Worker safety dance

Sixth in the "Kris Kobach is wrong 10 ways from Sunday" series

We're halfway through Kobach's claims and still in the economy section of his lit piece. The sixth attack on Congressman Dennis Moore is that he voted "to impose harsh ergonomic regulations on small businesses." This, Kobach claims, could have cost our economy $100 billion.

Ah, yes, ergonomics standards. Ergonomics standards were first proposed by then-Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and were studied and refined for the next decade.

What Kobach could also call these standards are "worker safety regulations" since what they were intended to do was to keep workers from suffering repetitive stress injuries.

Moore's votes were in opposition to congressional action which successfully prevented these science-based standards from being put in place.

In fact, today employers aren't even required to report these injuries to OSHA, let alone take steps to reduce them, despite the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 1.8 million such injuries occur, with a third requiring time off from work. These injuries disproportionately impact women.

As for the $100 billion figure, that comes from the business groups opposed to the rule and according to the National Organization on Disability, such a figure would account for a ridiculous $16,250 per employee per year, which shows how far off it is. OSHA estimated it would cost $4.2 billion.

Fewer injuries means lower health care costs, lower workers' compensation costs, etc., but an ounce of prevention apparently is still too expensive when you can pass off the cost of the pound of cure.

The Labor Department still thinks ergonomic injuries are an issue -- they detail their actions on a Web site devoted to the topic -- but apparently Kris Kobach has never worked on an assembly line or behind a cash register, doing the same task over and over and over again, day after day, or else he may have a different opinion of worker safety laws.

No, shaking hands and kissing babies doesn't count. Now get back to work.