OSHA’s Not the ‘Poster Boy’ for Safety

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/03/04/oshas-not-the-poster-boy-for-safety/

OSHA’s Not the ‘Poster Boy’ for Safety

by Mike Hall, Mar 4, 2007

The last time the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) designed a workplace poster to tell workers about their health and safety rights under federal law, it was aimed solely at employees and clearly told workers how to contact the safety agency. Makes sense. After all, OSHA’s mission is to keep workers safe and enforce the law.

But under the Bush administration, employers receive special attention and assistance while workers take a back seat in safety issues. (Click here, here and here for a look at some recent Bush OSHA outrages. Also, take a look at the AFL-CIO’s BushWatch that documents more than six years of Bush actions on workplace safety and health.)

The Hill newspaper reports the Bush administration’s OSHA has redesigned the workplace safety poster—and confusingly moved the toll-free hotline number for workers to call to report safety and health issues to a new section that tells employers how they may call OSHA to get the agency’s help, “without citation or penalty.”

The previous poster listed the “hotline” number in large type, centered on the bottom of the poster and also listed the phone numbers for OSHA’s regional offices workers could call with workplace questions or complaints. OSHA stripped the regional numbers from the new poster.

By regulation, the safety poster must include information for workers on how to contact the “nearest office of the Department of Labor.”

Nowhere on the new poster—which was mandated by the 1970 OSHAct to provide information for workers—does it tell workers how to contact OSHA.

The previous safety poster clearly told workers:

To file a complaint, report an emergency, or seek OSHA advice, assistance or products, call 1-800-321-OSHA or your nearest OSHA office.

Along with listing the regional office phone numbers, it told workers how to file a complaint online or via teletypewriter for the hearing impaired. That information is not on the new poster.

An OSHA spokeswomen told The Hill that two phone numbers had changed, but did not address why the safety agency didn’t simply include the new telephone numbers or a direct message to workers on how to contact the agency.

FULL story at link.

[LiberalFighter]

1. Should make it a crime NOT to shoot these current OSHA people