Safety Roundtable: The View From the End of an Era

As 2008 comes to a close, we face a new year, a fresh start and not a few major changes. The United States elected its first African American president; Democrats gained more control in Congress; Edwin Foulke Jr. left his post as OSHA administrator in November; and an unfolding economic crisis put the nation on edge.

In light of these developments and more, EHS Today spoke to occupational safety and health stakeholders to learn more about what's in store for the safety community in the coming year and beyond.

END OF AN ERA

Frank White, vice president of ORC Worldwide, points out that OSHA's approach under the Bush administration focused on voluntary programs, increasing the size of VPP, creating partnerships and alliances and helping employers understand the value of safety. It was, in essence, a “business-friendly OSHA” rather than one focused on standard setting. And with Foulke out and a new administration coming in, OSHA may have to wait until summer 2009 or later for a new agency administrator.

“It's surely an end of an era at OSHA,” White says. “I suspect an Obama administration will have a different kind of emphasis. It's fair to say you'll see a shift away from emphasis on voluntary programs” to a larger focus on standards enforcement and production.

But White thinks there still is more OSHA can do, such as taking the lead from other countries and encouraging communication among stakeholders.

“OSHA needs to broaden its outlook and take a close look at what other countries are doing, and take steps to integrate some of those approaches,” he says. “OSHA has tended to look inward, as a lot of US. agencies do, when I think it could learn a lot by looking at the European experience and taking advantage of what they have done.”

OSHA also should create processes for getting parties to the table and searching for common ground. In Europe, White says, there is a tripartite system that includes forums and processes for stakeholders and government to get together and reach agreements.

“We don't have that in this country,” White points out. “I'm not saying Europe has a perfect system, but there is a willingness to talk through issues and move forward.”

That kind of collaborative work hasn't been accomplished in the occupational health and safety arena for a long time, according to White. “There has got to be some work done by everyone to think of solutions,” he says. “It's a matter of getting started.”

International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) President Daniel K. Shipp also considers OSHA's role in the coming years.

“I think it's pretty clear that there are people who want to see an ergonomics standard come back,” Shipp says. “And I think there will be probably some attempts to toughen the penalties for workplace injuries.”

Shipp also expressed some dissatisfaction with OSHA's level of involvement in recent years. “OSHA and MSHA, like a lot of other agencies, tend to react when there is a disaster, whether or not it was a previous high priority,” he says, but adds that the Obama administration “is undeniably going to be much more influenced by organized labor.”

Of course, Shipp admits it may be too early right now to predict how these changes will play out.

“We have a lot of different people with a lot of different agendas, [it] will have to all come together,” he says.

DOING MORE WITH LESS

And then there's the economy, a topic that has much of the nation in near panic mode.

“The effect of the economy on occupational safety in general is always scary,” Shipp says, because “as companies' margins gets smaller and smaller, they look for places they can cut.”

Even so, eliminating a safety director's job might not be the first step a company takes to save money during these difficult economic times, Shipp says. Instead, some organizations may look for ways to economize on safety equipment that may not meet standards. And many safety professionals will have to do more with less.

“Safety professionals have to be creative,” says Shipp. “In a lot of cases, they don't have strong sets of government standards telling them how to do things. The good ones can develop programs and sell those programs to top management by showing them convincingly that investments in health and safety pay off at the bottom line.”

James “Skipper” Kendrick, CSP, director, EHS training for Textron Inc., agrees that the economic crisis could have a significant impact on EHS programs, and that there will be pressure to spend money, time and resources on other things.

“However, I think this really will be a test in those companies and cultures to determine if safety is a priority that's going to change with time, or whether safety is going to be a true value,” he says. “For those companies where safety true value, I don't anticipate anything to change. They will continue to hold it as a core component in their operating structure and treat it the same as they've always treated it.”

While Kendrick describes the current task safety professionals have as “leading in tough times,” he believes strong communication may be the key to reducing injury and illness. In addition, he says, safety professionals today will have a higher chance for success if they are more attuned to the business aspects of safety and pay attention to workers' well-being.

“We've got to take care of the people,” Kendrick says. “It's even more important in today's economy to be able to retain talent, to have them on the floor producing day in and day out rather than home sick or injured.”

Finally, he also considers how the economy could impact companies' environmental initiatives. “It's a challenge to us all to continue our efforts to improve environmental performance, to become more green, while we've got the same battle going on for the dollars to be spent in other places,” he says.

But Shipp sees a silver lining, at least on the global scale: “As economic growth happens in other parts of the world, people that work in those countries begin to have new expectations about quality of life. And an important part of that quality life is to work in a safe environment.”

And a lot of companies are pushing social and corporate responsibility agendas, of which worker health and safety is a factor. “There's a long way to go, but we do see advances,” Shipp explains.

EMERGING ISSUES

Christine Branche, Ph.D., acting director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), highlights some of the issues she anticipates NIOSH will focus on in the upcoming year and beyond:

Older and Younger Workers — Branche explains that there are “two sides of a trend to examine” when it comes to the age of employees in the workplace. On one hand, workers are retiring later than ever, and the current economic situation isn't exactly encouraging people to retire. Younger workers, meanwhile, are entering the work force in large numbers, and 2007-2008 saw the largest numbers of students entering college ever. Branche says the way these older and younger workers influence the work force — and how work affects their health or well-being — is a significant issue.