Michael Silverstein, MD, MPH, “Getting Home Safe and Sound? OSHA at Thirty Five.” American Journal of Public Health, March, 2008. Vol. 98, No. 3.
American Public Health Association and National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, “Protecting Workers On The Job: Seven Priorities for Federal Action in 2009.” Issued in the fall, 2008.
Hamid Arabzadeh, CIH, CSP, MS, CHMM, REA, “A Professional Crisis – Is there a need to reinvent industrial hygiene?” Presentation abstract, American Industrial Hygiene Association British Columbia Yukon Local Section 2007 Annual General Meeting.
The Charlotte Observer, “White House vows to increase worker safety, enforce laws.” Friday, February 27, 2009.
Thomas Geoghegan, J.D., “Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy.” Harper’s Magazine, April, 2009.
John Howard, M.D., J.D., “The Future of Occupational Safety and Health.” Presented at “Protection 2033: The 75th Anniversary of the International Safety Equipment Association,” November 11, 2008.
The Los Angeles Times, “Hilda Solis’ belief in unions runs deep,” January 9, 2009.
David Michaels, PhD, MPH, “It’s Not the Answers That Are Biased, It’s the Questions.” The Washington Post, Tuesday, July 15, 2008.
David Michaels, PhD, MPH, “Doubt Is Their Product.” Scientific American, June, 2005.
New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), “After 8 Years of Bush: Can OSHA be Fixed? What must be done.” NYCOSH Safety Rep newsletter, Winter 2009.
ORC Worldwide, “Breaking the Cycle: New Approaches to Establishing National Workplace Safety and Health Policy.” Issued November 3, 2008.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, “Obama And Regulation.” Forbes.com, January 9, 2009.
Scott P. Schneider, MS, CIH, “The Breakdown of OSHA Standards-Setting.” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, April 24, 2007.
Peg Seminario, MS, CIH, “Is OSHA Working for Working People?” Testimony before the Senate Employment and Worker Safety Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, April 26, 2007.
Cass R. Sunstein, J.D., “The Empiricist Strikes Back: Obama’s pragmatism explained.” The New Republic, Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
Cass R. Sunstein, J.D., “Is OSHA Unconstitutional?” The Virginia Law Review, 2008.
David M. Uhlmann, “The Prosecution of Worker Endangerment Cases and the Need for Stronger Criminal Provisions of the Worker Safety Laws to Protect America’s Workers.” Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, April 29, 2008.
.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Players in the OSHA arena
Regardless how the OSHA chief selection process plays out, the Obama regime change has ushered in a fresh group of official and unofficial policy advisors.
Out goes all the influence formerly enjoyed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and to a lesser extent think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
In comes the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the American Public Health Association, grassroots local and state coalitions of occupational safety and health (COSHs), labor law academics and occupational medicine professionals.
Here are individuals you will be hearing more from in the coming months and years:
Hilda Solis, 51, the secretary of labor, is a native of El Monte, California. She has a master's in public administration from the University of Southern California and an undergraduate degree from Cal Poly Pomona, and has made her career in government. At 28, she won a seat on the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees against two far more established politicians. In 1992, she won a California Assembly seat. In one of her first acts, she sided with labor against the tobacco industry and the Democratic leadership by voting in 1993 for legislation that banned smoking in all workplaces.
Solis became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate in 1994. She served there for six years. In 1995, her first year in the Senate, authorities raided an El Monte building fenced by razor wire. Inside, 72 Thai workers toiled 18 hours a day in “slave-like conditions,” stitching garments that were to be sold in shopping malls, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. Solis held high-profile hearings, called garment manufacturers to Sacramento to explain themselves and pushed for heavier enforcement of laws against sweatshops.
In 2000, Solis ran for the U.S. House of Representatives against an incumbent from her own party who had run afoul of labor by voting for the North American Free Trade Agreement. She won 62 percent of the vote in the primary. No Republican ran against her in the general election. In her years on Capitol Hill, Solis had a liberal voting record — she had a 97 percent approval rating from the AFL-CIO. Her father, Raul, was a Teamsters Union shop steward from Mexico. Her mother came from Nicaragua and worked on an assembly line for more than 20 years at a Mattel toy factory and belonged to the United Rubber Workers.
A Republican state senator from California, who battled with Solis when she headed a budget subcommittee, called her "a committed liberal in the pockets of labor," according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
“I know that my seven siblings and I would not be where we are today without the wages and other protections my parents earned with the help of their union,” Solis wrote for the Huffington Post on March 2, 2007, after the House approved the Employee Free Choice Act.
At the time of her nomination to be labor secretary, Solis was the only member of Congress on the board of a pro-union group, American Right at Work, according to Politico.com.
"Her toughness will be underestimated, and her idealism will be discounted," Tom Hayden, a former state Senate colleague and an ally on Solis’s anti-sweatshop campaign, told the Los Angeles Times.
Hamid Arabzadeh, MS, CIH, CSP, REA, CHMM, principal of HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., Irvine, Calif. Said by many to be extremely keen on the OSHA chief job. “He’s politically well-connected, has the support of Sen. Tom Harkin (in September, Harkin sponsored a resolution in the Senate recognizing the importance of workplace wellness as a strategy to help maximize employees' health and well being), and has attended Democratic campaign fundraisers in Los Angeles,” says one source. Other sources say he has made numerous trips to Washington to line up supporters including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and members of the House of Representatives Loretta Sanchez, Laura Richardson, Brian Bilbray, Ed Royce and George Radonovich, all from California. Bilbray, Royce and Radonovich are republicans.
From 1992 to 1997, Arabzadeh was the corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation, with worldwide responsibilities, and later the director of the EH&S Branch at Los Angeles Unified School District. Arabzadeh holds two graduate degrees in Occupational Health Sciences and Industrial Hygiene. A native of Iran, Arabzadeh is a staunch and vocal activist for human rights in his native country.
Jordan Barab put to bed after several years of toil his blog “Confined Space” which enjoyed a cult-like following among health and safety professionals, and now occupies a senior policy advisor position on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. The move affords him influence beyond what he could achieve in the blogosphere. He could be in line for a deputy or policy director position at OSHA.
Bill Borwegen MPH, director of occupational health and safety for the Service Employees International Union, has been on the cutting edge of emerging safety and health issues such as patient handling and healthcare risks, sustainability, and health promotion.
Mark Briggs surfaced in late March as a possible OSHA chief candidate. Briggs is campus risk manager at the University of Illinois. He joined the university’s Division of Public Safety in 2000, coming to the job with experience in risk management consulting and the insurance industries. Briggs owned a safety and risk management consultancy full-time for seven years, after having worked in the insurance industry for 11 years. He is a graduate of the health sciences/safety program at Illinois State University and has earned professional designations of Associate in Risk Management and Certified Safety Professional. He is an active member of several national associations, including the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).
In a 2003 video released by ASSE to commemorate Labor Day, the group said its members were responding to the changing face of workplace safety following 9/11. "We've entered a whole new phase," Briggs said in the video. "We are more focused now on emergency planning, trying to plan for contingencies that were not on our radar screen before."
Adam Finkel is a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and was a vocal OSHA regional administrator and director of health standards at the agency, often leveling charges of political incompetence at his bosses in Washington.
Eric Frumin. Fiery director of the safety and health program for UNITE-HERE, a labor union in the garment, textile, laundry, and hospitality industries. Frumin is also occupational safety and health coordinator for Change to Win, a group of seven unions and six million workers that broke away from the AFL-CIO.
Ron Hayes, called a “hellraiser” by Mother Jones magazine, is a grassroots job safety activist and trainer based in Alabama. His son suffocated to death in a grain silo in 1993. Has the ear of Kennedy’s OSHA staff specialist and has gone fishing with Republican Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, one of very few senators on either side of the aisle interested in OSHA issues.
Seth Harris was named by President Obama to be deputy secretary of labor, the number two spot at the Department of Labor. Harris worked for the Obama campaign and served in the Clinton administration. Harris was the Obama Transition Project’s Agency Working Group Leader for the labor, education, and transportation agencies. During the Clinton administration, he served as counselor to the secretary of labor and acting assistant secretary of labor for policy, among other policy-advising positions. Before returning to Washington this year, Harris was a professor and the director of Labor & Employment Law Programs at New York Law School.
Kitty Higgins. Kathryn O’Leary Higgins’s name was brought to our attention in late March as a potential candidate for the top OSHA slot, after Peg Seminario and Dr. John Howard dropped out of the running. Since 2006, she has been a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… is very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor in Democratic administrations. She served as deputy secretary of President’s Clinton’s Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet.” “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Higgins has also served in the White House (February 1995 – July 1997) as assistant to President Clinton and secretary to the Cabinet. In that capacity she worked closely with the NTSB, Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, and Coast Guard on a number of matters, including the 1996 ValuJet 597 and TWA 800 accidents, developing and implementing hazardous materials regulations, increasing inspector staffing, FAA reauthorization, and creation of the NTSB Office of Family Assistance.
In the Carter administration, Higgins was with the White House Domestic Policy Council, serving as assistant director for employment policy (May 1978 –January 1981). From January 1981 to January 1986 Higgins was senior legislative associate and minority staff director with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.
Dr. John Howard, former head of NIOSH and the California OSHA state program. In a speech given November 11, 2008, Dr. Howard said research, education and assistance at OSHA is uncoordinated; OSHA’s insularity leads to a “go it alone” attitude; the accuracy of non-fatal injuries and illness recordkeeping needs to be investigated, and existing OSHA standards are not matched to the existing causes of worker injuries and illnesses. Might get his old job at NIOSH back if the top OSHA position he wants is not in the offing.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has written legislation, co-sponsored by Obama, to make modest changes to OSHA law. At some point in the next four years, legislation increasing criminal sanctions and penalties against OSHA Act violators will be reintroduced with vigor.
David Michaels, dark horse possible OSHA chief nominee, is a professor at George Washington University and was assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety, and health under Clinton. In a post he wrote for the blog “The Pump Handle,” Michael said: “(former OSHA boss) Mr. Foulke’s arguments are reminiscent of the climate change deniers who oppose government action on global warming, claiming the science is ‘not settled enough’ for OSHA to do what needs to be done. The agency’s claims about the number of new regulations published are also quite misleading.”
George Miller, 64, is chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, which covers OSHA and has put many an OSHSA chief’s feet to the fire in hearings. He has represented the 7th District of California in the East Bay of San Francisco since 1975. Introduced in Congress early in 2009 the Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosion and Fires Act (H.R. 5522). The bill, which passed in the House but not the Senate in 2008, would require OSHA to issue emergency rules to regulate combustible dust, like sugar dust, that can build up to hazardous levels and explode.
Franklin E. Mirer, PhD, CIH, Professor, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Urban Public Health Program, Hunter College School of Health Sciences, New York City. Long-time United Auto Workers safety and health director. Mirer has testified numerous time in Congress, arguing passionately that OSHA needs to set mandatory standards for a host of chemicals because chronic illness from long-term exposure at work accounts for 90 percent of known work-related mortality.
Celeste Monforton, MPH, is a researcher at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and former policy analyst at OSHA (1991-1995) and at MSHA (1996-2001) as special assistant to the assistant secretary of labor. She served as senior investigator with J.Davitt McAteer for the Governor of West Virginia’s special inquiry into the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster. A thought leader in workplace safety and health, Monforton has written extensively for the blog, “The Pump Handle.”
Peg Seminario, health and safety director for the AFL-CIO. Has spent more than 30 years working on safety and health issues, and has been involved in dozens of OSHA rulemakings on safety and health standards and regulations. Seminario is not zeroing in on another stab at an ergo standard. Instead she says silica, beryllium, confined space safety in construction, cranes and derricks should be the first standards priorities. Ergonomics can be handled a number of ways, she says: enforcement under the general duty clause, recordkeeping scrutiny, perhaps integrating ergonomics into a broad safety and health program rule.
