Nine Ways to Improve OSHA’s Ergonomics Standard

By Joe Lazzara, Scientific Technologies Inc.

OSHA’s recent proposed ergonomic standard has left many in the manufacturing industry shell-shocked. The current OSHA proposal, if adopted, will have a far-reaching impact on the workplace, with a goal of reducing exposures to ergonomic hazards. The problem is real -- according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, disorders associated with repetitive trauma, as is often found with ergonomic injuries, were the dominant illness reported in 1998, making up 65% of the total cases. Unfortunately, OSHA’s standard, as proposed, is overly broad, complex, extremely expensive to administer and implement, and it doesn’t promote cooperation between employers and employees to actively work to reduce, or even honestly report, ergonomic injuries. Without losing sight of the goals of this standard, the following are nine suggestions, which I believe would significantly improve OSHA’s proposal. These suggestions would not deter from the intent of reducing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), but actually improve the workplace conditions for long lasting ergonomic related injury reduction. The improvements would evolve from a focus on job hazard examination, root cause analysis and better education of ergonomic hazards.

1. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders should not be compensated differently than any other type of work-related injury or illness. The proposed standard includes compensation and benefit requirements that are already covered by workers’ compensation. For example, for an employee with a MSD who is unable to work, the employer must maintain 90% of the employee’s after tax earnings and 100% of benefits for a period of up to six months. Existing worker compensation laws should not be duplicated or modified by an OSHA standard.

2. Health Care Professionals (HCPs) should be allowed to communicate to the employer’s safety professional or ergonomics specialist any factors that may contribute to a MSD, even if those factors are non-work related. The proposed OSHA standard prohibits a HCP from notifying employers of any outside factors that may contribute to the injury. For example, lower back pain may be caused by a repetitive material handing motion or the result of 36 holes of golf over the past weekend. If the injury was actually caused by an overactive-Tiger-Woods-wannabe, the employer would never know – yet could be saddled with instituting an expensive program to reduce ergonomic risk exposures. All factors that allow an employer to accurately assess the contributions of the workplace to the alleged MSD are essential to identifying the root cause of the injury. Through a methodical root cause analysis, employers will be able to identify hazardous work activities and initiate corrective action, such as engineering or administrative controls. Isn’t this the purpose of a successful ergonomic program?

3. The standard should provide guidance on how to determine the root cause of an injury based on objective findings, including work and non-work related activities, and pre-existing conditions. If the true root cause of an injury is not determined, then the underlying circumstances cannot be adequately corrected and the employee’s condition may not improve. Additional guidance should be provided on how to conduct ergonomics assessments of manufacturing and material handling jobs. This would help provide employers with skills to anticipate and avoid musculoskeletal injuries from occurring in the first place. Just as we have seen through the development of EN1050 (Safety of Machinery – Principles for Risk Assessment) and ANSI B11.TR3-998 (Risk Assessment – A Guideline to Estimate, Evaluate and Reduce Risks Associated with Machine Tools) the concept of analyzing a machine’s hazards through a formal risk assessment program is somewhat analogous to properly fitting jobs to people through an ergonomic assessment program.

4. Consistent with comments 2 and 3 above, the proposed standard should include examples of non-work related risk factors that contribute to MSDs. Understanding the non-work risk opportunities is an important element of MSD reduction education. How many employees are aware that the tennis court (tennis elbow) or baseball diamond (rotator cuff) are locations abundant with the potential for musculoskeletal type injuries?

5. The employer should not be required to follow the temporary work restriction program recommendations in the HCP’s written opinion if objective findings indicate the injury is non-work related. It would be appropriate to have an alternate, reasonable back-to-work program (or use existing disability programs) to allow a non-work MSD to heal.

6. The proposed standard should address employee responsibility and accountability to report MSD symptoms early and to follow the HCP’s recommendations. If an employee does not take responsibility for taking care of himself or herself, then a musculoskeletal injury may become more severe, thus increasing the recovery period.

7. The proposed standard should provide explicit authorization allowing the use of appropriate anthropometric, strength and performance data and other industry standards to evaluate and design jobs and equipment to accommodate the largest percentage of the population. OSHA’s proposal requires the employer to include all of the employees in the problem job or those who represent the range of physical capabilities of employees in the job hazard analysis. Many companies use industry standards and other accepted resources to conduct the job hazard analysis as well as to design new equipment and workstations. OSHA’s proposed rule could be construed as requiring "custom fit" equipment.

8. The standard fails to allow companies the ability to promote early intervention without incurring the penalty of increased recordable cases from early physician diagnosis. Since the proposed standard is a performance standard, employers who actively promote early intervention of MSDs are likely to experience an increase in recordable cases and thus be penalized for being out of compliance.

9. The ergonomics proposal suggests that certain safety incentive programs, such as reward programs for employees with no reported injuries or company policies requiring post-injury drug testing, may inappropriately discourage employees from reporting MSDs. The standard should express these concerns without discouraging companies from exploring creative, educational or incentive programs designed to motivate employees and foster continuous safety improvement.

I believe the goal of OSHA’s program to reduce ergonomic injuries is commendable. Companies that have installed a formal ergonomics program have seen a reduction in reported injuries. However, a workable, comprehensive program to positively influence a reduction in ergonomic risk factors requires a balance between employer and employee responsibilities. I do not believe OSHA’s original proposal achieves that balance or encourages a spirit of cooperation to affect long term reductions in MSDs.

I would like to thank the American Electronics Association for their assistance in the research of this article.

Until next month, watch for those MSDs and be safe out there!

Lazzara on Automation Safeguarding is a monthly column written for Safetyonline.com and Plantautomation.com

Joe Lazzara is president and CEO of Scientific Technologies Inc. (STI, Fremont, CA), the largest provider of automation safeguarding solutions in North America. Lazzara began his career with Hewlett Packard in 1973 where he had responsibility for safety and environmental issues for one of HP’s largest divisions. He joined STI in 1981 as vice president and became president in 1989 and CEO in 1993. Lazzara received a bachelor’s of environmental engineering degree from Purdue University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.