Bush administration repeals requirement that employers report strain injuries
Tuesday, July 1, 2003 8:45 AM PDT
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleWASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Monday repealed a requirement that employers report repetitive stress injuries.
The measure had not yet taken effect, and Labor Department officials said such data would be useless in identifying causes and preventing such injuries.
Labor unions had fought for the requirement, claiming that tracking repetitive strain injuries, also known as ergonomic injuries, would help identify potentially hazardous jobs and provide a better understanding of injury rates and trends.
The move "continues the Bush administration's head-in-the-sand approach to ergonomic injuries," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
"Just because the government is not going to require employers to track these injuries and just because the government is not going to enforce a safety standard doesn't mean that workers will stop becoming ill or permanently disabled on the job," he said.
Employers would have been required to record ergonomic-related injuries, which include disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage and spinal discs, except those caused by slips, trips, falls, motor vehicle accidents or other similar accidents.
That requirement would have taken effect in 2001, but was delayed that year after the GOP-controlled Congress repealed regulations issued by the Clinton administration that would have required businesses to make changes to work stations and pay employees with such injuries.
Instead of legal requirements, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is issuing voluntary guidelines for certain injury-prone businesses. The reporting requirement was to take effect this year.
"OSHA concluded that an additional record keeping column would not substantially improve the national injury statistics, nor would it be of benefit to employers and workers because the column would not provide additional information useful to identifying possible causes or methods to prevent injury," an OSHA statement said.
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