Michael Silverstein, MD, MPH, clinical professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and former director of policy for OSHA (1993 – 1995). Recently had a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, “Getting Home Safe and Sound: Occupational Safety and Health Administration at 38.”
The paper suggests reframing the language of worker protection to link it with broad resonant themes of health and human rights, ensuring every employer has a comprehensive safety and health management program, and requiring every workplace to be inspected regularly using a third-party army of licensed professionals.
Emily Spieler, leader of the Obama Transition Team for OSHA. Board member, Public Health Advocacy Institute; Dean, Northeastern Law School. A central player in sifting through recommendations for the next OSHA boss.
Cass Sunstein, 54, recently appointed as President Obama’s new “regulatory czar,” making him a key player in deciding which risks to public health and the environment are regulated by the U.S. government, and how they are regulated. He is the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, who was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. An American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics. Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 27 years, and was Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Author of the book “Risk & Reason, Safety, Law and the Environment.” Sunstein's most recent book is “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness” (Yale University Press, 2008), which he co-authored with economist Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago. “Nudge” discusses how public and private organizations can help people make better choices in their daily lives.
In a 2008 article for Virginia Law Review “Is OSHA Unconstitutional?” Sunstein argues that provisions on standard setting in the OSH Act of 1970 are unconstitutionally vague. He asserts that OSHA is vulnerable to a Constitutional challenge based on the nondelegation doctrine, arguing that the terms “reasonably necessary or appropriate” and “feasible” are too vague for the agency’s decision-making purposes. He wrote: “Poor old OSHA – the agency charged with responsibility for keeping workers safe from toxic chemicals and dangerous equipment on the job site – is barely breathing today, having issued just two rules in a decade on toxic chemicals.”
Sunstein writes that if OSHA were to exercise the excessive power Congress gave it, companies could argue that “after close to 40 years of existence, a federal court should conclude that Congress must go back to the drawing board, rewriting the OSHA statute from scratch.”
Dr Andrea Taylor, professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Former member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. “This black woman has done so many things ‘first’ that we should call her our First Lady of Occupational Safety and Health,” said Ilise L Feitshans JD and ScM, author of “Designing an Effective OSHA Compliance Program, in an email to ISHN. “(Taylor) has served in UAW, had pathbreaking doctoral studies on hypertension before the term ‘health disparities’ was coined much less gained currency, and she has a wonderful command of scientific and technical issues.”
David M. Uhlmann, law professor at the University of Michigan, has been mentioned as a possible OSHA chief. Served for seven years as chief of the United States Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section, where he was the top environmental crimes prosecutor in the United States.
Wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times this past May stating: “Congress should make it a felony to commit a criminal violation of the worker-safety laws, and the penalties for lawbreakers should be stiffened. The maximum sentence ought to be measured in years, not months… Congress also should change the worker-safety laws so that ignorance of the law is no longer a defense. Employers have a duty to know their responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.” One source tells us Uhlmann is a favorite of Sen. Kennedy’s staff for a labor position in the Obama administration.
Frank White, former deputy at OSHA in charge of standards-setting and enforcement, and current senior vice president for ORC Worldwide’s Washington-based occupational safety and health consultancy.
“We are frankly weary of confrontation that perennially pervades the debates over workplace safety and health policy, that leads to political stalemate and that has alienated much of the safety and health community,” said White in an ORC White Paper issued in November, 2008 that gives specific details for a new approach to national occupational safety and health policy. ORC’s White Paper states: “…the 2008 election presents all of us in the safety and health community with a once in a generation opportunity to break the longstanding gridlock on progress in many key areas of safety and health policy.”
Lynn Woolsey. Democratic Congresswoman, 71, from California since 1993. Heads up the Workforce Protections subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee. Told the Las Vegas Sun in an interview November 24, 2008: “OSHA needs a complete overhaul.”
Out goes all the influence formerly enjoyed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and to a lesser extent think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
In comes the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the American Public Health Association, grassroots local and state coalitions of occupational safety and health (COSHs), labor law academics and occupational medicine professionals.
Here are individuals you will be hearing more from in the coming months and years:
Hilda Solis, 51, the secretary of labor, is a native of El Monte, California. She has a master's in public administration from the University of Southern California and an undergraduate degree from Cal Poly Pomona, and has made her career in government. At 28, she won a seat on the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees against two far more established politicians. In 1992, she won a California Assembly seat. In one of her first acts, she sided with labor against the tobacco industry and the Democratic leadership by voting in 1993 for legislation that banned smoking in all workplaces.
Solis became the first Latina elected to the California State Senate in 1994. She served there for six years. In 1995, her first year in the Senate, authorities raided an El Monte building fenced by razor wire. Inside, 72 Thai workers toiled 18 hours a day in “slave-like conditions,” stitching garments that were to be sold in shopping malls, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. Solis held high-profile hearings, called garment manufacturers to Sacramento to explain themselves and pushed for heavier enforcement of laws against sweatshops.
In 2000, Solis ran for the U.S. House of Representatives against an incumbent from her own party who had run afoul of labor by voting for the North American Free Trade Agreement. She won 62 percent of the vote in the primary. No Republican ran against her in the general election. In her years on Capitol Hill, Solis had a liberal voting record — she had a 97 percent approval rating from the AFL-CIO. Her father, Raul, was a Teamsters Union shop steward from Mexico. Her mother came from Nicaragua and worked on an assembly line for more than 20 years at a Mattel toy factory and belonged to the United Rubber Workers.
A Republican state senator from California, who battled with Solis when she headed a budget subcommittee, called her "a committed liberal in the pockets of labor," according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
“I know that my seven siblings and I would not be where we are today without the wages and other protections my parents earned with the help of their union,” Solis wrote for the Huffington Post on March 2, 2007, after the House approved the Employee Free Choice Act.
At the time of her nomination to be labor secretary, Solis was the only member of Congress on the board of a pro-union group, American Right at Work, according to Politico.com.
"Her toughness will be underestimated, and her idealism will be discounted," Tom Hayden, a former state Senate colleague and an ally on Solis’s anti-sweatshop campaign, told the Los Angeles Times.
Hamid Arabzadeh, MS, CIH, CSP, REA, CHMM, principal of HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., Irvine, Calif. Said by many to be extremely keen on the OSHA chief job. “He’s politically well-connected, has the support of Sen. Tom Harkin (in September, Harkin sponsored a resolution in the Senate recognizing the importance of workplace wellness as a strategy to help maximize employees' health and well being), and has attended Democratic campaign fundraisers in Los Angeles,” says one source. Other sources say he has made numerous trips to Washington to line up supporters including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and members of the House of Representatives Loretta Sanchez, Laura Richardson, Brian Bilbray, Ed Royce and George Radonovich, all from California. Bilbray, Royce and Radonovich are republicans.
From 1992 to 1997, Arabzadeh was the corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation, with worldwide responsibilities, and later the director of the EH&S Branch at Los Angeles Unified School District. Arabzadeh holds two graduate degrees in Occupational Health Sciences and Industrial Hygiene. A native of Iran, Arabzadeh is a staunch and vocal activist for human rights in his native country.
Jordan Barab put to bed after several years of toil his blog “Confined Space” which enjoyed a cult-like following among health and safety professionals, and now occupies a senior policy advisor position on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. The move affords him influence beyond what he could achieve in the blogosphere. He could be in line for a deputy or policy director position at OSHA.
Bill Borwegen MPH, director of occupational health and safety for the Service Employees International Union, has been on the cutting edge of emerging safety and health issues such as patient handling and healthcare risks, sustainability, and health promotion.
Mark Briggs surfaced in late March as a possible OSHA chief candidate. Briggs is campus risk manager at the University of Illinois. He joined the university’s Division of Public Safety in 2000, coming to the job with experience in risk management consulting and the insurance industries. Briggs owned a safety and risk management consultancy full-time for seven years, after having worked in the insurance industry for 11 years. He is a graduate of the health sciences/safety program at Illinois State University and has earned professional designations of Associate in Risk Management and Certified Safety Professional. He is an active member of several national associations, including the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).
In a 2003 video released by ASSE to commemorate Labor Day, the group said its members were responding to the changing face of workplace safety following 9/11. "We've entered a whole new phase," Briggs said in the video. "We are more focused now on emergency planning, trying to plan for contingencies that were not on our radar screen before."
Adam Finkel is a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and was a vocal OSHA regional administrator and director of health standards at the agency, often leveling charges of political incompetence at his bosses in Washington.
Eric Frumin. Fiery director of the safety and health program for UNITE-HERE, a labor union in the garment, textile, laundry, and hospitality industries. Frumin is also occupational safety and health coordinator for Change to Win, a group of seven unions and six million workers that broke away from the AFL-CIO.
Ron Hayes, called a “hellraiser” by Mother Jones magazine, is a grassroots job safety activist and trainer based in Alabama. His son suffocated to death in a grain silo in 1993. Has the ear of Kennedy’s OSHA staff specialist and has gone fishing with Republican Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, one of very few senators on either side of the aisle interested in OSHA issues.
Seth Harris was named by President Obama to be deputy secretary of labor, the number two spot at the Department of Labor. Harris worked for the Obama campaign and served in the Clinton administration. Harris was the Obama Transition Project’s Agency Working Group Leader for the labor, education, and transportation agencies. During the Clinton administration, he served as counselor to the secretary of labor and acting assistant secretary of labor for policy, among other policy-advising positions. Before returning to Washington this year, Harris was a professor and the director of Labor & Employment Law Programs at New York Law School.
Kitty Higgins. Kathryn O’Leary Higgins’s name was brought to our attention in late March as a potential candidate for the top OSHA slot, after Peg Seminario and Dr. John Howard dropped out of the running. Since 2006, she has been a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… is very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor in Democratic administrations. She served as deputy secretary of President’s Clinton’s Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet.” “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Higgins has also served in the White House (February 1995 – July 1997) as assistant to President Clinton and secretary to the Cabinet. In that capacity she worked closely with the NTSB, Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, and Coast Guard on a number of matters, including the 1996 ValuJet 597 and TWA 800 accidents, developing and implementing hazardous materials regulations, increasing inspector staffing, FAA reauthorization, and creation of the NTSB Office of Family Assistance.
In the Carter administration, Higgins was with the White House Domestic Policy Council, serving as assistant director for employment policy (May 1978 –January 1981). From January 1981 to January 1986 Higgins was senior legislative associate and minority staff director with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.
Dr. John Howard, former head of NIOSH and the California OSHA state program. In a speech given November 11, 2008, Dr. Howard said research, education and assistance at OSHA is uncoordinated; OSHA’s insularity leads to a “go it alone” attitude; the accuracy of non-fatal injuries and illness recordkeeping needs to be investigated, and existing OSHA standards are not matched to the existing causes of worker injuries and illnesses. Might get his old job at NIOSH back if the top OSHA position he wants is not in the offing.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has written legislation, co-sponsored by Obama, to make modest changes to OSHA law. At some point in the next four years, legislation increasing criminal sanctions and penalties against OSHA Act violators will be reintroduced with vigor.
David Michaels, dark horse possible OSHA chief nominee, is a professor at George Washington University and was assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety, and health under Clinton. In a post he wrote for the blog “The Pump Handle,” Michael said: “(former OSHA boss) Mr. Foulke’s arguments are reminiscent of the climate change deniers who oppose government action on global warming, claiming the science is ‘not settled enough’ for OSHA to do what needs to be done. The agency’s claims about the number of new regulations published are also quite misleading.”
George Miller, 64, is chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, which covers OSHA and has put many an OSHSA chief’s feet to the fire in hearings. He has represented the 7th District of California in the East Bay of San Francisco since 1975. Introduced in Congress early in 2009 the Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosion and Fires Act (H.R. 5522). The bill, which passed in the House but not the Senate in 2008, would require OSHA to issue emergency rules to regulate combustible dust, like sugar dust, that can build up to hazardous levels and explode.
