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Contractors must forge ahead with compliance while others battle
in court/DECK-->
A lot has happened since the last issue of Contracting Profits, providing plenty of coverage packed with industry updates. For instance, we’ve tabulated our 2000 reader survey to determine what trends are affecting building service contractors the most.
One issue survey respondents said was a major concern was the newly-released U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s ergonomics standard. By now, many of you know that lawsuits were filed in late 2001, that attempted to block the standard’s implementation.
It’s also no secret that many building service contractors, including the industry’s largest association, Building Service Contractors Association International, strongly oppose the rule in its current form. But when we chose to cover the new standard, it seemed that the more pressing challenge was answering the many questions contractors had, now that they have seen the confusing 1,600-page regulation.
We realize that the current version of the standard may not remain intact for very long, but there are enough people in the country who have acknowledged the need for an ergonomics focus to make it clear that something, in some form or fashion, will dictate how we monitor operations. And I’ve got to admit that, as a sufferer of chronic back problems who recently required a new workstation to function at my own job, I am all for reducing workers’ chances of developing injuries that could plague them for a lifetime.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying the current OSHA standard is the absolute answer; that now is up to the courts to decide. What I’m saying is that this standard, and the questions people have posed, have left too many contractors too confused to know what to do next, even if they wanted to improve the standards of their employee’s working situations.
So we hope that this month’s coverage of the ergonomics standard — both in an article and in John Walker’s column — will help answer some of those questions.