The politics of the worker-notification bill

Details

• Personal Author:
  Connor MF
• Description:
  Political issues and actions concerning the Worker Notification Bill before Congress were described and discussed. The reasoning followed by General Electric in deciding to back the Worker Notification Bill was described. The legislation being considered would establish a Risk Assessment Board in the Department of Health and Human Services to identify employee populations at high risk of occupational disease, require that the Secretary notify members of individual populations, and require employers to monitor the health of notified employees when the exposure occurred in the course of their current employment. Opposition to the bills has arisen out of concern that their passage will create a new and unnecessary bureaucracy, mandate employee benefits, require transfer from hazardous jobs to less hazardous jobs at no loss of pay, and trigger thousands of multimillion dollar lawsuits. Invariably, however, the debate has been caught up in a larger clash between interest groups. Industry views the worker notification bill simply as one of many items on union agendas and links it with such unrelated issues as facility closings, parental leave, and mandated benefits. The author recommends that the worker notification bill be reviewed singly, separate and apart from all other issues. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Diseases Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Risk Assessment Safety
• Keywords:
  Industrial-hazards Industrial-hygiene Legislation NIOSH-Publication Occupational-diseases Occupational-exposure Regulations Risk-analysis Worker-health
• ISBN:
  9780897665230
• ISSN:
  0077-8923
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  126-129
• Volume:
  572
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00202337
• Citation:
  Ann NY Acad Sci 1989 Dec; 572:126-129
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1990
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:bdb09ed6d3b2f3d7d3d9c927a854e6939bc7e6b2e93b7dab1794a193795e39dd649a480585c64c0499ddd2e774bc41111ba2a2818f2b218f4c4e0dcae253954e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/205758/cdc_205758_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 232.42 KB ]