Franklin E. Mirer, PhD, CIH, Professor, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Urban Public Health Program, Hunter College School of Health Sciences, New York City. Long-time United Auto Workers safety and health director. Mirer has testified numerous time in Congress, arguing passionately that OSHA needs to set mandatory standards for a host of chemicals because chronic illness from long-term exposure at work accounts for 90 percent of known work-related mortality.
Celeste Monforton, MPH, is a researcher at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and former policy analyst at OSHA (1991-1995) and at MSHA (1996-2001) as special assistant to the assistant secretary of labor. She served as senior investigator with J.Davitt McAteer for the Governor of West Virginia’s special inquiry into the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster. A thought leader in workplace safety and health, Monforton has written extensively for the blog, “The Pump Handle.”
Peg Seminario, health and safety director for the AFL-CIO. Has spent more than 30 years working on safety and health issues, and has been involved in dozens of OSHA rulemakings on safety and health standards and regulations. Seminario is not zeroing in on another stab at an ergo standard. Instead she says silica, beryllium, confined space safety in construction, cranes and derricks should be the first standards priorities. Ergonomics can be handled a number of ways, she says: enforcement under the general duty clause, recordkeeping scrutiny, perhaps integrating ergonomics into a broad safety and health program rule.
Michael Silverstein, MD, MPH, clinical professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and former director of policy for OSHA (1993 – 1995). Recently had a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, “Getting Home Safe and Sound: Occupational Safety and Health Administration at 38.”
The paper suggests reframing the language of worker protection to link it with broad resonant themes of health and human rights, ensuring every employer has a comprehensive safety and health management program, and requiring every workplace to be inspected regularly using a third-party army of licensed professionals.
Emily Spieler, leader of the Obama Transition Team for OSHA. Board member, Public Health Advocacy Institute; Dean, Northeastern Law School. A central player in sifting through recommendations for the next OSHA boss.
Cass Sunstein, 54, recently appointed as President Obama’s new “regulatory czar,” making him a key player in deciding which risks to public health and the environment are regulated by the U.S. government, and how they are regulated. He is the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, who was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. An American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics. Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 27 years, and was Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Author of the book “Risk & Reason, Safety, Law and the Environment.” Sunstein's most recent book is “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness” (Yale University Press, 2008), which he co-authored with economist Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago. “Nudge” discusses how public and private organizations can help people make better choices in their daily lives.
In a 2008 article for Virginia Law Review “Is OSHA Unconstitutional?” Sunstein argues that provisions on standard setting in the OSH Act of 1970 are unconstitutionally vague. He asserts that OSHA is vulnerable to a Constitutional challenge based on the nondelegation doctrine, arguing that the terms “reasonably necessary or appropriate” and “feasible” are too vague for the agency’s decision-making purposes. He wrote: “Poor old OSHA – the agency charged with responsibility for keeping workers safe from toxic chemicals and dangerous equipment on the job site – is barely breathing today, having issued just two rules in a decade on toxic chemicals.”
Sunstein writes that if OSHA were to exercise the excessive power Congress gave it, companies could argue that “after close to 40 years of existence, a federal court should conclude that Congress must go back to the drawing board, rewriting the OSHA statute from scratch.”
Dr Andrea Taylor, professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Former member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. “This black woman has done so many things ‘first’ that we should call her our First Lady of Occupational Safety and Health,” said Ilise L Feitshans JD and ScM, author of “Designing an Effective OSHA Compliance Program, in an email to ISHN. “(Taylor) has served in UAW, had pathbreaking doctoral studies on hypertension before the term ‘health disparities’ was coined much less gained currency, and she has a wonderful command of scientific and technical issues.”
David M. Uhlmann, law professor at the University of Michigan, has been mentioned as a possible OSHA chief. Served for seven years as chief of the United States Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section, where he was the top environmental crimes prosecutor in the United States.
Wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times this past May stating: “Congress should make it a felony to commit a criminal violation of the worker-safety laws, and the penalties for lawbreakers should be stiffened. The maximum sentence ought to be measured in years, not months… Congress also should change the worker-safety laws so that ignorance of the law is no longer a defense. Employers have a duty to know their responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.” One source tells us Uhlmann is a favorite of Sen. Kennedy’s staff for a labor position in the Obama administration.
Frank White, former deputy at OSHA in charge of standards-setting and enforcement, and current senior vice president for ORC Worldwide’s Washington-based occupational safety and health consultancy.
“We are frankly weary of confrontation that perennially pervades the debates over workplace safety and health policy, that leads to political stalemate and that has alienated much of the safety and health community,” said White in an ORC White Paper issued in November, 2008 that gives specific details for a new approach to national occupational safety and health policy. ORC’s White Paper states: “…the 2008 election presents all of us in the safety and health community with a once in a generation opportunity to break the longstanding gridlock on progress in many key areas of safety and health policy.”
Lynn Woolsey. Democratic Congresswoman, 71, from California since 1993. Heads up the Workforce Protections subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee. Told the Las Vegas Sun in an interview November 24, 2008: “OSHA needs a complete overhaul.”
The coming OSHA standards wars
Press headlines since the election have included these: “A new administration, ergo, a new chance for ergo;” “Labor’s revival could reignite fight over ergonomics.” Indeed, during the presidential campaign Obama issued a written statement that said many workers are susceptible to debilitating musculoskeletal injuries, and that OSHA “must attack this problem with all of the tools at its disposal: regulations, enforcement, training and compliance assistance.”
But Dr. John Howard reminded his audience in a speech given in November, 2008: “Development of such a standard (for ergonomics) will be a challenge since the Congressional Review Act (CRA) requires that any new MSD (musculoskeletal disorders) standard, replacing the one that was nullified by the CRA in 2001, must be substantially different.”
Some job safety activists argue that OSHA should adopt Cal/OSHA’s ergonomics standard, which applies to a job, process or operation where a repetitive motion injury (RMI) has occurred to more than one employee under these conditions:
1) Work related causation. The repetitive motion injuries (RMIs) were predominantly caused (i.e. 50 percent or more) by a repetitive job, process, or operation;
2) Relationship between RMIs at the workplace. The employees incurring the RMIs were performing a job process, or operation of identical work activity. Identical work activity means that the employees were performing the same repetitive motion task, such as but not limited to word processing, assembly or, loading;
3) Medical requirements. The RMIs were musculoskeletal injuries that a licensed physician objectively identified and diagnosed; and
4 Time requirements. The RMIs were reported by the employees to the employer in the last 12 months but not before July 3, 1997.
Every employer subject to the standard is required to implement a program designed to minimize RMIs. The program consists of:
1) Worksite evaluation. Each job, process, or operation of identical work activity covered by this section or a representative number of such jobs, processes, or operations of identical work activities shall be evaluated for exposures which have caused RMIs.
2) Control of exposures that have caused RMIs. Any exposures that have caused RMIs shall, in a timely manner, be corrected or if not capable of being corrected have the exposures minimized to the extent feasible. The employer shall consider engineering controls, such as work station redesign, adjustable fixtures or tool redesign, and administrative controls, such as job rotation, work pacing or work breaks.
3) Training. Employees shall be provided training that includes an explanation of: the employer's program; the exposures which have been associated with RMIs; the symptoms and consequences of injuries caused by repetitive motion; the importance of reporting symptoms and injuries to the employer; and methods used by the employer to minimize RMIs.
A number of job safety and health experts advocate that OSHA avoid the quagmire of ergonomics standard-setting and instead put its limited resources into a mandatory safety and health program management set of requirements. Again, Cal/OSHA offers a model with its injury and illness prevention program standard that supporters claim is flexible, performance-based, and has engendered scant compliance headaches.
Dr. Howard, in his speech last November, asked: “Should a risk-based occupational safety and health management system regulation (come first)? “Some might say yes, if for no other reason to harmonize OSHA’s own promotion of such risk safety and health management systems for their voluntary programs, with their reticence to consider placement of a risk-based management standard on its regulatory agenda for all employers.”
Some experts, including the AFL-CIO’s Peg Seminario, advocate going this route. Seminario says a national safety and health program rule should have been the first standard OSHA issued in 1971, and such a standard could encompass and address ergonomic risks. But a number of labor safety officials want this rule to mandate worker safety committees and worker training, which business groups will bitterly oppose, especially mandatory committees.
One of, if not the most important, decisions facing the new OSHA boss early on will be whether the agency is to pursue an ergonomics standard or a safety and health program rule, or ambitiously decides to tackle both.
Another key decision of the new OSHA chief will be how to address the hundred of out-of-date permissible exposure limits (PELs), if at all.
David Michaels, an epidemiologist and research professor at George Washington University, who has been mentioned as a dark horse for the top OSHA job, wrote in a 2005 article in Scientific American: “Out of the almost 3,000 chemicals produced in large quantities (more than one-million pounds annually), OSHA enforces exposure limits for fewer than 500… The vast majority… are still ‘regulated’ by voluntary standards set before 1971, which the newly created agency adopted them uncritically and unchanged. New science has had no impact on them. I conclude that successive OSHA administrators have simply recognized that establishing new standards is so time- and labor-intensive, and will inevitably call forth such orchestrated opposition from industry, that it is not worth expending the agency’s limited resources on the issue.
Outside groups of experts have grappled several times in the past 20 years on how to “fix” the PELs, with the idea of forwarding their recommendations to OSHA. But nothing has been delivered to OSHA’s doorstep, as union and business participants in these ad hoc advisory groups have not come close to backing down or compromising on their health (unions) versus costs (business) concerns.
In March, 2009, another stab at presenting ideas to revive and reinvent the process of updating exposure limits was floated by a group that includes former OSHA chief John Henshaw, current OSHA regional administrator Chuck Adkins, long-time union member Frank Mirer, ten certified industrial hygienists, the current president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and three past presidents.
Dr. Howard posed this question in his speech last November: “Is there a way to get statutory permission to again incorporate voluntary consensus occupational exposure limits into OSHA standards? Or should OSHA only work on those air contaminants that have the most exposure in the residual manufacturing workforce in America?”
When it comes to the thorny problem of updating PELs, one thing is sure: it’s easier to ask questions than come up with answers.
But Dr. John Howard reminded his audience in a speech given in November, 2008: “Development of such a standard (for ergonomics) will be a challenge since the Congressional Review Act (CRA) requires that any new MSD (musculoskeletal disorders) standard, replacing the one that was nullified by the CRA in 2001, must be substantially different.”
Some job safety activists argue that OSHA should adopt Cal/OSHA’s ergonomics standard, which applies to a job, process or operation where a repetitive motion injury (RMI) has occurred to more than one employee under these conditions:
1) Work related causation. The repetitive motion injuries (RMIs) were predominantly caused (i.e. 50 percent or more) by a repetitive job, process, or operation;
2) Relationship between RMIs at the workplace. The employees incurring the RMIs were performing a job process, or operation of identical work activity. Identical work activity means that the employees were performing the same repetitive motion task, such as but not limited to word processing, assembly or, loading;
3) Medical requirements. The RMIs were musculoskeletal injuries that a licensed physician objectively identified and diagnosed; and
4 Time requirements. The RMIs were reported by the employees to the employer in the last 12 months but not before July 3, 1997.
Every employer subject to the standard is required to implement a program designed to minimize RMIs. The program consists of:
1) Worksite evaluation. Each job, process, or operation of identical work activity covered by this section or a representative number of such jobs, processes, or operations of identical work activities shall be evaluated for exposures which have caused RMIs.
2) Control of exposures that have caused RMIs. Any exposures that have caused RMIs shall, in a timely manner, be corrected or if not capable of being corrected have the exposures minimized to the extent feasible. The employer shall consider engineering controls, such as work station redesign, adjustable fixtures or tool redesign, and administrative controls, such as job rotation, work pacing or work breaks.
