PETITION TO SECRETARY OF LABOR ROBERT REICH
Department of Labor
200 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20210
PLEASE MAKE SURE WORKING WOMEN (AND MEN) TRULY COUNT!
Millions of working women and men in the U.S. suffer from disabling
"repetitive strain injuries" (also know as "cumulative trauma
disorders") -- back injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis
and other disorders caused by poorly designed workplaces and jobs.
They affect office workers who use computer terminals, health care
workers who lift patients, grocery store clerks, factory workers on
the assembly line, construction workers, and workers in virtually
every sector of the labor force. Many of the jobs that women hold
in offices, hospitals, assembly lines and other settings are the
very jobs that are causing these injuries to occur!
Working women accounted for two-thirds of the nearly
90,000 repetitive motion injuries and illnesses
reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1992!
We need an OSHA "Ergonomics" Standard to help protect working
people from the devastating -- and preventable -- work-related
injuries.
For several years the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, under the U.S. Department of Labor, has been
developing a proposed Ergonomics Standard aimed at preventing these
injuries that are epidemic throughout workplaces in the country.
OSHA's proposed Ergonomics Standard was to be released
by September 30, 1994, to enter a public comment and
hearing process. That date has come and gone without
the proposal even going to the Office of Management and
Budget for review, a requirement before the public comment
process can begin. The U.S. Dept. of Labor has yet to
provide a revised time table for releasing the proposal.
Industry has been mounting increasing pressure to kill
Ergonomics Standard before the proposal has been released
-- a move aimed at preventing a public comment process
from ever occurring! Many fear that the process for
issuing this vital OSHA standard has now been completely
derailed.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one million of
the 2.3 million job-related injuries and illnesses that required
time away from work in 1992 were from "serious strains and
sprains." The disabling condition that required the longest
recuperation period of any occupational injury or illness in 1992
was carpal tunnel syndrome -- a median of 32 days lost!
THIS EPIDEMIC MUST BE HALTED! OSHA'S ERGONOMICS STANDARD MUST BE
PUT BACK ON TRACK!
Secretary Reich: WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU -- TO MAKE SURE THAT
WORKING WOMEN AND MEN -- AND OUR BACKS, OUR ARMS, OUR WRISTS AND
OUR HANDS -- REALLY DO COUNT!
[Please return copies of signed petitions to Massachusetts
Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (617) 524-6686]
