worksites that truly need OSHA enforcement. The SAFE Act spells greater 
safety for workers and increased compliance by all employers.

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