OSHA to roll out five new rules; ergonomics not one of them

[Better with a Union Man]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4727

By Mark Gruenberg
9 January 2011

WASHINGTON - The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will roll out five new rules this year designed to protect workers on the job – but a rule to curb ergonomic injuries will not be one of them.

As a matter of fact, the form OSHA has employers fill out to report job health and safety ailments won’t even have a separate column for ergonomic ills – also called musculoskeletal disorders – until Jan. 2012, OSHA staffers predict.

The disclosures about ergonomics and the new rules were in an online dialogue between OSHA staffers and the public on Jan. 5. The OSHA dialogue was one of several run by Labor Department agencies when DOL released its semi-annual regulatory agenda, showing new rules agencies plan to work on in the coming year.

OSHA’s five new rules would cover confined spaces in construction, general working conditions for shipyards, electric power transmission, hazard communications, and standards improvement, OSHA staffers told AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario, who posed the question.

FULL story at link.



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