3) Training. Employees shall be provided training that includes an explanation of: the employer's program; the exposures which have been associated with RMIs; the symptoms and consequences of injuries caused by repetitive motion; the importance of reporting symptoms and injuries to the employer; and methods used by the employer to minimize RMIs.
A number of job safety and health experts advocate that OSHA avoid the quagmire of ergonomics standard-setting and instead put its limited resources into a mandatory safety and health program management set of requirements. Again, Cal/OSHA offers a model with its injury and illness prevention program standard that supporters claim is flexible, performance-based, and has engendered scant compliance headaches.
Dr. Howard, in his speech last November, asked: “Should a risk-based occupational safety and health management system regulation (come first)? “Some might say yes, if for no other reason to harmonize OSHA’s own promotion of such risk safety and health management systems for their voluntary programs, with their reticence to consider placement of a risk-based management standard on its regulatory agenda for all employers.”
Some experts, including the AFL-CIO’s Peg Seminario, advocate going this route. Seminario says a national safety and health program rule should have been the first standard OSHA issued in 1971, and such a standard could encompass and address ergonomic risks. But a number of labor safety officials want this rule to mandate worker safety committees and worker training, which business groups will bitterly oppose, especially mandatory committees.
One of, if not the most important, decisions facing the new OSHA boss early on will be whether the agency is to pursue an ergonomics standard or a safety and health program rule, or ambitiously decides to tackle both.
Another key decision of the new OSHA chief will be how to address the hundred of out-of-date permissible exposure limits (PELs), if at all.
David Michaels, an epidemiologist and research professor at George Washington University, who has been mentioned as a dark horse for the top OSHA job, wrote in a 2005 article in Scientific American: “Out of the almost 3,000 chemicals produced in large quantities (more than one-million pounds annually), OSHA enforces exposure limits for fewer than 500… The vast majority… are still ‘regulated’ by voluntary standards set before 1971, which the newly created agency adopted them uncritically and unchanged. New science has had no impact on them. I conclude that successive OSHA administrators have simply recognized that establishing new standards is so time- and labor-intensive, and will inevitably call forth such orchestrated opposition from industry, that it is not worth expending the agency’s limited resources on the issue.
Outside groups of experts have grappled several times in the past 20 years on how to “fix” the PELs, with the idea of forwarding their recommendations to OSHA. But nothing has been delivered to OSHA’s doorstep, as union and business participants in these ad hoc advisory groups have not come close to backing down or compromising on their health (unions) versus costs (business) concerns.
In March, 2009, another stab at presenting ideas to revive and reinvent the process of updating exposure limits was floated by a group that includes former OSHA chief John Henshaw, current OSHA regional administrator Chuck Adkins, long-time union member Frank Mirer, ten certified industrial hygienists, the current president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and three past presidents.
Dr. Howard posed this question in his speech last November: “Is there a way to get statutory permission to again incorporate voluntary consensus occupational exposure limits into OSHA standards? Or should OSHA only work on those air contaminants that have the most exposure in the residual manufacturing workforce in America?”
When it comes to the thorny problem of updating PELs, one thing is sure: it’s easier to ask questions than come up with answers.
OSHA standards: Short-term expectations
OSHA chiefs have a history of lasting roughly three years in the job. This narrow window has always been to the detriment of standards-setting. Standards are either rushed out to beat a changing of the guard in the White House (see ergonomics), or are dragged out through multiple reviews and revisions incurred by multiple regime changes.
The year 2011 will probably see the most standards-setting activity by the next OSHA chief. OSHA’s new boss won’t officially take office most likely until this fall, and most of 2010 will go to putting together a leadership team, setting a course, and getting the lay of the agency land. By 2012, the agency will be operating under the unofficial rules of election-year conduct, which basically mean do nothing to screw up the president’s reelection.
So advance notices of proposed rulemaking could come in 2010, with actual proposals in 2011. Final rules, particularly for complex and contested issues (such as a safety and health program management standard) would hinge on President Obama’s reelection and come sometime after 2012.
Already in the pipeline:
Hearings recently were held on OSHA’s proposed update of cranes and derricks regulations. Given the catastrophes involving cranes toppling over in Manhattan in the recent past, the agency will be hard-pressed not to push ahead with a final standard here, and quickly. The same pressure, again due to negative publicity, applies to regulating occupational exposure to food flavorings containing diacetyl.
Coming soon:
A caveat: in the world of OSHA standards-setting, “soon” is a rubbery term that can be stretched over years. Standards have a notoriously lengthy gestation period at the agency. That should change to a degree with a Department of Labor regime more supportive of organized labor’s standards goals, but small business advocacy review panels, comment periods, hearings, post-hearing comment periods and the Obama administration’s emphasis on transparency in rulemaking processes all will slow down standards writing.
Also, the current economic crisis, which could drag on who knows how long, will certainly act as a brake on standards-setting and the associated compliance cost burden.
What you can expect are more announcements of intentions to regulate in specific cases. To issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking is a rather politically painless move. It draws media, professional, and employer attention to an issue before OSHA hunkers down for the time-consuming, devil-in-the-details work of writing a standard that is technologically and economically feasible, meets cost-benefit requirements, and then defends its proposal against all comers.
Prediction: Within the next 12 months, OSHA will make announcements concerning standards-setting actions for silica exposures, beryllium exposures, confined spaces in construction, global harmonization of MSDSs and hearing conservation in construction.
The year 2011 will probably see the most standards-setting activity by the next OSHA chief. OSHA’s new boss won’t officially take office most likely until this fall, and most of 2010 will go to putting together a leadership team, setting a course, and getting the lay of the agency land. By 2012, the agency will be operating under the unofficial rules of election-year conduct, which basically mean do nothing to screw up the president’s reelection.
So advance notices of proposed rulemaking could come in 2010, with actual proposals in 2011. Final rules, particularly for complex and contested issues (such as a safety and health program management standard) would hinge on President Obama’s reelection and come sometime after 2012.
Already in the pipeline:
Hearings recently were held on OSHA’s proposed update of cranes and derricks regulations. Given the catastrophes involving cranes toppling over in Manhattan in the recent past, the agency will be hard-pressed not to push ahead with a final standard here, and quickly. The same pressure, again due to negative publicity, applies to regulating occupational exposure to food flavorings containing diacetyl.
Coming soon:
A caveat: in the world of OSHA standards-setting, “soon” is a rubbery term that can be stretched over years. Standards have a notoriously lengthy gestation period at the agency. That should change to a degree with a Department of Labor regime more supportive of organized labor’s standards goals, but small business advocacy review panels, comment periods, hearings, post-hearing comment periods and the Obama administration’s emphasis on transparency in rulemaking processes all will slow down standards writing.
Also, the current economic crisis, which could drag on who knows how long, will certainly act as a brake on standards-setting and the associated compliance cost burden.
What you can expect are more announcements of intentions to regulate in specific cases. To issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking is a rather politically painless move. It draws media, professional, and employer attention to an issue before OSHA hunkers down for the time-consuming, devil-in-the-details work of writing a standard that is technologically and economically feasible, meets cost-benefit requirements, and then defends its proposal against all comers.
Prediction: Within the next 12 months, OSHA will make announcements concerning standards-setting actions for silica exposures, beryllium exposures, confined spaces in construction, global harmonization of MSDSs and hearing conservation in construction.
OSHA Enforcement: What to expect
The ramping up of OSHA enforcement is already underway. The agency has generated a publicity blitz since January, 2009 with press releases focusing on trenching violation penalty cases and combustible dust enforcement actions.
Several OSHA compliance officers who anonymously pen blogs on agency activity (“OSHA Underground” and “OSHA Aboveground”) have proclaimed enforcement is back. “No more excuses. The dynamic has changed,” wrote the OSHA Underground blogger.
One of organized labor’s top priorities for the agency is enforcement with much more bite, and in Labor Secretary Solis labor has a sympathetic ear. One source tells us Solis knows little about the technicalities of occupational safety and health, but has said OSHA should be in the enforcement business.
At her Senate confirmation hearing, Solis said publicly: “The Labor Department is charged with assuring compliance with dozens of employment laws. I believe these laws codify values that are fundamental to our society. A fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. Workers should not have to sacrifice their lives or their health to keep their jobs.”
She also told Senators: “My father was a Teamsters shop steward who regularly told us about the opportunities his union association would bring to help secure our family a place in America’s middle class.”
One source tells us once a new OSHA chief is confirmed, probably late summer or early fall, enforcement will “start with a bang.” Look for an enforcement strategy focusing on hexavalent chromium exposures (in support of OSHA’s 2006 standard that lowered permissible exposure limit) and confined space hazards in construction (where the agency does not now have a standard in place).
OSHA enforcement historically has been a strategy tool to focus attention where agency standards cannot or do not tread, or are ineffective in mitigating patterns of violations. The agency came down with harsh penalties on recordkeeping in the mid-1980s after extensive under-reporting was uncovered. Look for recordkeeping enforcement to again make a strong comeback in the wake of the widespread belief that under-reporting is common. Déjà vu all over again.
Construction activity, long a prime focus of OSHA inspections, will come in for heavy enforcement action. This is due to: 1) the federal stimulus package that promises a boom in infrastructure building and rebuilding; 2) unregulated or out-of-date standards pertaining to silica, beryllium, lead, cranes and derricks, hearing conservation in construction and confined spaces in construction; and 3) the tremendous influx of immigrant workers (between 1999-2001 one out of two net new labor force participants in the U.S. was a foreign immigrant) and what Dr. John Howard describes as the rise of “precarious employment” — temporary workers, day laborers, and contingent workers with no promise of long-term stable employment. Given Labor Secretary Solis’s immigrant parents and her activism in Los Angeles fighting sweatshops, it is no stretch to envision an OSHA much more aggressive in trying to enforce protection of these vulnerable work populations often found on construction sites.
Finally, OSHA probably will increase its use of enforcement to address musculoskeletal disorders, again in the absence of a standard.
This post comes from an anonymous compliance officer on the blog “OSHA Underground: “OSHA issued a handful of ergonomic citations under Ed Foulke. He made the process lengthen to a point where our people quit even doing proposals for citations. We see the Solis era marked by a surge of training to the compliance safety and health officers (COSHs) and triple the efforts of the previous administration.”
Several OSHA compliance officers who anonymously pen blogs on agency activity (“OSHA Underground” and “OSHA Aboveground”) have proclaimed enforcement is back. “No more excuses. The dynamic has changed,” wrote the OSHA Underground blogger.
One of organized labor’s top priorities for the agency is enforcement with much more bite, and in Labor Secretary Solis labor has a sympathetic ear. One source tells us Solis knows little about the technicalities of occupational safety and health, but has said OSHA should be in the enforcement business.
At her Senate confirmation hearing, Solis said publicly: “The Labor Department is charged with assuring compliance with dozens of employment laws. I believe these laws codify values that are fundamental to our society. A fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. Workers should not have to sacrifice their lives or their health to keep their jobs.”
She also told Senators: “My father was a Teamsters shop steward who regularly told us about the opportunities his union association would bring to help secure our family a place in America’s middle class.”
One source tells us once a new OSHA chief is confirmed, probably late summer or early fall, enforcement will “start with a bang.” Look for an enforcement strategy focusing on hexavalent chromium exposures (in support of OSHA’s 2006 standard that lowered permissible exposure limit) and confined space hazards in construction (where the agency does not now have a standard in place).
OSHA enforcement historically has been a strategy tool to focus attention where agency standards cannot or do not tread, or are ineffective in mitigating patterns of violations. The agency came down with harsh penalties on recordkeeping in the mid-1980s after extensive under-reporting was uncovered. Look for recordkeeping enforcement to again make a strong comeback in the wake of the widespread belief that under-reporting is common. Déjà vu all over again.
