NYCOSH offers advice on improving OSHA

Mar 20, 2009

A veritable "who's who" in the safety world offered advice on "fixing" OSHA in a newsletter from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

The special edition of Safety Rep (.pdf file) provided a forum for a broad range of safety and health experts to suggest the priorities they would set for the agency under the Obama administration.

NYCOSH Executive Director Joel Shufro suggested OSHA should "openly advocate protecting workers" to restore workers' trust. Jordan Barab, senior labor policy advisor to the House Education and Labor Committee, said standards development and ensuring data-collection accuracy should be high priorities for the agency.

Others who wrote editorials in the newsletter include Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY); AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka; and David Michaels, author and interim chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Public Health Services in Washington.