In my experience, calling or writing OSHA offices does not work very well. It is almost impossible to describe so many situations. Each plant is different. How can the OSHA officer visualize your exact problem? He tries to apply a black and white rule to a very gray area.

Many businessmen, including myself, hesitate in even calling OSHA offices on any question. There is a very real fear that this approach only alerts ŎSHA who you are and that you may have a compliance problem.

This attitude persists despite OSHA's claim that all inspections are on a random basis and that any inspection following an OSHA contact is purely coincidental.

Another problem in the written or phone approach in contacting OSHA on compliance questions concerns the validity of the answers received. Without the compliance officer being able to see your specific problem you are apt to receive different answers from different OSHA people to the same question. This certainly makes one wonder whether the regulations are being uniformly interpreted and enforced.

Let me give you several examples of questions we have asked and the varying replies we have received to some very simple problems.

1. Rag storage.-I questioned OSHA on the requirements for used rag storage since I could find no reference in the Register. The following answers were received:

(a) No storage of rags on premises at all. All rags must be disposed of daily.

(b) No storage of used rags allowed inside the building. Rags would have to be stored outside, in a separate area.

(c) Used rags could be stored inside the building in a covered container.

2. Petroleum storage.-I questioned two different OSHA offices on requirements for the storage of 55-gallon drums of hydraulic oils we use in our machine tools. The following dissimilar answers were received:

(a) Our present storage was inadequate; that a separate storage area would have to be found or constructed.

(b) Our present storage was completely adequate, and that only No Smoking signs should be posted.

3. 30-pound air.-We presently use an air-mist arrangement on cooling one of our grinding operations. OSHA rules are very specific about disallowing anything more than 30 pounds of compressed air for cleaning purposes.

We questioned two OSHA people whether our use came under this requirement. The following answers were received:

(a) Yes, we definitely came under the 30-pound rule.

(b) No, we did not come under the rule since we were cooling, not cleaning, and the air was affixed to the machine.

So the problem remains; we are trying to comply with the law, but the law does not provide anyone we can go to, with authority, that can answer our questions.

According to the law our employees can report alleged safety violations and get an immediate OSHA inspection. We as employers, trying to comply with the same law cannot get a helpful visit to find out if we meet the law's requirements without being subject to a formal inspection and fines.

Why can't the employers get the same rights as their employees? If the real intent is voluntary compliance, why can't we get voluntarily requested help? Why must we be fined for trying to comply with the law?

Wouldn't be it better to provide channels for the employer to correct his own discrepancies while still retaining the employees' right to report safety violations that some employers wouldn't otherwise correct?

It is my understanding that this law is supposed to be continually under review and change. If so, I strongly urge that the law be modified to allow (1) voluntarily requested compliance assistance inspections, without fines from OSHA, or (2) technical help from the Small Business Administration in the area of safety compliance with the emphasis on providing specific "nuts and bolts" answers on what we, as small businessmen, have to do to get our shops in order.

Mr. HUNGATE. Thank you very much, Mr. Elliott, for a very helpful statement, although some of it is confusing. It is not through you, but I am referring to some of the answers you received that are confusing. You don't know which fellow to listen to, I don't suppose. Mr. ELLIOTT. I will take the one that is most favorable. That is the problem, really.

Mr. HUNGATE. If you don't get a different guy the next time.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I didn't mean to be playing games by calling more than one person to compare answers. It just so happens that in trying to get information I happened to ask a similar question to more than one office.

Mr. HUNGATE. It is like the story about the fellow who went back to his 25th college reunion. He had to wait to see the dean. As he looked, there were some examination papers on the table. He being curious and all, he just looked over to read the questions. The dean came out and he said, "Dean, I just looked. Those are the same examinations you used 25 years ago.

The dean said, "That is right, but we have changed the answers." I guess that is what happened to you.

Mr. Conte.

Mr. CONTE. I want to join the chairman in complimenting Mr. Elliott on a fine statement.

Can you tell us how many employees there are in the duMont Corp? Mr. ELLIOTT. We have 30, including the company officers.

Mr. CONTE. Since the act has been effected, do you feel there is any improvement in ways to ascertain standards and acquire better information?

Mr. ELLIOTT. No.

Mr. CONTE. It hasn't improved at all?

