Rushing To Scuttle Work Safety

by Molly Ivins

So I'm a one-week no-smoker and I know there's no way I am getting through the Judiciary Committee's Theater of the Rank and Absurd on this matter without smoking unless I can find something to do with my hands.

In desperation, I rushed off to the knit shop and demanded yarn and needles. My entire knitting career to that date consisted of the teen-age production of about two inches of what would have been a pink sweater if I'd stuck with it. The folk at the knitting shop set it all up, little loops on a needle. I'd knit while listening to Republicans enumerate the sins of Bill Clinton.

As you may recall, the Late Unpleasantness lasted for quite a while, involved vast amounts of repetitious bloviation, and was altogether fairly sickening from all points of view. By the end of it, I had a dozen badly knit scarves and repetitive stress syndrome.

It hurt. It was not exactly agonizing, but it hurt all the time, and it hurt especially when I tried to do something with the lame forearm, like chop or stir. For one who loves to cook, this is most unpleasant. Oddly enough, it never affected my ability to type on a computer.

So off I went to the physical therapist. I had massage and shots and ice packs and hot lamps, and I can't even remember what-all else.

The main thing you can do for over-knitting is not to knit anymore. Just when you think it's safe to knit again -- necessity rose its ugly head on Election Day last year and continued for 36 days thereafter -- you are forced to recognize that great truth: You Can't Knit Again.

The pain came roaring back full force after one scarf. Fortunately, my living is not dependent on knitting. Suppose it had been?

I bring this up because President Bush held a private meeting with congressional leaders on Feb. 27, and they decided to kill the new ergonomic workplace rules by using the Congressional Review Act. The law gives Congress 60 days to reject regulations issued by federal agencies, and the president must sign off on the rejection, as well.

According to those vivid imaginations on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, the new ergonomic safety rules were "hastily" and carelessly enacted by haughty bureaucrats paying no attention to the real-world costs of redesigning workplaces so that repeated movements don't wind up crippling people.

Actually, it took ten years to get these regulations ready -- ten years of open hearings, open testimony and invitations to all sides to participate. But as the Journal reports in its refreshingly frank way, contributors who "invested" in Bush's presidential campaign are now looking for "a return on investment."

The bankruptcy "reform" bill was a nice start. Please note that on WednesdayThe New York Times reported: "Associates First Capital, one of the nation's largest consumer lenders, was charged by federal regulators yesterday with routinely deceiving and lying to customers, tricking them into costly loan refinancing and purchases of expensive 'credit insurance' that generated fees for the companies but often were of little benefit to borrowers." Those borrowers will now find it much harder to declare the bankruptcy into which they have been forced.

Step Two of "return on investment" is to scrap workplace safety rules, because who cares about the pain and suffering of American workers when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Association of Wholesale Distributors all put big bucks into Bush's campaign?

Suddenly, we are less concerned about the pain and suffering of workers and more concerned that the new rules might allow someone to "malinger" (!) or that the definitions of the medical problem is too vague, or that the workers get overly generous compensation -- 90 percent of their salary for up to three months. Imagine.

This standard argument of "Somebody's going to get away with something!" is often used effectively against social programs, but it doesn't work out quite that way in practice. Medicare and Medicaid fraud, for example, is not the consequence of malingering by individuals but of vast, deliberate cheating by some doctors and hospitals. We tend to watch the wrong mouse hole when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse.

But repetitive stress syndrome is not limited to the factory floor, to unionized workers or to Democrats. Nice, white, middle-class, Republican voters get it, too. I doubt they will be happy to learn that they must experience pain and suffering with no recourse because the National Association of Manufacturers gave mega-bucks to Bush's campaign.

When you can't use one arm for anything without a hiss of pain, it does bring the larger problem of safer design vividly to mind. There is nothing inevitable about repetitive stress. Redesigning jobs and tools to avoid it is almost a no-brainer, though someone does have to sit down and think about it.

The business lobby is now engaged in one of its Never-Never Land fantasies about how much the new rules will cost. These folks do this every time someone tries to raise the minimum wage, too. They now estimate the cost in billions and billions of dollars. Of course, they don't count how much the regs will save in medical costs, time and (excuse me for mentioning it again) pain.

Fortunately, the coalition of companies out to defeat the new regs only had to spend a couple of million in campaign contributions. This system pays off for business like a stacked poker deck.