Calif. RSI Plan Completes Last Regulatory Step

California’s initiative to curb widespread repetitive motion injuries in the workplace--the first such plan in the nation--cleared the final regulatory hurdle Tuesday.

The long-delayed ergonomics standard, covering nearly all workplaces in the state with more than 10 employees, should take effect July 3.

It will mark the first time that any state or community nationwide has launched a program to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis or similar injuries stemming from repetitive motions. The injured have included everyone from computer operators to supermarket checkers to auto factory workers.

Also known by such names as repetitive stress injuries and repeated or cumulative trauma disorders, these problems emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s as the nation’s fastest-spreading occupational ailment. That pattern continued until 1995 when, according to the latest figures, the number of these disorders in the U.S. private sector finally declined, by 7%, to 308,200.

The Cal-OSHA board’s ergonomics standard lurched toward reality Tuesday when it was cleared by the California Office of Administrative Law. The OAL, an independent regulatory review agency that normally labors in obscurity, stunned officials in January by rejecting as too vague an earlier standard.

Still, the historic significance of California adopting the groundbreaking standard was muted Tuesday by litigation hanging over the regulation.

Labor organizations maintain that the ergonomics standard is weak and loophole-ridden, and they have gone to court to press for tighter rules.

On the other hand, trucking industry associations--representing the views of many employer groups--are arguing that too little is known about repetitive motion injuries to justify potentially costly regulations. They are suing to strike down the regulation.

Both sides will present their arguments at a Sacramento County Superior Court hearing Sept. 5. That means the regulation will be in effect for two months before facing the possibility of court-mandated changes.

“We’ll see how it all holds up in court, and we’ll go from there,” said a weary John MacLeod, executive officer of the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, which drafted and adopted the regulation after years of political haggling.

MacLeod held out hope, however, that the regulation will survive intact and will prove “whether or not we can effectively reduce these kinds of injuries through the regulatory process.”

Not quite two pages long, the final standard remains a terse document. It is triggered when at least two workers are diagnosed by a licensed physician with injuries from performing identical tasks during the same 12-month period.

In those cases, the standard mandates that employers provide special training to injured workers and others handling the same duties. The standard also calls on employers to combat identified workplace injury hazards with corrective measures. Those would include such possible steps as adjustable desks for typists with sore wrists or more rest breaks for, say, production workers with aching backs.

The standard excludes federal agencies but applies to all private sector, state and municipal work sites with more than 10 employees. Those workplaces, in turn, employ 11.35 million Californians--a figure that amounts to 87% of the 13 million working Californians who are not in business for themselves.

Financial penalties are not specified in the regulation, but state officials said the customary Cal-OSHA fines will apply. As a result, fines in most cases will be up to $7,000 per violation. In very rare cases where employers are judged to be “willful violators,” however, fines could reach $70,000.

Employers opposing the standard focused on the potential cost of overhauling their workplaces to prevent ergonomic injuries.

“We will move to stop the state from imposing a rule that will cost California companies millions and even put some out of business--without guaranteeing the prevention of a single injury,” said Thomas J. Donohue, president of the American Trucking Assns.

The ATA contends that no sound scientific evidence exists proving that workplace activities lead to repetitive motion injuries.

Labor unions and other worker advocates, however, have contended that the recently reported decline in ergonomic injuries for 1995 and anecdotal evidence demonstrate that there are known ways to prevent many of these ailments.

Tom Rankin, the second-in-command at the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said his organization will argue in court for a tougher regulation. The goal, he said, is to win “a real standard . . . that doesn’t exempt small employers and that doesn’t require two injuries to take place before going into effect, and that gives more definite direction to employers as to how to prevent repetitive stress injuries.”

The ergonomics standard was mandated under a workers’ compensation reform package passed by the state Legislature in 1993. The intent was to curb on-the-job repetitive motion injuries that drive up workers’ compensation insurance costs in the state, but employer groups over the years have consistently fought efforts to adopt a strict standard.