Construction activity, long a prime focus of OSHA inspections, will come in for heavy enforcement action. This is due to: 1) the federal stimulus package that promises a boom in infrastructure building and rebuilding; 2) unregulated or out-of-date standards pertaining to silica, beryllium, lead, cranes and derricks, hearing conservation in construction and confined spaces in construction; and 3) the tremendous influx of immigrant workers (between 1999-2001 one out of two net new labor force participants in the U.S. was a foreign immigrant) and what Dr. John Howard describes as the rise of “precarious employment” — temporary workers, day laborers, and contingent workers with no promise of long-term stable employment. Given Labor Secretary Solis’s immigrant parents and her activism in Los Angeles fighting sweatshops, it is no stretch to envision an OSHA much more aggressive in trying to enforce protection of these vulnerable work populations often found on construction sites.
Finally, OSHA probably will increase its use of enforcement to address musculoskeletal disorders, again in the absence of a standard.
This post comes from an anonymous compliance officer on the blog “OSHA Underground: “OSHA issued a handful of ergonomic citations under Ed Foulke. He made the process lengthen to a point where our people quit even doing proposals for citations. We see the Solis era marked by a surge of training to the compliance safety and health officers (COSHs) and triple the efforts of the previous administration.”
OSHA chief selection: Going to Plan B
With word from Washington that former lead contenders for the top OSHA slot, the AFL-CIO’s Peg Seminario and former NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard are out of the running, and industrial hygienist Hamid Abrabzadeh is facing mounting labor opposition, who else might make the OSHA short list?
An intriguing name was brought to our attention in late March by a Washington source: Kathryn O’Leary Higgins. Since 2006, Kitty Higgins has worked directly in the safety field as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… (she is) a lady very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor. She served as deputy secretary of the Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet. “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Another name that surfaced recently is Mark Briggs, campus risk manager at the University of Illinois. Briggs joined the university’s Division of Public Safety in 2000, coming to the job with experience in risk management consulting and the insurance industries. Briggs owned a safety and risk management consultancy full-time for seven years, after having worked in the insurance industry for 11 years. He is a graduate of the health sciences/safety program at Illinois State University and has earned professional designations of Associate in Risk Management and Certified Safety Professional. He is an active member of several national associations, including the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).
In a 2003 video released by ASSE to commemorate Labor Day, the group said its members were responding to the changing face of workplace safety following 9/11. "We've entered a whole new phase," Briggs said in the video. "We are more focused now on emergency planning, trying to plan for contingencies that were not on our radar screen before."
One source tells us state OSHA program administrators are being looked at by the search committee. Peter DeLucca, recently retired head of the respected Oregon OSHA program, has been one name mentioned. Several sources tell us Charles Jeffress would be interested in returning to his old job as OSHA chief now that Seminario is no longer in the picture. He could be a compromise candidate. As once source told us, “Perhaps the best you can hope for is lukewarm support from business and labor (since they will almost never agree on anything OSHA-related).”
Sources say other names that have surfaced since the November election do not appear to have much traction, such as Dr. Michael Silverstein (clinical professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and former director of policy for OSHA from1993 to 1995), Frank Mirer (former head of the United Auto Workers safety and health department, now professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the Hunter School of Urban Public Health in New York City),.Jordan Barab (senior policy advsior for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor), and David Michaels (professor at George Washington University and assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety, and health under President Clinton).
Remember this: seasoned OSHA-watchers in Washington say never rule out a surprise selection. Hilda Solis was not on anyone’s watch list for the Secretary of Labor job. When it comes to Washington chatter, the age-old adage still holds: “Those that know ain’t saying, and those that are saying don’t know.”
An intriguing name was brought to our attention in late March by a Washington source: Kathryn O’Leary Higgins. Since 2006, Kitty Higgins has worked directly in the safety field as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… (she is) a lady very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor. She served as deputy secretary of the Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet. “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Another name that surfaced recently is Mark Briggs, campus risk manager at the University of Illinois. Briggs joined the university’s Division of Public Safety in 2000, coming to the job with experience in risk management consulting and the insurance industries. Briggs owned a safety and risk management consultancy full-time for seven years, after having worked in the insurance industry for 11 years. He is a graduate of the health sciences/safety program at Illinois State University and has earned professional designations of Associate in Risk Management and Certified Safety Professional. He is an active member of several national associations, including the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, the Risk and Insurance Management Society, and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).
In a 2003 video released by ASSE to commemorate Labor Day, the group said its members were responding to the changing face of workplace safety following 9/11. "We've entered a whole new phase," Briggs said in the video. "We are more focused now on emergency planning, trying to plan for contingencies that were not on our radar screen before."
One source tells us state OSHA program administrators are being looked at by the search committee. Peter DeLucca, recently retired head of the respected Oregon OSHA program, has been one name mentioned. Several sources tell us Charles Jeffress would be interested in returning to his old job as OSHA chief now that Seminario is no longer in the picture. He could be a compromise candidate. As once source told us, “Perhaps the best you can hope for is lukewarm support from business and labor (since they will almost never agree on anything OSHA-related).”
Sources say other names that have surfaced since the November election do not appear to have much traction, such as Dr. Michael Silverstein (clinical professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and former director of policy for OSHA from1993 to 1995), Frank Mirer (former head of the United Auto Workers safety and health department, now professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the Hunter School of Urban Public Health in New York City),.Jordan Barab (senior policy advsior for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor), and David Michaels (professor at George Washington University and assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety, and health under President Clinton).
Remember this: seasoned OSHA-watchers in Washington say never rule out a surprise selection. Hilda Solis was not on anyone’s watch list for the Secretary of Labor job. When it comes to Washington chatter, the age-old adage still holds: “Those that know ain’t saying, and those that are saying don’t know.”
OSHA chief selection: 10 little, 9 little, 8 little Indians…
The process of picking the next OSHA chief is beginning to resemble ten little, nine little, eight little Indians, as of late March, according to our interviews with Washington insiders and supporters of individuals who once were leading candidates.
These sources would only speak to us off-the-record. Many have relationships with all the leading candidates in what source describes as the “rather small health and safety professional family,” and do not want to jeopardize future access and working partnerships. In other instances, sources represent organizations and are not authorized to publicly speak for their employers.
Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s leading spokesperson on workplace safety and health issues since the early 1990s and an AFL-CIO health and safety official since 1977, was for several months after the November election considered all but a cinch for the top OSHA job.
Not anymore.
She is no longer in the running, multiple sources tell us. According to one source, her name was officially withdrawn in a meeting between AFL-CIO President George Sweeney and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Friday, March 20. Another source confirmed Seminario was no longer a candidate, citing conversations he had with Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office.
Dr. John Howard, former NIOSH director, is also out, according to sources. Dr. Howard, Seminario, and industrial hygiene consultant Hamid Arabzadeh were widely thought to comprise the three names on a short list soon to be submitted to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis for her final decision,
What has happened in the past two weeks?
In recent weeks sources told us Seminario’s star was fading due to White House fears that her advocacy for increased funding for health monitoring and medical treatment of 9/11 Ground Zero responders and residents in Manhattan, and her earlier support for legislation compensating asbestos exposure victims, could be construed as lobbying. According to several sources, White House lawyers deliberated if Seminario was in effect a lobbyist, something that would very likely rule her out due to President Obama’s vow to bar lobbyists from influential political appointments. According to some sources, the White House decided Seminario could be categorized as a lobbyist.
But since Seminario’s lobbying was only a small part of her job, a loophole could have allowed the White House to go ahead and name her OSHA chief. Why didn’t it happen?
From sources we’ve gleaned three possible explanations. One has to do with the lobbyist tag. The second: the White House’s decision on Seminario could have been affected by the intense fighting over the Employee Free Choice Act now being waged in the U.S. Senate.
The legislation, which is organized labor’s number one national policy priority, would permit workers to form unions by getting a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards to join without having to hold a secret ballot election, and it mandates that if employers and workers cannot reach a contract within 120 days, a government arbitrator intervene and set terms. For the White House to throw its weight behind labor’s number one legislative priority, and then turn around and name a long-time union official to OSHA, would be rubbing salt in the open wounds of business groups such as the U.S Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, according to several sources. It could also create the perception the White House was completely turning the Department of Labor into the Department of Organized Labor, according to sources. Labor Secretary Solis has a long history of supporting organized labor causes in her former Los Angeles congressional district; she benefited greatly from labor support in her congressional campaigns; and she happens to have a father and mother who both were union members.
One source, however, offers a third explanation. He tells us Seminario was never, from day one, seriously considered for the OSHA job by the administration. According to this source, an administration official told him, “Peg cannot have this job.” The source said given President Obama’s pledge to put science before ideology, it would be politically damaging to name a union safety and health advocate since 1977 to the top OSHA job. This despite the fact that Seminario earned a master’s degree in industrial hygiene from the Harvard School of Public Health and an undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Wellesley College.
Dr. Howard’s candidacy, supported by admirers of what some call his visionary tenure at NIOSH and his stint as 9/11 Ground Zero Health Coordinator, when he bluntly told the New York City press his program was inadequately funded by the Bush administration, was nonetheless hurt by his serving six years in the Bush administration, according to sources. Supporters pointed out Howard served as Cal/OSHA chief under a Democratic governor in California, and was more interested in public and occupational health and safety than political agendas. But partisan politics does seem to have had a hand in doing in Dr. Howard’s candidacy. Sources tell us Dr. Howard wants to remain in Washington in some leadership capacity, and might still be nominated to return as NIOSH director, or as the so-called 9/11 “health czar.”
This would seem to leave Hamid Arabzadeh as the one name all of the sources we contacted agree is still on the short list.
Ah, but as of March 30 we were told that Abradzedeh’s candidacy is being seriously contested by organized labor.
In fact, one source says Abradzedeh’s name is now off the short list. Big labor is not going to get its number one pick for the job, Seminario, but sources believe the unions still retain a “thumbs up, thumbs down” veto power over the OSHA chief selection. And Abradzedeh’s years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor. In labor’s eyes, he is not the pro-worker advocate unions have been waiting to take the reins at OSHA since Dr. Eula Bingham ran the agency with an activist’s fervor from April 1977 to January 1981.
Says Fran Schreiberg, a volunteer attorney for Worksafe, a California worker safety advocacy group she headed for years: “It’s mind-boggling to me that after 30 years working in this field, I haven’t heard of his name as someone promoting themselves as pro-labor and pro-worker.”
Abradzedeh is a mystery to many longtime OSHA-watchers in Washington, and most safety and health professionals outside southern California. Arabzadeh was born in Iran and left the country at age 16, three years before the revolution that brought the Islamic mullahs to power. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, followed by a graduate degree from McGill University’s School of Occupational and Environmental Health in Science-Occupational Health and Safety.
Arabzadeh owns HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., in Irvine, Calif., and according to HRA’s Web site, he is a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine Schools of Medicine and Engineering, and has taught at UCLA. He teaches courses in advanced environmental health, pollution prevention engineering, hazardous materials management and environmental and occupational health.
His years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor.
In July, 1998, Arabzadeh was fired by the governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District from his position as director of environmental health and safety for the LA Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district. The vote was four to one in favor of dismissal, with two abstentions, according to special closed-door session minutes we obtained via a Google search.
School district staff presented the board with information relating to performance evaluations that under law was not permitted to be disclosed, according to minutes of the meeting. Arabzadeh addressed the board in the meeting and stated his national board certifications required him to adhere to the strongest codes of ethics and standards. He claimed public health and safety were in danger, and made allegations that staff of the district’s Environmental Safety and Health Branch were asked to change reports, and that files were missing, documents shredded, and information requested by board members “sanitized’ by district management before distribution. He stated he was never given the opportunity to manage his branch, with some of the responsibilities taken out of his branch such as underground storage tank and asbestos removal and inspection. He stressed the need for the board to take control of the branch and to be aware of the details of the work done by the branch. He outlined changes necessary to improve its performance and asked the board for a vote of confidence, according to meeting minutes.
