That’s the problem–and the reason RSI is the workplace’s most complicated and controversial problem. There’s nothing new about the phenomenon, of course. But it was back in the news last week when, in the face of intense political opposition, OSHA shelved plans to issue tough new regulations protecting workers from such injuries. Business execs cheered. Claims for repetitive-strain disorders cost employers some $100 billion annually, according to industry estimates, and the new regs would have sent that soaring. But while OSHA may have backed down, it hasn’t entirely given up. With so many workers at risk, agency officials told NEWSWEEK, it will soon launch a new initiative, possibly as early as next week. Businesses big and small are bracing for yet another big fight.
No one disputes that repetitive-strain injuries are real. They go by many names, from carpal tunnel syndrome to meat cleaver’s elbow (chart). Numbness in the neck and fingers, pain in the arms and back, aching muscles–these are but a few of the complaints from workers who put in long hours on assembly lines or at computer keyboards, performing the same tasks over and over again. But beyond the fact of their existence, there is little agreement. One problem is that no one can determine the scope of the phenomenon. Remember those divergent stats offered by OSHA and the National Safety Council? Another involves questions of cause and effect–a science that is muddled at best when it involves RSI. For instance: two secretaries work the same hours every day. One develops stiffness in her fingers, the other doesn’t. An assembly-line worker suffers from crippling backaches; his co-worker whistles through the day. Did the employee’s work cause the pain, or something else? And what should an employer reasonably be expected to do about it?
Business worried that, the way OSHA looked at the issue, every job would become a disorder waiting to happen. In its zeal to protect workers’ health, the agency’s draft report identified various “risk factors” on the job, from heavy lifting to working in cramped spaces to the use of vibrating tools and “forceful hand exertions.” The four-inch-thick, 600-page document offered guidance to companies in reducing those risks. Some of the offerings seemed sensible enough, such as avoiding “prolonged sitting without adequate back support.” Among others that were less so: a provision businesses fear could bar them from requiring anyone to lift more than 25 pounds without the aid of a mechanical device. In one way or another, says Al Lundeen at the National Coalition on Ergonomics, an association of some 300 companies, OSHA’s regulations would have affected “everyone who walks or moves on the job.”
That’s an exaggeration. OSHA figures its rules would have affected fewer than haft the nation’s work-places. Still, opposition to the measure was intense. RSI is hardly the “epidemic that OSHA portrays it to be,” says House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, who claims that complying with the agency’s regulations would have cost U.S. companies some $21 billion. He and other conservatives had attacked the initiative as a case study in how not to regulate industry. As written, he argued, the proposed rules were costly, time-consuming and ambiguous. Last March DeLay proposed knocking $3.5 million off OSHA’s budget–the amount the agency intended to spend on its ergonomics program. Last week he joined about 60 other congressmen in proposing a wholesale overhaul of the agency.
Feeling beleaguered, OSHA is trying to hold some ground. Last week Assistant Labor Secretary Joseph Dear, head of the agency, told DeLay that he “is not dropping the plan” to issue new regulations, at least not entirely. “He feels confident that he can write regulations to benefit workers in specific industries that are having problems,” says DeLay, suggesting that OSHA might forgo sweeping regulation in favor of more targeted programs affecting fewer jobs and fewer companies. But that won’t change a basic fact: that there aren’t always clear causes–or remedies–for RSI. As Lundeen at the Coalition on Ergonomics puts it, rightly or wrongly: “You can’t mandate a fix if the fix isn’t out there.”
Repetitive-strain injuries affect muscles and tendons, but nerve damage is the most disabling.
People who look up at a computer screen or who balance a phone on their shoulder while typing are at risk.
Affects musicians hold shoulders in extended positions for many hours.
Mechanics, baseball pitchers and barbers can be victims.
Bothers drivers or phone who keep arms in flexed positions or constantly lean on elbows.
Affects typists, computer programmers and anyone hand tools.
Meat packers, assembly-line workers and machine operators have had the most trouble.
SOURCE: “OCCUPATIONAL NEUROLOGY AND CLINICAL NEUROTOXICOLOGY,” MARGIT L. BLEECKER MD. GRAPHIC BY: BOHR – NEWSWEEK
