The Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Nation's Business, Jan, 1998 by David Warner

* The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, under a provision included in a recently enacted government funding bill, is banned through Sept. 30 from issuing regulations that would establish a workplace ergonomics standard. OSHA has been working on an ergonomics standard for the past three years.

An amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations measure, approved by Congress and signed into law in early November, prohibits OSHA from issuing regulations that would require businesses to modify workplaces and redesign jobs that pose ergonomics hazards. The prohibition is in effect the 1998 federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Congress encouraged OSHA to use the regulatory hiatus for careful study of scientific findings on the relationship between work and repetitive-stress injuries, which can include conditions such as carpal-tunnel syndrome and tendinitis.