Arabzadeh’s attorney claimed he was being terminated because of his testimony in front of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (investigating the construction of the Belmont Learning Center atop an active oil field plagued by explosive and toxic gases) and for being a whistleblower. According to his attorney, Arabzadeh was aware of contaminated schools and contaminated property being purchased for future schools, and she told the board she believed many of the allegations presented by the district staff to the board regarding Arabzadeh’s performance “were a desperate attempt to fabricate wrongdoings after the fact.” The board’s counsel stated it was staff’s position that the performance issues in question arose before his testimony to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Arabzadeh’s team of supporters for his OSHA candidacy tell us he feels to this day he has nothing to hide from that episode 11 years ago. He’s proud of the stand he took, believes he acted to protect thousands of children, and has been forthright in telling legislators on Capitol Hill about the circumstances surrounding his dismissal.
“I’m very glad this is all coming out,” Arabzadeh told the Daily News of Los Angeles in an article published September 29,1999. “Our kids deserve a lot better.”
The “Toxic Coverup” story (the headline in the Daily News) hasn’t tainted support Arabzadeh has mustered on the Hill. Sources tell us Arabzadeh has secured letters of support from Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-CA), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the U.S. Speaker of the House, as well as numerous California members of the House.
Still, it appears Big Labor is casting a dark shadow over Arabzadeh ‘s prospects of getting the brass ring at OSHA
These sources would only speak to us off-the-record. Many have relationships with all the leading candidates in what source describes as the “rather small health and safety professional family,” and do not want to jeopardize future access and working partnerships. In other instances, sources represent organizations and are not authorized to publicly speak for their employers.
Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s leading spokesperson on workplace safety and health issues since the early 1990s and an AFL-CIO health and safety official since 1977, was for several months after the November election considered all but a cinch for the top OSHA job.
Not anymore.
She is no longer in the running, multiple sources tell us. According to one source, her name was officially withdrawn in a meeting between AFL-CIO President George Sweeney and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Friday, March 20. Another source confirmed Seminario was no longer a candidate, citing conversations he had with Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office.
Dr. John Howard, former NIOSH director, is also out, according to sources. Dr. Howard, Seminario, and industrial hygiene consultant Hamid Arabzadeh were widely thought to comprise the three names on a short list soon to be submitted to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis for her final decision,
What has happened in the past two weeks?
In recent weeks sources told us Seminario’s star was fading due to White House fears that her advocacy for increased funding for health monitoring and medical treatment of 9/11 Ground Zero responders and residents in Manhattan, and her earlier support for legislation compensating asbestos exposure victims, could be construed as lobbying. According to several sources, White House lawyers deliberated if Seminario was in effect a lobbyist, something that would very likely rule her out due to President Obama’s vow to bar lobbyists from influential political appointments. According to some sources, the White House decided Seminario could be categorized as a lobbyist.
But since Seminario’s lobbying was only a small part of her job, a loophole could have allowed the White House to go ahead and name her OSHA chief. Why didn’t it happen?
From sources we’ve gleaned three possible explanations. One has to do with the lobbyist tag. The second: the White House’s decision on Seminario could have been affected by the intense fighting over the Employee Free Choice Act now being waged in the U.S. Senate.
The legislation, which is organized labor’s number one national policy priority, would permit workers to form unions by getting a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards to join without having to hold a secret ballot election, and it mandates that if employers and workers cannot reach a contract within 120 days, a government arbitrator intervene and set terms. For the White House to throw its weight behind labor’s number one legislative priority, and then turn around and name a long-time union official to OSHA, would be rubbing salt in the open wounds of business groups such as the U.S Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, according to several sources. It could also create the perception the White House was completely turning the Department of Labor into the Department of Organized Labor, according to sources. Labor Secretary Solis has a long history of supporting organized labor causes in her former Los Angeles congressional district; she benefited greatly from labor support in her congressional campaigns; and she happens to have a father and mother who both were union members.
One source, however, offers a third explanation. He tells us Seminario was never, from day one, seriously considered for the OSHA job by the administration. According to this source, an administration official told him, “Peg cannot have this job.” The source said given President Obama’s pledge to put science before ideology, it would be politically damaging to name a union safety and health advocate since 1977 to the top OSHA job. This despite the fact that Seminario earned a master’s degree in industrial hygiene from the Harvard School of Public Health and an undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Wellesley College.
Dr. Howard’s candidacy, supported by admirers of what some call his visionary tenure at NIOSH and his stint as 9/11 Ground Zero Health Coordinator, when he bluntly told the New York City press his program was inadequately funded by the Bush administration, was nonetheless hurt by his serving six years in the Bush administration, according to sources. Supporters pointed out Howard served as Cal/OSHA chief under a Democratic governor in California, and was more interested in public and occupational health and safety than political agendas. But partisan politics does seem to have had a hand in doing in Dr. Howard’s candidacy. Sources tell us Dr. Howard wants to remain in Washington in some leadership capacity, and might still be nominated to return as NIOSH director, or as the so-called 9/11 “health czar.”
This would seem to leave Hamid Arabzadeh as the one name all of the sources we contacted agree is still on the short list.
Ah, but as of March 30 we were told that Abradzedeh’s candidacy is being seriously contested by organized labor.
In fact, one source says Abradzedeh’s name is now off the short list. Big labor is not going to get its number one pick for the job, Seminario, but sources believe the unions still retain a “thumbs up, thumbs down” veto power over the OSHA chief selection. And Abradzedeh’s years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor. In labor’s eyes, he is not the pro-worker advocate unions have been waiting to take the reins at OSHA since Dr. Eula Bingham ran the agency with an activist’s fervor from April 1977 to January 1981.
Says Fran Schreiberg, a volunteer attorney for Worksafe, a California worker safety advocacy group she headed for years: “It’s mind-boggling to me that after 30 years working in this field, I haven’t heard of his name as someone promoting themselves as pro-labor and pro-worker.”
Abradzedeh is a mystery to many longtime OSHA-watchers in Washington, and most safety and health professionals outside southern California. Arabzadeh was born in Iran and left the country at age 16, three years before the revolution that brought the Islamic mullahs to power. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, followed by a graduate degree from McGill University’s School of Occupational and Environmental Health in Science-Occupational Health and Safety.
Arabzadeh owns HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., in Irvine, Calif., and according to HRA’s Web site, he is a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine Schools of Medicine and Engineering, and has taught at UCLA. He teaches courses in advanced environmental health, pollution prevention engineering, hazardous materials management and environmental and occupational health.
His years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor.
In July, 1998, Arabzadeh was fired by the governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District from his position as director of environmental health and safety for the LA Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district. The vote was four to one in favor of dismissal, with two abstentions, according to special closed-door session minutes we obtained via a Google search.
School district staff presented the board with information relating to performance evaluations that under law was not permitted to be disclosed, according to minutes of the meeting. Arabzadeh addressed the board in the meeting and stated his national board certifications required him to adhere to the strongest codes of ethics and standards. He claimed public health and safety were in danger, and made allegations that staff of the district’s Environmental Safety and Health Branch were asked to change reports, and that files were missing, documents shredded, and information requested by board members “sanitized’ by district management before distribution. He stated he was never given the opportunity to manage his branch, with some of the responsibilities taken out of his branch such as underground storage tank and asbestos removal and inspection. He stressed the need for the board to take control of the branch and to be aware of the details of the work done by the branch. He outlined changes necessary to improve its performance and asked the board for a vote of confidence, according to meeting minutes.
Arabzadeh’s attorney claimed he was being terminated because of his testimony in front of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (investigating the construction of the Belmont Learning Center atop an active oil field plagued by explosive and toxic gases) and for being a whistleblower. According to his attorney, Arabzadeh was aware of contaminated schools and contaminated property being purchased for future schools, and she told the board she believed many of the allegations presented by the district staff to the board regarding Arabzadeh’s performance “were a desperate attempt to fabricate wrongdoings after the fact.” The board’s counsel stated it was staff’s position that the performance issues in question arose before his testimony to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
Arabzadeh’s team of supporters for his OSHA candidacy tell us he feels to this day he has nothing to hide from that episode 11 years ago. He’s proud of the stand he took, believes he acted to protect thousands of children, and has been forthright in telling legislators on Capitol Hill about the circumstances surrounding his dismissal.
“I’m very glad this is all coming out,” Arabzadeh told the Daily News of Los Angeles in an article published September 29,1999. “Our kids deserve a lot better.”
The “Toxic Coverup” story (the headline in the Daily News) hasn’t tainted support Arabzadeh has mustered on the Hill. Sources tell us Arabzadeh has secured letters of support from Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-CA), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the U.S. Speaker of the House, as well as numerous California members of the House.
Still, it appears Big Labor is casting a dark shadow over Arabzadeh ‘s prospects of getting the brass ring at OSHA
Gotcha! The endorsement game
Since President Obama was elected last November, the intriguing and little-understood behind-the-scenes competition of corralling support for various OSHA chief candidates has been percolating along.
It’s a game played with careful discretion. Consider: if you come out and publicly endorse a certain individual, and that person fails to get the nod, you possibly stand to lose leverage and access with the winner, who might just hold a grudge.
For that reason, along with other factors, the American Industrial Hygiene Association is not promoting any one person for the OSHA job. What it has done is provide Labor Secretary Solis “minimum qualifications” for the position. These include: a lifelong commitment to health and safety; comprehensive academic training in occupational health and safety; at least 15 years of technical experience in occupational health and safety; proven management experience in implementing health and safety programs; and “the vision and ability to build coalitions and consensus among diverse groups to effectively promote a health and safety agenda accepted by all.”
Naturally, one can draw up a list of stringent qualifications that serve to eliminate all but the candidate or candidates you secretly want to see get the job.
Few prominent safety and health professionals, who have held leadership positions in the professional societies, will go on record supporting a specific candidate. They want to ensure good working relations with whoever gets the OSHA job. The same goes for the NIOSH directorship, for that matter.
There are exceptions. The California Governmental Affairs Committee (CGAC) of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in December sent a letter to then Labor Secretary-designate Solis recommending the administration appoint former NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard as OSHA chief.
Says a longtime labor safety activist in California: “I have absolutely nothing bad to say about John. He is brilliant. He’s honest. He actually works; he’s hands-on. He’ll tell you what he can do for you, what he can’t, and what he needs from you to make a decision.”
These local or regional stakeholders have less to lose if their choices don’t pan out, compared to their national parent organizations whose government affairs in Washington work depends on access to the highest levels of OSHA.
Politicians do not face the same concerns about losing clout as the professional societies. They expect to be courted, via emails, phone calls, letters and personal visits, by contenders and their supporters for agency jobs such as the top OSHA post. To the winners of such courtship go letters of support from Senators and Congressmen and women to either the White House or the Secretary of Labor.
Soon after Obama’s election, for instance, sources tell us that former OSHA boss Charles Jeffress and Jordon Barab, senior labor policy advisor for the House Education and Labor Committee, began making calls on behalf of Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s chief spokesperson on occupational safety and health issues for decades. Sources also say organized labor from top officials on down put on a full-court press in Washington, making it clear Seminario was labor’s consensus choice for the OSHA job. Soon, a letter of support came from the office of Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat long active in workplace safety and health issues. Sources say Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office also supported Seminario.
Hamid Arabzadeh, an industrial hygiene consultant in Irvine, California, has proven to be an aggressive and adept campaigner for the job. According to sources he has garnered letters of support from Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and House of Representative members Loretta Sanchez, Laura Richardson, Brian Bilbray, Ed Royce and George Radonovich, all from California. Bilbray, Royce and Radonovich are republicans.
