WASHINGTON : Bills Seek Stiffer Penalties--Including Prison--for Job-Safety Violations

After turning into a paper tiger during the Reagan Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Act may get some teeth back, courtesy of Congress.

Three bills take separate approaches to reinvigorating OSHA:

* A measure sponsored by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) would change employer violations of OSHA that result in death to a felony from a misdemeanor. Under current law, the maximum penalty is no more than six months in prison. The new proposal (S. 2154) would boost the maximum to 10 years for a first offense and 20 years for a second. Maximum fines would rise to $250,000 from $10,000 for each violation.

In addition, the law now contains no criminal penalty covering serious injuries on the job. The Metzenbaum bill would punish willful violations of OSHA that result in serious injury with up to five years in prison for a first offense and 10 years for a second.

* Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is sponsoring a bill (S. 490) to adjust OSHA’s civil penalties, which have not changed in 20 years, to keep pace with inflation. Violators are now subject to fines of up to $1,000 for each violation and up to $10,000 for each “willful or repeated” violation. The bill would increase the maximum fines to $3,000 and $30,000, respectively.

* Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) has proposed legislation (S. 2442) to give victims of accidents in the workplace, or their families, the right to participate in OSHA’s investigative hearing process. Currently, the sessions are effectively closed, and victims and their families must even pay for copies of citations and reports.

Simon’s and Metzenbaum’s bills are the most controversial, yet both passed the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee by a strong bipartisan vote. The Lautenberg bill is still in committee.

Organized labor led the fight for safer working conditions in the 1960s, which resulted in the creation of OSHA in 1970. The law was designed to enforce health and safety standards on the job through inspections and civil remedies. Possible criminal cases are referred to the Justice Department. But statistics show that few OSHA cases are sent to Justice.

For instance, from 1983 to 1989, referrals by the EPA resulted in 520 indictments and 400 convictions. From 1970 to 1988, there were only 14 criminal indictments resulting from OSHA violations, and they resulted in just 10 convictions. No one was jailed.

“If we can throw corporate criminals in jail for harming air, water, land and animals, then we can throw corporate criminals in jail for killing and maiming our working men and women,” said Metzenbaum.

It wasn’t until last year, when Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole issued orders to step up enforcement, that the first employer was jailed for an OSHA violation--45 days for responsibility in a trench cave-in that killed a worker.

“When you analyze the data, there is no way the political establishment can defend the status quo,” said Joseph Kinney, who founded the National Safe Workplace Institute in Chicago after his brother fell to his death from faulty scaffolding and the employer was fined $800.

According to Kinney’s institute, the United States ranks fourth-highest out of 22 countries in the number of deaths on the job, and a U.S. worker is 5.8 times likelier to die from job-related injuries than a Swedish worker.

Margaret Seminario, director of the occupational safety and health department at the AFL-CIO, said the toll of injuries among American workers is staggering. She said 10,000 workers die of injuries on the job each year, 70,000 are permanently disabled and 6 million are injured.

At a recent Senate hearing, Charlene Gadsen of Bridgeport, Conn., told how her father fell 70 feet to his death from a bridge that he had been told to dismantle without safety nets or ropes. OSHA has proposed fining the employer $20,000, but the employer is protesting the amount.

Roxanne DeLuise of Allentown, Pa., testified about the death of her 32-year-old husband, who suffered third-degree burns over 95% of his body in a work accident. His employer was fined $1,000.

“How can we have a Constitution that provides for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness when we have situations where workers have become expendable?” she asked in an emotional appeal that left many in the room in tears.

Opposition to Metzenbaum’s proposal is coming from leading business groups: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Assn. of Manufacturers and the Associated General Contractors of America.

“The OSHA statute was intended to abate hazards and resolve safety problems quickly,” said Jeff Perlman, manager of legal and regulatory affairs at the chamber. “But with criminal statutes like this, the current attitude of cooperation between business and government would be changed to one of confrontation. Today almost no one asks OSHA inspectors for a warrant, but with Metzenbaum’s bill employers would be reluctant to let OSHA on the scene if there has been an accident.”

The chamber has no official position on the other two pieces of legislation. The National Assn. of Manufacturers also opposes Metzenbaum’s bill, but NAM lobbyist Cynthia Witkins said the group would not object to Lautenberg’s proposal to increase civil penalties.

Similarly, the Bush Administration has voiced support for increasing civil fines while opposing portions of the other two bills.

Gerard Scannell, the Labor Department official in charge of OSHA, echoed the chamber’s Perlman in saying that the Metzenbaum proposal would make it more difficult to achieve compliance with the act’s civil sections.

And in a letter to Simon, Dole said the Labor Department would not support his legislation because OSHA has already improved its relationship with victims and their families through “formal administrative means.”

Although acknowledging that improvements have been made, Simon said the rights of victims must be written into law to ensure that the policy is not changed should OSHA once again lapse into being a paper tiger.