California’s ergonomics law on hold after veto
Regulation said to be unenforceable
The landmark ergonomics plan intended to protect California workers from repetitive motion injuries is on hold for at least six months after a state agency said the regulation was too vague to be enforced.
The veto by the state’s administrative law office was a complete surprise, since approval by the state Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board in San Diego had been seen as the major hurdle. That board approved the regulation after scaling down its impact, but then the law office issued an 18-page notice explaining that the 11¼2 page standard was so vague that it would be impossible to enforce.
Most troubling to the legal administrators were parts of the regulation that call on employers to "consider" corrective measures, plus sections that inadequately define "identical" activities in the workplace.
The ultimate impact of the law office’s criticism is not yet known, but the ergonomics plan cannot be implemented until the problems are resolved. Lawmakers stated that the plan would be shelved for at least six months and possibly longer.
The California law is the result of years of political wrangling and the supposedly final version was much narrower than originally envisioned by proponents. The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted down a similar regulation in 1994, saying implementation would be too costly, and no one agreed on the usefulness.
The regulation would require employers to provide workers suffering from repetitive motion injuries with special training, altered work routines, and work stations or tools that help the worker avoid further injury. The latest version applies only to companies with more than 10 employees and kicks in only after two workers performing "identical" tasks have suffered similar injuries in a year.
Since only employers with 10 or more workers are affected by the law, that is only 23% of California employers. But those 198,227 companies employ 10.9 million people and account for 86% of all of the state’s employees. That leaves 679,402 employers with 1.7 million workers that do not have to worry about the law at all.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content