In an irony common to the political world, Dr. Howard, the most qualified person to head OSHA, according to many off-the-record interviews we have conducted (“Hands-down, it’s no contest, he’s the best qualified,” said one source), has probably elicited the least amount of public support. The fact that he is a registered republican and served for six years in the Bush administration has proven to be baggage that Dr. Howard has found difficult to shed, sources tell us.
In February of this year, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, New York City Central Labor Council President Jack Ahern, 9/11 responders, lower Manhattan residents and others gathered near Ground Zero to encourage President Obama to reappoint Dr. John Howard as the federal government’s 9/11 Health Coordinator. Maloney, Nadler, Reps. Peter King (R-NY) and Michael McMahon (D-NY), and ten of their House colleagues sent a letter to the president recommending Dr. Howard for the post.
"There is still much work to be done in coordinating and administering health care for 9/11 first responders, workers, residents, students and others," said Rep. Nadler. "Dr. John Howard has demonstrated expertise and skill in overseeing 9/11 health efforts and there was never any justifiable reason for removing him from his post. I wholeheartedly recommend re-hiring Dr. Howard for the job.”
If only Dr. Howard were interested. He may well be, to an extent, but sources tell us his first choice is to land the OSHA chief job.
Kathryn O’Leary Higgins, a name that came to us only in late March as a potential OSHA chief, might have the most impressive array of supporters in the Democratic Party. Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor. She served as deputy secretary of the Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration in Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet. “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Since 2006, Higgins has worked directly in the safety field as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… (she is) a lady very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
It’s a game played with careful discretion. Consider: if you come out and publicly endorse a certain individual, and that person fails to get the nod, you possibly stand to lose leverage and access with the winner, who might just hold a grudge.
For that reason, along with other factors, the American Industrial Hygiene Association is not promoting any one person for the OSHA job. What it has done is provide Labor Secretary Solis “minimum qualifications” for the position. These include: a lifelong commitment to health and safety; comprehensive academic training in occupational health and safety; at least 15 years of technical experience in occupational health and safety; proven management experience in implementing health and safety programs; and “the vision and ability to build coalitions and consensus among diverse groups to effectively promote a health and safety agenda accepted by all.”
Naturally, one can draw up a list of stringent qualifications that serve to eliminate all but the candidate or candidates you secretly want to see get the job.
Few prominent safety and health professionals, who have held leadership positions in the professional societies, will go on record supporting a specific candidate. They want to ensure good working relations with whoever gets the OSHA job. The same goes for the NIOSH directorship, for that matter.
There are exceptions. The California Governmental Affairs Committee (CGAC) of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in December sent a letter to then Labor Secretary-designate Solis recommending the administration appoint former NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard as OSHA chief.
Says a longtime labor safety activist in California: “I have absolutely nothing bad to say about John. He is brilliant. He’s honest. He actually works; he’s hands-on. He’ll tell you what he can do for you, what he can’t, and what he needs from you to make a decision.”
These local or regional stakeholders have less to lose if their choices don’t pan out, compared to their national parent organizations whose government affairs in Washington work depends on access to the highest levels of OSHA.
Politicians do not face the same concerns about losing clout as the professional societies. They expect to be courted, via emails, phone calls, letters and personal visits, by contenders and their supporters for agency jobs such as the top OSHA post. To the winners of such courtship go letters of support from Senators and Congressmen and women to either the White House or the Secretary of Labor.
Soon after Obama’s election, for instance, sources tell us that former OSHA boss Charles Jeffress and Jordon Barab, senior labor policy advisor for the House Education and Labor Committee, began making calls on behalf of Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s chief spokesperson on occupational safety and health issues for decades. Sources also say organized labor from top officials on down put on a full-court press in Washington, making it clear Seminario was labor’s consensus choice for the OSHA job. Soon, a letter of support came from the office of Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat long active in workplace safety and health issues. Sources say Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office also supported Seminario.
Hamid Arabzadeh, an industrial hygiene consultant in Irvine, California, has proven to be an aggressive and adept campaigner for the job. According to sources he has garnered letters of support from Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and House of Representative members Loretta Sanchez, Laura Richardson, Brian Bilbray, Ed Royce and George Radonovich, all from California. Bilbray, Royce and Radonovich are republicans.
In an irony common to the political world, Dr. Howard, the most qualified person to head OSHA, according to many off-the-record interviews we have conducted (“Hands-down, it’s no contest, he’s the best qualified,” said one source), has probably elicited the least amount of public support. The fact that he is a registered republican and served for six years in the Bush administration has proven to be baggage that Dr. Howard has found difficult to shed, sources tell us.
In February of this year, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, New York City Central Labor Council President Jack Ahern, 9/11 responders, lower Manhattan residents and others gathered near Ground Zero to encourage President Obama to reappoint Dr. John Howard as the federal government’s 9/11 Health Coordinator. Maloney, Nadler, Reps. Peter King (R-NY) and Michael McMahon (D-NY), and ten of their House colleagues sent a letter to the president recommending Dr. Howard for the post.
"There is still much work to be done in coordinating and administering health care for 9/11 first responders, workers, residents, students and others," said Rep. Nadler. "Dr. John Howard has demonstrated expertise and skill in overseeing 9/11 health efforts and there was never any justifiable reason for removing him from his post. I wholeheartedly recommend re-hiring Dr. Howard for the job.”
If only Dr. Howard were interested. He may well be, to an extent, but sources tell us his first choice is to land the OSHA chief job.
Kathryn O’Leary Higgins, a name that came to us only in late March as a potential OSHA chief, might have the most impressive array of supporters in the Democratic Party. Higgins has extensive experience in the Department of Labor. She served as deputy secretary of the Department of Labor (July 1997-May 1999), chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (January 1993-February 1995), and began her career in government in 1969 as a manpower specialist with the Employment and Training Administration in Department of Labor.
“I’ve made a dozen calls about her, and the verdict is unanimous: Few people know Washington as well, and how to maneuver in it,” Reich wrote in his 1997 memoir, “Locked in the Cabinet. “Her annual St. Patrick’s Day party is a Washington fixture. Another Irish pol, she loves the game of politics. She’s also interested in the substance. She’s devoted most of her adult life to the cause of helping working people make something more of their lives.”
Since 2006, Higgins has worked directly in the safety field as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In 2008, she was described in a Culver City, Calif. online newspaper article about a Los Angeles commuter-freight train crash that killed 25 people as “sassy” and known to sometimes have “difficulty keeping her boiling Irish temper tucked beneath her collar… (she is) a lady very conscious of her status as an outspoken Democrat.”
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The limitations of “safety”
Do you believe the United States is in the midst of a “fundamental reorientation of the American character,” to use the words of pollster John Zogby?
Or are our attitudes and behaviors simply adjusting to this recession, and we’ll revert to our old “orientation,” however you want to interpret that, once this storm passes?
Zogby argues, based on zillions of polls and interviews he has conducted during the past decade, that we are on our way to becoming a society that is “less materialistic, less tolerant of baloney, more practical and more closely linked to the rest of the world,” he was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
To be sure, changes of all sorts are occurring around us at what seems dizzying speed.
The Big Three U.S. automakers, it’s been said, must fundamentally change how they operate to survive. The banking system is obviously ripe for systemic change. Our foreign policies with numerous countries, particularly in the Middle East and Far East, are under review and subject to new strategies. The same goes for the country’s position on climate change. Our energy consumption must become greener, less oily, according to the White House. The nation’s highways, bridges, tunnels, our concrete and asphalt infrastructure, is in for massive rebuilding. Healthcare coverage, patient safety, pharmaceutical marketing, education, labor laws, the Internet grid, the unemployment safety net are all subject to near-term Washington intervention. Creative destruction is wreaking havoc in mass communications, with newspapers disappearing, network news watched by a dwindling audience, and web sites and Internet feeds increasingly becoming primary news sources.
What about the profession of occupational safety and health?
Current status
Sure, the profession has taken its share of blows in this recession. What job, other than coal miners and debt collectors, hasn’t? Pros with outstanding resumes are out of work. Consultants are scrambling to hold onto clients.
A compliance officer in California emailed me: “In the private sector, most of the big employers have outsourced a lot of the (EHS) work, so there are not many people to lay off anymore. What takes the hit is funding for outside consultants to come in and do ‘preventive maintenance’ type of work. So my impression is that a lot of the PM type monitoring, hazard evaluation, extra training when not legally required, is going to go by the wayside. Emergency situations will be dealt with, but the old list of routine activities is in for a significant reduction.”
Return to old ways?
Sooner (hopefully) or later the country will pull out of this recession. But do you seriously believe “things” — everything from loan policies to energy consumption to news consumption to foreign relations to how companies manage safety and health programs — will all return to their previous “orientation,” to use pollster Zoby’s term?
Cynics, who are never in short supply, will assert yes, old habits run deep. But when talking about the occupational safety and health profession’s future, I say the timing couldn’t be better for a “fundamental reorientation.” In fact, I’ll up the ante and say it is overdue and essential. Not regarding the profession’s character, which will always be grounded in a unique mix of science, passion, empathy, and initiative. What must change is how professionals communicate to the world at large — to management, employees, the media, politicians, the public — all who, let’s be honest, give workplace safety and health little thought unless a crane topples over in Manhattan or a refinery blows in Texas.
Workplace safety and health is too narrowly defined by accidents, incidents, losses, call them what you will, they are negatives. Plus, the word “safety” does not inspire or motivate commitment. “Health” is more readily embraced by society. “Safety” reminds us of school safety patrols, seat belts, NASCAR SAFER Barriers or public safety — policing, firefighting, inspecting restaurants.
The profession, for long-term sustainability’s sake, needs to communicate that it is about more than inspecting, patrolling, policing, putting out fires, and reacting. These characterizations are old school and restraining. I agree with Carl Metzgar, CSP, a longtime safety and loss control consultant in Winston-Salem, N.C., who recently wrote a letter to me (yes, not an email) in which he commented, “Boy, do I hate that misused, misunderstood, meaningless word.”
Carl was referring to the word “safety.”
Good riddance
Let’s get rid of it. No, we can’t do that. It’s in the title of our magazine, of every other similar magazine, just about all the major professional societies, and maybe a hundred thousand business cards.
But we can begin to expand the profession’s vocabulary and self-definition. I offer up the term “risk” as a substitute for “safety” in many instances.
In a paper on reinventing OSHA, Gary Rosenblum, CIH, writes, “The game must be changed, and risk management should be used to do this. Risk management is many things, but focusing on reducing uncertainty and increasing desired outcomes by scientific anticipation and effective flexibility is a big part of it.
“Today businesses are in dire straits and looking to cut costs drastically. It is inevitable that without dramatic change, business will stop investing in safety and health, with the hopes that perhaps the downside won’t be that bad. This is bad risk management. Risk management means protecting assets against loss from an uncertain world by reducing risks wherever they may be.”
Put aside the evidence that financial risk management went out the window in the past ten years. “Risk” resonates and grabs the attention of managers, reporters, consumers, and yes, students considering a career in occupational safety and health.
Its applications are expansive. Think of its association to “enterprise,” “exposure,” “value,” “ethics,” “vulnerability,” “uncertainty,” “liability,” “assets,” “assessments,” “severity,” “outcomes,” “perceptions,” “behavior,” “decision analysis,” “scenario planning,” “investments,” “communication,” “protection,” “security” and “management.”
We’re overdue to bring about an expanded reorientation of how people think about workplace safety, how the profession defines itself, and how it’s understood by those outside the field.
Or are our attitudes and behaviors simply adjusting to this recession, and we’ll revert to our old “orientation,” however you want to interpret that, once this storm passes?
Zogby argues, based on zillions of polls and interviews he has conducted during the past decade, that we are on our way to becoming a society that is “less materialistic, less tolerant of baloney, more practical and more closely linked to the rest of the world,” he was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
To be sure, changes of all sorts are occurring around us at what seems dizzying speed.
