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.
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