ERGO/18inches/1stjc/mark2nd
By HOWARD FINE
Staff Reporter
Small-business owners who comprise 75 percent of the employers in Los Angeles County have been granted a temporary reprieve from the state’s ergonomics regulation.
The rule requires employers to institute ergonomic training programs and to take corrective steps when two or more workers report repetitive motion injuries.
Although the rule as originally adopted exempted businesses with fewer than 10 employees, a Superior Court judge last year threw out the exemption after labor groups asserted that all workers should be protected from such injuries.
But in a March 17 ruling, the state Third District Court of Appeal restored the small-business exemption, keeping the law as originally adopted in force pending a full review of the ergonomics regulation.
As a result, up to 200,000 employers in Los Angeles County with fewer than 10 employees (and 700,000 employers statewide) do not have to provide special training or spend money to upgrade workstations when repetitive motion injuries occur.
“Employers have won this round, but the fight over ergonomics regulations is far from over,” said Ron Markson, executive vice president of the California Workers’ Compensation Institute, the research arm for the state’s workers’ compensation insurance carriers.
Labor groups say that every employer should implement training programs and preventative measures immediately, without waiting for injuries.
“It’s absolutely unheard of that people have to get hurt or even killed before employers have to do something,” said Tom Rankin, president of the California Federation of Labor.
Employer groups say the regulation is troublesome because the source of repetitive motion injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome can be difficult to trace.
In 1996, the most recent year for which figures are available from the state Division of Labor Statistics and Research, the number of reported repetitive motion injuries jumped 18.5 percent, after falling 10 percent in 1995.
State Occupational Safety and Health Department spokesman Dean Fryer attributed the spike to a higher number of employees in the workplace and increased awareness of repetitive motion injuries. Part of the increased awareness was because the ergonomics standard was being developed in 1996, he said.
Fifty-one percent of all occupational injuries reported by California employers in 1996 were classified as repetitive motion injuries.
The small-employer exemption first arose two years ago as the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board was developing the ergonomics standard. The two board members who initially proposed the exemption argued that only about 20 percent of California employees work at businesses with fewer than 10 workers.
Because these small firms typically operate on razor-thin margins, the board members said that requiring all of them to comply would cause undue economic hardship, while not protecting the health of the majority of California workers. They persuaded a majority of their colleagues on the seven-member board to adopt the exemption when the final order was approved.
However, labor unions led by the California Federation of Labor brought suit against the Cal-OSHA board, saying the regulation did not go far enough in protecting workers from repetitive motion injuries.
