November 17, 1970
Page 37626
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am pleased to support the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 as reported by the Labor and Public Welfare Committee. This legislation must be a high priority item for this Congress.
At a time when we talk about enhancing the quality of life, it is inconceivable that 14,500 workers are killed each year in industrial accidents, while 2.2 million more are disabled through job-related accidents. The figures on new cases of job-related illness and disease are equally disturbing. The Public Health Service estimates 390,000 new occurrences of occupational disease annually – including the dread black lung disease, emphysema, and the newly discovered perils of mercury poisoning. In my own State of Maine, for example, there were 4,801 manufacturing and 2,093 non-manufacturing injuries and/or diseases reported in a total work force of approximately 420,000 in 1969. These figures are shocking, and they should stand as a clear warning that we have not been doing enough to protect workers on the job.
Mr. President, a jumble of differing State laws currently regulate occupational health and safety.
Only four States have adequate standards. Standards in 38 States do not even meet one-half of comparability with those set by the American Standards Association. In States with strong occupational safety and health standards, the accident rate is 19 per 100,000 workers. In States with weak programs, it is 110 per 100,000 – an increase of 500 percent. Nowhere are enforcement mechanisms and penalties adequate to force industry compliance with existing standards.
Even in fields where strong Federal laws do exist, such as coal mine health and safety, lack of enforcement has meant virtually no decline in the accident and death rates. While the Federal coal mine health and safety legislation passed last year should help to reduce black lung disease, other industries continue unregulated. Cotton dust in textile mills, for example, has caused byssinosis – brown lung – in over 10 percent of the 819,000 workers in that field.
Mr. President, voluntary standards – which frequently represent the lowest common denominator – have not worked effectively. S. 2193 would provide the Secretary of Labor with authority both to establish and enforce new national occupational safety and health standards within 2 years.
There has been considerable controversy surrounding the role of the Secretary of Labor under this legislation. I am pleased that a majority of the members of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee voted to empower the Secretary with both standards-setting and enforcement authority. I concur with the committee's statement that–
Rather than dividing responsibility by creating yet another agency . . . a sounder program will result if responsibility for the formulation of rules is assigned to the same administrator who is also responsible for their enforcement and for seeing that they are workable and effective in their day-to-day application . . .
Mr. President, I reject the argument of those who claim that the standards-setting and enforcement authority should reside with independent boards. Such boards traditionally have been cumbersome, inefficient, and overly responsive to business pressures. The Secretary of Labor has traditionally been given the responsibility to set and enforce labor standards – as he does with public contracts under the Walsh-Healy Act, prevailing wages under the Davis-Bacon Act, and the minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Given this long history of standards-setting and enforcement authority within the office of the Secretary of Labor, the argument that independent boards would have more professional expertise and greater impartiality in the field of occupational safety and health loses its strength.
Mr. President, a distinguished group of citizens, including the former Secretary of Labor, the former Secretary of Interior and several noted scientists, recently signed a letter endorsing the provisions of S. 2193. I ask unanimous consent that the text of that letter appear in the RECORD at this point, and I call particular attention to their statement:
Although the burden of hazardous workplaces falls most heavily upon the blue collar workers, the problem of occupational safety and health affects all Americans. The in-plant environment is merely a concentrated microcosm of the outside environment. The environmental health hazards that workers face affect the entire population to a lesser degree . . .
Mr. President, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 deserves our full support as an important step toward fulfilling our commitment to enhancing the quality of American life. I urge speedy approval of S. 2193.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION,
Washington, D.C.,
October 7, 1970.
MY DEAR SENATOR: As concerned citizens, environmentalists and members of the academic and professional communities, we feel that the Williams and Daniels Bills (S. 2193 and H.R. 18785) are the most important pieces of legislation presently before the Congress. The bills will have crucial significance not only for the blue-collar work force, but for all Americans.
America's eighty million working people spend an average of forty hours a week in some of the most polluted, physically hazardous and psychically devastating environments found anywhere. Eight per cent of these citizens work in places where no type of health service is provided, and the protection given the remaining twenty per cent varies from excellent to minimal.
