House quickly repeals worker safety rules
Democrats say decade of studies tossed aside in party-line vote
Steven Greenhouse - New York Times
WASHINGTON -- Moving with unusual speed, the House on Wednesday night voted narrowly to repeal new workplace safety regulations, just a day after the Senate voted to rescind the same rules.
This one-two punch represented the first joint legislative attack on the legacy of former President Bill Clinton, who issued the regulations in what he called an effort to combat the wave of injuries resulting from repetitive motions on the job. The White House announced support of the repeal on Tuesday, lawmakers said they expected President Bush to sign the legislation soon.
Voting largely along party lines, the House backed the repeal bill, 223-206, with 16 Democrats voting to support repeal despite pressure from organized labor. At the same time, 13 Republicans, bucking their party and defying business lobbyists, voted to keep the regulations.
Like the 56-44 Senate vote on Tuesday to scrap the ergonomics rules, Wednesday's House vote was a major victory for business and a stinging defeat for organized labor, which had lobbied for 10 years for strong regulations to reduce ergonomics injuries. The significant victory by business on this legislation comes as Bush is insisting that he does not want corporate tax breaks to slow down his tax cut proposal.
Democratic lawmakers voiced outrage that the House voted to revoke the regulations at the end of just one hour of debate, even though the regulations issued by Clinton came after 10 years of studies and a year of hearings.
The House Democratic Leader, Richard Gephardt of Missouri, said, "I have not in my entire time in the Congress seen such an awful example of rushing to the floor just a few months after an election and trying to get through special interest legislation."
Under the regulations, all that many businesses are required to do is educate their employees about the risk of injury from repetitive motions.
Workplaces that have a single worker who suffers an ergonomics injury can do a quick fix in 90 days without having to carry out a far-reaching program. But at workplaces where two employees doing the same job suffer injuries within 18 months, the employer must do a full screening of ergonomics problems. If certain risk factors are found, the company must implement a full program, which might involve work training and adjusting the height of assembly lines or computer keyboards and restricting how often workers lift heavy weights.
In the debate, Republicans said the regulations could cost more than $100 billion a year to implement and would cause layoffs and force many companies into bankruptcy. Democratic House members praised the rules, saying they would eliminate almost one-third of the 1.8 million injuries, like tendinitis and back sprains, that American workers suffer each year as a result of repetitive motions at their jobs.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the regulations would cost businesses $4.5 billion to implement, and would save them $9 billion a year by reducing injuries, reducing sick days and increasing productivity.
The act bars federal agencies from issuing regulations substantially similar to those repealed under the act unless Congress first approves the new regulations. Democrats asserted this would could prevent OSHA from ever issuing strong ergonomics rules.