
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992                   TAG: 9203170115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

WHITE HOUSE TURNS DOWN TOUGHER ON-JOB AIR STANDARDS

The White House has ruled that imposing stricter health standards in the workplace could make workers poorer, and, therefore, sicker.

The ruling by the White House Office of Management and Budget rejected a Labor Department effort to protect workers from air pollution on the job.

OMB told the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration that the proposed regulation could cause employers to lay off workers and stop paying hazard pay.

That would lead to lower payrolls, OMB said, and studies show that workers without jobs or with low-paying jobs have poorer health than their more highly paid counterparts.

"This is nonsense," Charles Levenstein, a University of Massachusetts professor of worker and environmental policy, said Monday.

James MacRae Jr., head of the OMB office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, ordered OSHA'S rule writers to make a study of the impact of the proposed rule on those persons it is intended to protect.

The rule would set maximum limits on several hundred different contaminants in air breathed by workers in agriculture, construction and maritime industries. Workers in other industries already enjoy most of the protections in the proposed regulation.

OSHA had estimated that the cost of complying with new workplace standards on industry was justified.

But McRae said, "OSHA's regulatory impact analysis omits consideration of the effect of the rule's compliance on workers."

He cited studies concluding that workers who make more money are better off.

"Richer workers on average buy more leisure time, more nutritious food, more protective health care and smoke and drink less," he said.

OSHA had estimated that the rule would save from eight to 13 lives annually. However, McRae said that if it led to layoffs and loss of special pay bonuses for hazardous work, it could lead to the death of more than 22 workers a year.

"The thought that farm workers, who are primarily migrant laborers, are in a position to negotiate for hazard pay is ridiculous," said Levenstein. "It's a perverse use of the effect of unemployment on worker health to avoid regulation."

"We have a fairly high rate of unemployment now that doesn't seem to be of much concern to the Bush Administration," he added. "Perhaps this means the administration thinks those workers who are covered by these standards would like to have them removed in the hopes that their pay would increase."

by CNB