ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702010001
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: labor
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON
Industrial safety inspectors are making a list of Virginia's most dangerous workplaces. Sounds like a natural thing for the state Department of Labor and Industry. But actually this is a first for the agency, which says a new hazard-reduction program this summer will use the list to pinpoint companies that should get attention first.
For some time, the state's accident-prevention strategy has involved inspecting, educating and, in some cases, fining employers over the hazards to which their employees are exposed.
The dangerous-workplace list is a response to a feeling among agency officials that these efforts could be more effective. One, inspectors will shift some of their attention to the most-dangerous companies. Second, those companies, facing potentially the most severe penalties, will have a chance to find and eliminate their hazards themselves, rather having the state force action.
Virginia recorded 49 workplace deaths in 1996, 21 of them in construction and 28 in other industries. There were 53,027 injuries in 1994 in which the victim missed at least a day of work. Those are the latest data and are based on only a partial survey of employers, but are the most comprehensive figure available from the state.
The state's labor agency, which handles worker safety for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, inspects about 3,000 workplaces per year, including companies that exhibit unusual safety awareness and request an inspection, and collected $1.9 million in fines in 1996.
When a worker is killed or seriously injured, the state inspects the workplace. It also inspects workplaces that are the subject of complaints. That won't change under the proposal. What's new is how the agency chooses companies for a routine - often surprise - inspection. Currently, officials choose names randomly from a list of workplaces in 200 high-hazard industries. For every 10 employers inspected, six are found to have illegal hazards, which run the gamut from missing safety switches on machinery to chemical leaks. However, four of those 10 aren't doing anything wrong; "40 percent of our inspection time is wasted," said Charles Lahey, deputy commissioner of the state agency, who is in charge of the new strategy.
"We're using state resources, going someplace that we don't need to be and we're interrupting a business that doesn't need to be interrupted," Lahey said.
By June, barring unforeseen obstacles, officials will rank companies, except those in construction, in terms of their injury or accident rate, regardless of number of employees. Virginia's most dangerous employers would receive an ultimatum: clean up their act or face the strong likelihood of a full inspection and fines and citations, if warranted.
Cooperating employers would receive less-frequent inspections and more technical help from the state. Any fines would be reduced in recognition of the company's effort.
"If we do fine violators when we get there, we'll give them a big discount because they're trying to get everything up to snuff," Lahey said.
The concept "makes a lot more sense to manufacturers, many of whom have very effective safety programs," said Bob Kyle, vice president at the Virginia Manufacturers Association.
Organized labor is on board, too.
"It gives the people that are responsible for enforcing the law the time to go after the bad characters and the bad players and try to work with people that want to work with them to meet the standards," said Daniel LeBlanc, president of the Virginia AFL-CIO in Richmond.
LeBlanc said state inspectors would need 70 years to visit every Virginia workplace, using current inspection methods.
The list of worst offenders is not scheduled to be released or made public, on grounds it will be based on confidential workers compensation system documents. Lahey said he intends to name the most dangerous types of industries and types of work.
A crackdown in Maine gave Lahey the idea. In 1993, the Maine branch of OSHA found that the state's 200 companies with the highest rate of injuries and illnesses represented 1 percent of employers but employed 30 percent of Maine's workers and accounted for 45 percent of worker' compensation cases.
In response, Maine gave 200 employers with large numbers of accidents a chance to fix their hazards or face a prompt wall-to-wall inspection. Nearly all of them agreed to self-monitoring, which that state's officials now call a success.
Within the first year, the employers who participated found 95,000 violations. Federal safety inspectors had found barely a third of that in all of the previous seven years. The number of hazards found by employers is up to 180,000, and 120,000 have been corrected. Sixty-five percent of participating employers saw accidents decrease and 47 percent had fewer workers' compensation claims, said William Freeman, area OSHA director in Bangor.
In the long run, Virginia's program is supposed to save employers money, in part by reducing their costs for workers' compensation claims. The average claim costs $19,000 in 1995, the most recent year for which data are available.
Lahey said he knowns some companies may have to spend a lot of money to fix safety problems. But in the long run, he said, there is evidence that these investments can lead to higher productivity. At a Virginia plywood company, workers repeatedly were getting hurt clearing boards stuck on a turn in the production line. When the turn was eliminated, the number of injuries fell and production went up, Lahey said.
At a saw blade sharpening company, workers were being exposed to metal dust. The company bought dust-free machines that sharpened more blades with fewer people than under the company's former system of operating. Last Lahey knew, no one had been laid off and the company faced the prospect of more business.
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