Word: osha
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Trouble with VC. Although the EPA's decision sets a precedent for protecting human health from potentially toxic substances, it hardly compares in impact to the action by the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The agency established final limits for workers' exposure to vinyl chloride (vc), a colorless gas derived from chlorine and petrochemicals. It is the major ingredient in polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-the material from which seat covers, phonograph records, credit cards, detergent containers, floor tiles, shower curtains, and a vast number of other familiar plastic products are made. In total...
This gigantic segment of the U.S. economy rests, like an inverted pyramid, on the production of VC, and OSHA's new standards threaten that production. The agency ruled that starting Jan. 1, workers cannot be exposed to more than one part of vc per million parts of air (v. the present 50 p.p.m.), averaged over an eight-hour day, or to more than 5 p.p.m. for any period longer than 15 minutes. The new rule applies only to the some 6,000 workers who handle VC directly in 50 U.S. plants...
...OSHA's problem was what to do about it. The agency's charter calls for it to prevent any occupational disease -and it had theoretical evidence to show that even slight exposure to VC might cause cancer. On the other hand, if OSHA set a zero level of exposure, it would force the closing of major segments of an immense industry...
...company reported no cases of angiosarcoma; its evidence thus indicated that amount as a safe level of exposure. Moreover, the industry says that it simply does not have the technology to comply with the new restriction, and the Society of the Plastics Industry has sued to overturn OSHA's ruling...
...some OSHA rules seem contradictory. For instance, at construction sites OSHA requires back-up alarms on vehicles-and also requires some employees to wear earplugs (as a protection against noise) that might make it difficult for them to hear the alarms. The critics' most telling complaint is that visiting OSHA inspectors by law cannot advise businessmen how to clear up unsafe conditions; they can only mete out fines. George Peters, president of Aurora Metal Co., a foundry in Montgomery, Ill., fumes: "If you call OSHA in for advice, they will issue you a citation...