The Big Three U.S. automakers, it’s been said, must fundamentally change how they operate to survive. The banking system is obviously ripe for systemic change. Our foreign policies with numerous countries, particularly in the Middle East and Far East, are under review and subject to new strategies. The same goes for the country’s position on climate change. Our energy consumption must become greener, less oily, according to the White House. The nation’s highways, bridges, tunnels, our concrete and asphalt infrastructure, is in for massive rebuilding. Healthcare coverage, patient safety, pharmaceutical marketing, education, labor laws, the Internet grid, the unemployment safety net are all subject to near-term Washington intervention. Creative destruction is wreaking havoc in mass communications, with newspapers disappearing, network news watched by a dwindling audience, and web sites and Internet feeds increasingly becoming primary news sources.
What about the profession of occupational safety and health?
Current status
Sure, the profession has taken its share of blows in this recession. What job, other than coal miners and debt collectors, hasn’t? Pros with outstanding resumes are out of work. Consultants are scrambling to hold onto clients.
A compliance officer in California emailed me: “In the private sector, most of the big employers have outsourced a lot of the (EHS) work, so there are not many people to lay off anymore. What takes the hit is funding for outside consultants to come in and do ‘preventive maintenance’ type of work. So my impression is that a lot of the PM type monitoring, hazard evaluation, extra training when not legally required, is going to go by the wayside. Emergency situations will be dealt with, but the old list of routine activities is in for a significant reduction.”
Return to old ways?
Sooner (hopefully) or later the country will pull out of this recession. But do you seriously believe “things” — everything from loan policies to energy consumption to news consumption to foreign relations to how companies manage safety and health programs — will all return to their previous “orientation,” to use pollster Zoby’s term?
Cynics, who are never in short supply, will assert yes, old habits run deep. But when talking about the occupational safety and health profession’s future, I say the timing couldn’t be better for a “fundamental reorientation.” In fact, I’ll up the ante and say it is overdue and essential. Not regarding the profession’s character, which will always be grounded in a unique mix of science, passion, empathy, and initiative. What must change is how professionals communicate to the world at large — to management, employees, the media, politicians, the public — all who, let’s be honest, give workplace safety and health little thought unless a crane topples over in Manhattan or a refinery blows in Texas.
Workplace safety and health is too narrowly defined by accidents, incidents, losses, call them what you will, they are negatives. Plus, the word “safety” does not inspire or motivate commitment. “Health” is more readily embraced by society. “Safety” reminds us of school safety patrols, seat belts, NASCAR SAFER Barriers or public safety — policing, firefighting, inspecting restaurants.
The profession, for long-term sustainability’s sake, needs to communicate that it is about more than inspecting, patrolling, policing, putting out fires, and reacting. These characterizations are old school and restraining. I agree with Carl Metzgar, CSP, a longtime safety and loss control consultant in Winston-Salem, N.C., who recently wrote a letter to me (yes, not an email) in which he commented, “Boy, do I hate that misused, misunderstood, meaningless word.”
Carl was referring to the word “safety.”
Good riddance
Let’s get rid of it. No, we can’t do that. It’s in the title of our magazine, of every other similar magazine, just about all the major professional societies, and maybe a hundred thousand business cards.
But we can begin to expand the profession’s vocabulary and self-definition. I offer up the term “risk” as a substitute for “safety” in many instances.
In a paper on reinventing OSHA, Gary Rosenblum, CIH, writes, “The game must be changed, and risk management should be used to do this. Risk management is many things, but focusing on reducing uncertainty and increasing desired outcomes by scientific anticipation and effective flexibility is a big part of it.
“Today businesses are in dire straits and looking to cut costs drastically. It is inevitable that without dramatic change, business will stop investing in safety and health, with the hopes that perhaps the downside won’t be that bad. This is bad risk management. Risk management means protecting assets against loss from an uncertain world by reducing risks wherever they may be.”
Put aside the evidence that financial risk management went out the window in the past ten years. “Risk” resonates and grabs the attention of managers, reporters, consumers, and yes, students considering a career in occupational safety and health.
Its applications are expansive. Think of its association to “enterprise,” “exposure,” “value,” “ethics,” “vulnerability,” “uncertainty,” “liability,” “assets,” “assessments,” “severity,” “outcomes,” “perceptions,” “behavior,” “decision analysis,” “scenario planning,” “investments,” “communication,” “protection,” “security” and “management.”
We’re overdue to bring about an expanded reorientation of how people think about workplace safety, how the profession defines itself, and how it’s understood by those outside the field.
OSHA chief selection process heats up
The process of picking the next OSHA chief is picking up steam, multiple sources tell ISHN.
Three candidates continue to dominate back channel discussions in Washington: Hamid Arabzadeh, MS, CIH, CSP, REA, CHMM, who owns HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., Irvine, Calif.; former NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard; and Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s leading spokesperson on workplace safety and health issues for more than two decades.
All three want the top OSHA post, according to sources, and per usual with political appointments, each candidate carries pros and cons into the vetting process, which is accelerating, sources tell ISHN. Until this week, most OSHA-watchers believed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis would announce her nominee sometime in April. Now several sources tell ISHN an announcement could come as soon as this week, or still be weeks away. Such is the unpredictable nature of the political appointment game.
Sources say Seth Harris, recently named by President Obama to be deputy secretary of labor, the number two spot at the Department of Labor, and Emily Spieler, the Dean of Northeastern University’s Law School and Obama Transition Team leader on issues related to OSHA, will be major influences in compiling a short list of three names that Harris will forward to Labor Secretary Solis. Arabzadeh, Howard and Seminario are said to be the three names at the moment. That could change before vetting is completed.
This is how fluid the process is: six weeks ago most sources told ISHN Seminario was close to a shoo-in for the job. Her candidacy benefited from early and aggressive campaigning by an array of union leaders, coupled with the belief President Obama wanted an activist OSHA and owed political payback to unions for pouring $250 million into last year’s election.
But in recent weeks sources told ISHN Seminario’s star was fading due to White House fears that her advocacy for increased funding for health monitoring and medical treatment of 9/11 Ground Zero responders and residents in Manhattan, and her earlier support for legislation compensating asbestos exposure victims, could be construed as lobbying. According to several sources, White House lawyers are at the moment trying to decide if Seminario is in effect a lobbyist, something that would very likely rule her out due to the conflict of interest controversies that hindered or shot down other Obama selections, such as Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Still, as of this week, organized labor has a full-court press on for Seminario, according to sources. She also has the support of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office, according to one source. The White House’s decision on Seminario could be affected by the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act now pending in the U.S. Senate. The legislation, which is organized labor’s number one national policy priority, would permit workers to form unions by getting a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards to join without having to hold a secret ballot election, and it mandates that if employers and workers cannot reach a contract within 120 days, a government arbitrator intervene and set terms.
Congressional passage of the bill, which is a battle royale now underway on Capitol Hill, could make it easier for the Obama administration to bypass Seminario for a less partisan pick.
This is where Dr. Howard and Hamid Arabzadeh come into play. Some sources say Howard’s candidacy, supported by admirers of his tenure at NIOSH, is hurt by his serving for six years in the Bush administration. Supporters point out Howard served as Cal/OSHA chief under a Democratic governor in California and is far more interested in public and occupational health and safety than political agendas. That could be to his detriment in D.C. Some sources tell ISHN Howard could be tripped up by political forces that run much stronger at OSHA than NIOSH.
Several sources tell ISHN they are still scratching their head trying to figure out how Arabzadeh’s candidacy has gained noticeable traction in recent weeks. Sources say he has made frequent trips to Washington since January to line up political support on Capitol Hill, and his political connections are extensive. One source told ISHN Arabzadeh has secured letters of support from Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the U.S. Speaker of the House, as well as other Congressional leaders. Sources give Arabzadeh high marks for his political networking, agree on his technical health and safety acumen, but some question if he could manage a federal bureaucracy. His years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor.
Finally, seasoned OSHA-watchers in Washington say never rule out a surprise selection. After all, Hilda Solis was not on anyone’s watch list for the Secretary of Labor job. When it comes to Washington chatter, the age-old maxim still carries credence: “Those that know ain’t saying, and those that are saying don’t know.”
Three candidates continue to dominate back channel discussions in Washington: Hamid Arabzadeh, MS, CIH, CSP, REA, CHMM, who owns HRA Environmental Consultants, Inc., Irvine, Calif.; former NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard; and Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s leading spokesperson on workplace safety and health issues for more than two decades.
All three want the top OSHA post, according to sources, and per usual with political appointments, each candidate carries pros and cons into the vetting process, which is accelerating, sources tell ISHN. Until this week, most OSHA-watchers believed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis would announce her nominee sometime in April. Now several sources tell ISHN an announcement could come as soon as this week, or still be weeks away. Such is the unpredictable nature of the political appointment game.
Sources say Seth Harris, recently named by President Obama to be deputy secretary of labor, the number two spot at the Department of Labor, and Emily Spieler, the Dean of Northeastern University’s Law School and Obama Transition Team leader on issues related to OSHA, will be major influences in compiling a short list of three names that Harris will forward to Labor Secretary Solis. Arabzadeh, Howard and Seminario are said to be the three names at the moment. That could change before vetting is completed.
This is how fluid the process is: six weeks ago most sources told ISHN Seminario was close to a shoo-in for the job. Her candidacy benefited from early and aggressive campaigning by an array of union leaders, coupled with the belief President Obama wanted an activist OSHA and owed political payback to unions for pouring $250 million into last year’s election.
But in recent weeks sources told ISHN Seminario’s star was fading due to White House fears that her advocacy for increased funding for health monitoring and medical treatment of 9/11 Ground Zero responders and residents in Manhattan, and her earlier support for legislation compensating asbestos exposure victims, could be construed as lobbying. According to several sources, White House lawyers are at the moment trying to decide if Seminario is in effect a lobbyist, something that would very likely rule her out due to the conflict of interest controversies that hindered or shot down other Obama selections, such as Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Still, as of this week, organized labor has a full-court press on for Seminario, according to sources. She also has the support of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office, according to one source. The White House’s decision on Seminario could be affected by the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act now pending in the U.S. Senate. The legislation, which is organized labor’s number one national policy priority, would permit workers to form unions by getting a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards to join without having to hold a secret ballot election, and it mandates that if employers and workers cannot reach a contract within 120 days, a government arbitrator intervene and set terms.
Congressional passage of the bill, which is a battle royale now underway on Capitol Hill, could make it easier for the Obama administration to bypass Seminario for a less partisan pick.
This is where Dr. Howard and Hamid Arabzadeh come into play. Some sources say Howard’s candidacy, supported by admirers of his tenure at NIOSH, is hurt by his serving for six years in the Bush administration. Supporters point out Howard served as Cal/OSHA chief under a Democratic governor in California and is far more interested in public and occupational health and safety than political agendas. That could be to his detriment in D.C. Some sources tell ISHN Howard could be tripped up by political forces that run much stronger at OSHA than NIOSH.
Several sources tell ISHN they are still scratching their head trying to figure out how Arabzadeh’s candidacy has gained noticeable traction in recent weeks. Sources say he has made frequent trips to Washington since January to line up political support on Capitol Hill, and his political connections are extensive. One source told ISHN Arabzadeh has secured letters of support from Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the U.S. Speaker of the House, as well as other Congressional leaders. Sources give Arabzadeh high marks for his political networking, agree on his technical health and safety acumen, but some question if he could manage a federal bureaucracy. His years as corporate manager of industrial hygiene for the UNOCAL Corporation (1992 to 1997) win him few friends among organized labor.
Finally, seasoned OSHA-watchers in Washington say never rule out a surprise selection. After all, Hilda Solis was not on anyone’s watch list for the Secretary of Labor job. When it comes to Washington chatter, the age-old maxim still carries credence: “Those that know ain’t saying, and those that are saying don’t know.”
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