According to the government's raw and probably vastly understated figures, nearly 400,000 workers have died, and 50,000,000 have been disabled from work-related diseases and injuries in the twenty-five years since the end of the Second World War. The annual figures amount to over 15,000 deaths and 7,000,000 injuries of which 2,500,000 are disabling. The figures, as appalling as they are, can never adequately convey the agony of the injured and the anguish of the family, much less the worry, the discomfort and the boredom that arise from the unhealthy, unsafe working conditions under which the health of millions of workers is being regularly eroded and under which many workers simply wait for the inevitable "accident" to happen.
As in other areas of environmental concern, our commitment to a technology of life and to the wise use of our most precious resources appears to have fallen behind our commitment to a technology of uncontrolled growth. A technological genie has unlocked thousands of more efficient and productive, but often more hazardous, processes. For example, while there are approximately 8,000 toxic chemicals now in industrial use, and more than 800 being added every year, recommended national safety standards exist for only about 450.
Although the burden of hazardous work places falls most heavily upon the blue-collar workers, the problem of occupational safety and health affects all Americans. The in-plant environment is merely a concentrated microcosm of the outside environment. The environmental health hazards that workers face affect the entire population to a lesser degree. For example, the toxic effects of carbon monoxide were first discovered when two workers in a chemical plant died of overexposure. Now carbon monoxide is recognized as a danger to the entire population and some few steps are being taken to regulate it. Dermatitis from enzyme detergents, lead and mercury poisoning, and many other health perils were first discovered in the plant by the workers who worked with those substances. If industrial chemicals and processes were properly researched and monitored before they were put into use, the entire population would be spared.
Most industrial diseases and accidents are preventable. Modern technological and medical sciences are capable of solving the problems of noise, dust, heat, fumes, and toxic substances in the plants. However, existing legislation in this area does not begin to meet the problems. Except for the woefully inadequate and unenforced Walsh-Healy Act, Mine Safety Act, and Construction Safety Act, the entire field of occupation safety and health is left to the individual states.
The states have been loath to develop and enforce standards for the protection of their workers.
In the states today there are a total of 1,800 health and safety inspectors, and 2,800 game wardens. Elk and deer are better protected than working men and women.
Clearly, in the field of occupational health and safety the patchwork approach by the states has failed. There is a positive role that the Federal Government now must play. In a bold departure from previous legislation in this area, the Daniels Bill in the House and the Williams Bill in the Senate would:
Impose on industry the "general duty" of furnishing workers "a place of employment which is safe and healthful."
Empower the Secretary of Labor to set nationwide health and safety standards for working environments.
Call for unannounced federal inspections of workplaces and prompt disclosure of the findings to workers.
Authorize the Secretary of Labor to impose fines and seek court action against employers who violate the "general duty" or specific standards.
Permit the Secretary of Labor to close down all or part of any plant where workers are in "imminent danger" of injury or disease.
Direct the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to publish a list of all known or potentially toxic substances including those whose analysis is specifically requested by workers.
Allow employees to refuse work, without loss of pay, in areas where toxic substances are found at dangerous concentrations.
Though long overdue, this legislation represents an important first step toward solving the problem of occupational health and safety. Of particular importance, are the strong enforcement provisions granted the Secretary of Labor coupled with the absence of the sort of administrative fragmentation which plagues alternative drafts of the Occupational Health and Safety Bill. Thus we strongly urge the immediate passage of the Williams and Daniels Bills in their present form.
Sincerely yours,
Mr. Stewart Udall, former Secretary of Interior; Mr. Willard Wirtz, former Secretary of Labor; Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, Chief, Laboratories of Environmental Toxicology and Carcinogenesis, Children's Cancer Research Foundation; Dr. Paul Cornely, President, American Public Health Association; Professor George Wald, Biology Department, Harvard University; Mr. Gary Soucie, Friends of the Earth.
Dr. Edward Martell, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Professor Garret Hardin, Biology Department, University of California (at Santa Barbara); Professor Rene Dubos, Department of Environmental Medicine, Rockefeller University; Dr. Mary Bunting, President, Radcliffe College; Professor Lentin Caldwell, Indiana University; Dr. Robert Ebert, Harvard Medical School; Professor J. D. Watson, Biology Department, Harvard University; Professor Paul Ehrlich, Chairman, Graduate Division, Department of Biology, Stanford University; Jerome B. Gordon, Author, "Life Stealers."