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| WORKERS INSTITUTE FOR SAFETY AND HEALTH |
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Happy Labor Day: Your Job May be Killing You By Roger D. Lewis Published Tallahassee Democrat, Omaha World Herald, and New Jersey Daily Record on September 3, 2002 If you are like most Americans, you will spend Labor Day weekend taking a few well-deserved extra hours of rest and relaxation from work, oblivious to the fact that your job may be killing you. This year, tens of thousands of Americans likely will die from illnesses caused by workplace conditions. And due to serious flaws in how industry is required to track workplace illnesses, most of these deaths never will be attributed to their proper causes. Recently, it took a family member of a sick worker to alert scientists to conditions at a microwave popcorn factory in Jasper, Mo., which gave workers a 300 to 1,000 percent greater than normal risk of developing an incurable lung disease. The scientists' findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine, indicated that exposure to a buttery mist used to flavor the popcorn was responsible for the disease. The discovery prompted national headlines, creating an outpouring of sympathy for the workers - four of whom probably will have to receive lung transplants - and outrage at the factory and the flavoring industry that allowed this to happen. This outrage is not misplaced: Certainly the industry that allowed workers to be exposed to these chemicals bears a heavy share of the blame for what happened. But equally to blame is a system that relies too heavily on serendipity and the enterprise of well-meaning family members, rather than on professionals whose sole concern is workers' health and safety. Is the situation really that dire? After all, government statistics indicate a tremendous reduction in workplace deaths, injuries and illnesses during the past several years. That's good as far as it goes. However, a look between the columns of data reveals most of the progress comes from reducing deaths from accidents and short-term problems like rashes. There is no concerted effort to monitor the long-term effects of workplace conditions - such as lung disease or cancer - which can take a serious albeit delayed toll on the health of workers. Just ask the popcorn workers in Jasper, Mo. OSHA recently adopted a new record-keeping rule that requires employers to record incidence of major illnesses - another step in the right direction. However, there remains no systematic way of evaluating the likely health effects of new chemicals or processes introduced into the workplace. This effectively turns workers into human guinea pigs. Can you imagine new foods showing up on your supermarket shelves or drugs in your pharmacy without undergoing extensive evaluation by the FDA? So who is looking out for your health in the workplace? Industrial hygienists and other health and safety professionals. But corporate leaders don't hire anywhere near enough industrial hygienists to effectively monitor workplace health. And those who are hired operate under the cloud that discovering a problem could cost their bosses big bucks - and put everyone's job in jeopardy The threat of outside inspection might help lift that cloud, but there remain too few OSHA inspectors to make this threat real for all but the most egregious offenders. In many states it would take inspectors between 100 and 149 years to visit each workplace just once. Just as stockholders need more SEC inspectors to protect their interests, we need more OSHA inspectors to protect our on-the-job health. And occupational diseases, injuries and deaths need to be placed on business quarterly reports as company expenses to force CEOs to acknowledge these losses to stockholders and the public. The President and Congress should take a first step toward meeting these goals by calling for the National Academy of Science to recommend changes in surveillance of workplace disease and enforcement of standards and regulations. This Labor Day, let us work to put health into our workplaces. Educate yourself about occupational diseases and recognize that these diseases will never be eradicated in the hands of management and labor as if it were another grievance matter. If you work, occupational health is your health and your right. Roger D.
Lewis, PhD, CIH |
