Dealing with cumulative trauma disorders arising at work has gotten major attention from safety and health professionals over the past few years. Attempts to pass enforceable ergonomics standards have not pro gressed rapidly in Western Europe. The United States, through use of the General Duty Clause of the OSHAct had begun to require employers to re-design work operations to eliminate CTD problems. However, when the federal government attempted to promulgate enforceable ergonomics standards, they ran up against a brick wall of resistance from major employer associations.
Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is attracting increasing attention in the United States as a means of allowing both unionized and nonunionized employees to discuss their grievances in the presence of outside third parties. Public interest groups have looked for mechanisms to accomplish this objective. For some time, South Australia has used a dispute resolution system that provides both mediation and arbitration for individual workers. As good as this system is in overall intent, it falls short of putting people back on their jobs or providing adequate compensation in cases of unfair dismissal. This paper discusses the operation of the mediation step in the unfair-dismissal process of South Australia.
The article by Robinson et al. [1991] does indeed raise the very serious issue of institutional influence on the standards-setting process within a group (ACGIH) that is not free from susceptibility to outside influence. It brings to mind the time when I applied for membership in ACGIH back in the early 1970s and was initially told that I represented an interest group (presumably labor) that did not have a place within their organization. Upon challenge, they backed off and allowed me to join.Certainly NIOSH is the appropriate organization to provide the research and make recommendations concerning RELs. I am shocked to read that they do not have a place in the PEL-developing process within ACGIH. We were obviously aware that ACGIH was a conservative organization. Yet, even their recommendations were adopted as standards in third world nations long before being promulgated by OSHA. My compliments to the authors on an excellent article that highlights this very important, politically charged problem with regard to standards for air contaminants.
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