The occasion of OSHA's 30th anniversary gives us the opportunity to analyze what we have learned over the past three decades and determine what needs to be done differently as OSHA moves forward. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, conducts regular studies of OSHA to help the agency improve its operations by using its resources as efficiently as possible to meet its legislative mandates and serve the interests of American workers and employers. In light of lessons learned from the past and findings of recent GAO reports, this presentation discusses OSHA's future challenges in three areas: developing standards, balancing traditional enforcement with compliance assistance, and evaluating agency performance.
OSHA was created "to assure so far as possible … safe and healthful working conditions" in the United States. To do this, the agency was given many responsibilities, but key among them were the ability to promulgate regulations, enforce those regulations, and assist employers trying to comply with those regulations. More recently, OSHA, along with other federal agencies, has also been increasingly expected to strategically plan its activities and evaluate its performance to verify its effectiveness. In meeting its responsibilities as established in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA has sought to balance the needs of workers and employers with the demands of congressional mandates and to evolve with social changes. The occasion of OSHA's 30th anniversary gives us the opportunity to analyze how well OSHA has been able to carry out its mission, what lessons have been learned in doing so, and what OSHA might do differently in the new millennium.
Many believe that regulation development is the cornerstone of OSHA's operations. It provides the criteria for what employers must do to make their workplaces safe and, at the same time, serves as the raison d'etre for the cadre of OSHA inspectors that conduct workplace inspections. However, most individuals would likely agree that the regulation-making process has become so difficult and arduous that all sides leave the table believing the resulting regulation is either too burdensome or ineffective. OSHA has faced increasing difficulty promulgating regulations in the last decade, particularly for emerging workplace hazards such as those conditions leading to musculoskeletal disorders. It has even faced difficulty in its attempts to promulgate seemingly less controversial regulations, such as one that would have required employers to implement workplace safety and health programs.
OSHA's experiences during the development of the most recent failed ergonomics regulation exemplify the difficulty OSHA currently faces. For example, in order for OSHA to meet the legal requirements for promulgating the regulation, it must show substantial evidence of the need for the regulation (which many other federal regulatory agencies do not). For the ergonomics regulation, this essentially forced OSHA to hire 28 expert witnesses and conduct or oversee extensive research on the causes of musculoskeletal disorders.
