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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2018)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | April 20, 2018 | PAGE 11 From Page 10 regulatory agenda in the spring and the fall, and the first regula- tory agenda under the administra- tion did take a number of stan- dards, mostly ones that were in the early stages, off of the regula- tory agenda. There are a number of standards that they are suppos- edly working on: infectious dis- eases, chemical process safety management, workplace violence and a standard that would cover tree care. The only one of those that was actually mentioned in the last budget as something they may move forward on is tree care, probably because even the tree care industry has been advo- cating for it. Speaking of process and delay, our publication has been rather critical over the years of the Obama Administration’s safety record, mostly for delay, and the silica rule is the prime example. Having been in the Obama Administration, were you frustrated by those delays as well? Yeah, extremely. That was the one thing that had the po- tential to keep me up at night. Es- pecially in the last couple years of the first term. It’s extremely diffi- cult to move forward on OSHA standards in best of circum- stances. There’s just a lot of re- quirements that have to be met, and they’re resource-intensive, and they take a long time. But the instructions we got from the White House in about 2010 to well into 2013 were “don’t move forward on anything.” That set us back on a number of regulatory activities we would like to have completed in the eight years that we had. So in that respect, the Trump Administration’s current stance is not that different. Well, we did end up issuing quite a few regulations. Silica was a major regulation, probably covers more workers than any other pre- vious OSHA safety regulation. Beryllium. Walking working sur- faces. Beryllium and silica had been worked on for close to 20 years. Walking working surfaces is something that OSHA literally began working on in 1972. It deals with fall protection and a number of other issues in general industry. Two pretty good record- keeping regulations. A major up- date in hazard communications standards. Crane and derrick stan- dards. So we ended up issuing a fair number of regulations. But would I be wrong to sug- gest that it was very much at the end of the eight years, and that a number of them were even taking effect after he was out, and have since been re- versed or delayed? Some of them were, right at the end. We were very aware of the Congres- sional Review Act [a law that lets Congress repeal administrative rules implemented within 60 days of the end of a presidential ad- ministration.] We tried to get as many of them issued before that deadline came up as we could. Except for beryllium and walking working surfaces, we managed to get them all out before so they weren’t subject to the Congres- sional Review Act. Beryllium has been weakened, but actually sur- vived the Congressional Review Act. They [Congress] could have taken that down but didn’t. And walking working surfaces was not controversial. What’s the current status of the silica rule? I know it was de- layed by the Trump Adminis- tration. It’s implemented and it’s being enforced now. You’ve been at this for more than 30 years. What made you want to make worker safety your life’s work? It was kind of coincidence, actually. I was hired at AFSCME in 1982 as a labor economist, which meant you helped figure out what kind of money is available in cities, coun- ties and states, to support bargain- ing and organizing efforts. But they also handed me a box the first day, and said, “You know what OSHA is, right?” And I had done a little bit of work with OSHA in an environmental or- ganization in Florida. And they said, “Good, you’re now our OSHA person. We’ve been promising to put together some manuals and fact sheets. That’s now your job.” That ended up be- ing a lot more interesting than the labor economics. Then in 1987 we got our first OSHA grant, and it really took off. You know, AF- SCME represents public employ- ees and really had never had any kind of health and safety program before. A lot of people, even in AFSCME, thought public em- ployees didn’t have any health and safety issues. But we repre- sented wastewater treatment workers, highway workers, hos- pital workers, corrections offi- cers, all kinds of people that had very dangerous jobs. Plus, public employees aren’t covered by OSHA in most states, so that made it even worse. CONFINED SPACE BLOG There aren’t many blogs about worker safety. Jordan Barab’s might be the best. See it, and subscribe, at: jordanbarab.com/confinedspace Raymond Thomas Cynthia Newton Melissa Haggerty James Coon Chris Frost Sydney Montanaro If a defective product causes your work injury you may be able to sue the manufacturer for damages in a products liability claim 820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204 Scott Sell Chris Thomas www.tcnf.legal Join the conversation … ONLINE
