A Discussion of the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act of 1973

• Publication year: 1993

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 17, No. 2WINTER 1994

ARTICLES

A Discussion of the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act of 1973

Mark O. Brown(fn*)

Presented as: A Preface to the University of Puget Sound Law Review

I. Introduction

A more appropriate name for the Washington Department of Labor and Industries (Labor and Industries) might be the "department of labor injuries" because most of Labor and Industries' resources are committed to dealing with the consequences of accidents, illness, and death in the workplace and to trying to reduce the frequency of each.

Labor and Industries has many responsibilities, including the administration of the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act of 1973 (WISHA).(fn1) The Act establishes state jurisdiction over workplace safety and health matters as provided under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act).(fn2)

WISHA, however, constitutes a set of laws that merely should serve as a guideline to employers and employees for workplace safety and health-it cannot possibly address every hazardous work situation. Even with the Act and its enforceable provisions, it is the responsibility of Washington employers and their employees to set out the best plan possible for the prevention of injury and illness. Compliance with WISHA should not be based on the fear of enforcement and fines, but on the belief that a safe and healthy work force is in the best interests of any work environment. Labor and Industries stands willing to take part in this change by strengthening our resolve to educate employers and workers alike so everyone wins by working toward the prevention of accidents and sickness, rather than by merely controlling losses.

This Preface briefly describes WISHA, the problems of worker safety in Washington, and the role of Labor and Industries in working to solve those problems. In Section II, this Preface addresses the status of worker health and safety in Washington. Section III describes some unique Washington programs that are to be used to combat the problems of worker safety. Section IV describes the cooperative steps that employers and workers are taking to help solve safety problems. Section V identifies new legal standards that are coming to bear on the issue of worker safety. Section VI identifies new frontiers upon which worker safety is being challenged. Finally, Section VII addresses the future direction of worker safety and injury prevention programs.

II. The Status of Health and Safety in Washington

Once every three minutes, a Washington worker is injured badly enough, or becomes ill enough, on the job to file a claim with Labor and Industries' workers' compensation fund.(fn3) A worker's death resulting from workplace injury or illness is reported to Labor and Industries at the astonishing rate of nearly one every four days.(fn4) Collectively, the hours lost by injured workers in Washington would be more than enough to staff the Boeing Company, the state's largest employer, for a full six months.(fn5)

In fact, despite some of the toughest safety standards in the country, Washington has the highest reported accident rate of any western state.(fn6) For example, one out of every ten workers in the private sector will suffer an injury or illness that requires more than first aid or results in time lost from work.(fn7) Washington's figures are also greater than the national average.(fn8) The current status of worker protection is clearly unacceptable. There is a big job ahead.

The economic cost of worker injury is high: Labor and Industries pays approximately $1 billion each year to compensate workers for lost wages and medical benefits. This does not account for the financial loss from lost productivity to our economy and the loss to our tax base. Nor does it tell of the personal, emotional cost to an injured worker when a moment of misfortune denies him or her a lifetime of livelihood.

I offer these statistics to express the formidable mission facing the people who administer WISHA and to indicate the Act's importance in protecting workers. Without the Act, the numbers of injured and killed would be far higher.

I also want to emphasize that Washington workers are laboring in some of the most hazardous industries in the country, including forestry, construction, agriculture, mining, fishing, and heavy manufacturing. The prevalence of high-hazard occupations underscores the need for maximum accountability for employers and workers in the interest of on-the-job safety and health, and provides incentive for government, management, and labor to cooperate toward achieving a safe work environment. Perhaps the prevalence of high-hazard occupations is why Washington has some of the most advanced safety and health standards in the nation.

Washington was an excellent candidate to become a "state plan" state after Congress passed the OSH Act in 1970. The Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)(fn9) and allowed states to establish their own plans if they could demonstrate programs "at least as effective" as the federal program.(fn10) These state occupational safety and health programs are called "state plans" in the OSH Act.

The effectiveness of Washington's program stems from a long tradition of concern for industrial safety and a desire for local control. Washington had a state safety program in place well before passage of WISHA in 1973. Labor and Industries has had a safety division since 1922. Workplace safety laws can be traced to the state's constitution: "The Legislature shall pass necessary laws for the protection of persons working in mines, factories and other employments dangerous to life or deleterious to health; and fix pains and penalties for the enforcement of the same."(fn11) For forty-two years, Washington State has convened the Governor's Industrial Safety and Health Conference, an annual symposium attended by thousands of workers and safety and health professionals from both the public and private sector.

Labor unions, specifically the Washington chapter of the AFL-CIO, were instrumental in gathering support for Washington to become an OSH Act state plan state. The unions' feeling was that they could have more input in the creation of state, rather than federal, worker protection policies, and would be provided...