Ten years in the making, the Ergonomics Program Standard of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was introduced in 2000. The supporters’ triumph was short lived: the Standard was discredited and repealed the following year. From supporters’ reactions to some recent OSHA letter writing, it’s clear the defeat still rankles.
OSHA sent out letters canceling several venerable ergonomics settlement agreements with major manufacturing companies. As the aged agreements could have been allowed to die a natural death, some Standard supporters see the letter-writing as telling, an effort by the Republican White House to underline its ideological antipathy to ergonomics regulations in the fifth anniversary year of the hard-won OSHA regulations.
Investigating the possible significance of OSHA’s zeal in closing out the agreements, The Ergonomics Report
This article originally appeared in The Ergonomics Report™ on 2005-08-24.