Mr. ELLIOTT. No. I will say that in contacting your office you gave me the name of a gentlman here in Washington in the Compliance Office who was very helpful. But, again, some of the different answers I gave were his answers which would be different from what I would get from local area directors.

Mr. CONTE. In a letter that you wrote to me on June 12, you described your activities with the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce as well as with the community college. Could you tell the committee what you are doing in this field or what they are doing?

Mr. ELLIOTT. The community college has set up an educational program for the small businesses in the area, which would try to instruct them as to what the provisions of OSHA are.

In my own opinion, the real problems of every company vary so widely that what we really need is "nuts and bolts" answers.

The seminars I have attended so far are much broader in scope. It is still very difficult to get specific answers to your specific problem.

The suggestion was also made that we perhaps organize into selfinspections of a group where varying businessmen might get together and perform an inform inspection on another plant and give their ideas as to what might be good or bad about that plant.

Our only feeling here is that it may be the blind leading the blind. I probably know more about my plant than anyone else coming from a dissimilar organization might know.

I am not saying that he couldn't see something that I walk by every day. But looking at this stack of books, I wonder whether he can help me, really, in specific OSHA problems.

Mr. CONTE. The hearings have been very informative. We have been able to acquire a lot of good information. For example, it was suggested that if an OSHA inspector were to discover, especially where small business is concerned, as violation of OSHA's so-called rules and regulations, the inspector then would allot to the individual involved a certain amount of time in which to rectify his fault. The chairman suggested 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days as the time allotment. After that time had elapsed, the inspector would make sure the fault had been corrected. If it had not been corrected, the individual then would be fined.

Many States do this with car inspections. I know they do it in Massachusetts in regard to car inspection stickers. If your brakes or windshield wipers do not operate properly, the inspector refuses to issue you an inspection sticker. You are given so many days to have your brakes or wipers fixed and then you must return to the station to receive the sticker. But they don't run you right off the road immediately!

What do you think of that idea?

Mr. ELLIOTT. I think that is a fine idea. The only problem there is that we may be sitting with an existing problem until the OSHA inspector comes. I would certainly like to see that change made.

I don't really have a lot of sympathy for the employer who doesn't try to make changes and then gets hit or has his 30-day grace period and doesn't do anything about it. What I would like to be able to do is call our area director and sometime when they have OSHA inspectors in Greenfield, have him stop by, have him take an informal tour. If our employees can get an OSHA inspector up there within a week, I would like to. Here, again, I am not asking for everyone, just when he is in the area sometime, stop by, if we request it.

If we haven't requested it, fine, we are not trying to comply. But if we ask for help, let him come in and take a look around, let him make suggestions as to what has to be done, so we can be working on it. Then when he comes in for the formal inspection we would have started to correct some of our problems.

Mr. HUNGATE. In other words, you might distinguish between the man that requested the inspection to get right and the guy who just took his chances and was caught.

Mr. CONTE. We were questioning Mr. Guenther of the Labor Department who heads this program. He said on page 59 of this year's hearings of the Appropriation Committee, part 6, "Indeed, part of the problem seems to be that there are many employers who wish us to conduct an inspection, if you will, free of charge, come in and say, 'Now, if we were here for real we would do this, this and this.' Under the terms of the act, there is just no way we can do that."

I think if this is their biggest problem, and we will have them here before the committee to explore this, then the only way to correct the problem is by amending the act to give them this latitude.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I know one of their complaints has been that they have not had adequate manpower to do what I am suggesting. I am suggesting if they have adequate manpower to investigate every employee complaint they might have sufficient manpower also to conduct maybe a quick walkthrough. Let's get working on the big things, if nothing else. We have to budget for these things. They just can't all be done overnight. We have to begin to work on them.

If he can point out some direction to us, we can get started.

Mr. CONTE. What kind of an accident rate is there at your plant? You must keep statistics.

Mr. ELLIOTT. We had zero lost-time accidents last year.

Mr. CONTE. For the entire year?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes.

Mr. CONTE. That is a commendable record. You do have something that could be termed hazardous, if I remember correctly, in going through your plant?

Mr. ELLIOTT. We primarily manufacture cutting tools, but we have the standard milling machines, grinding machines. They are as hazardous as any typical machine shop.

Mr. CONTE. You can get a necktie caught or something.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Right.

Mr. CONTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUNGATE. Mr. Bergland.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Elliott, I only have one question. You cited two instances in which you received different information from people within the Department of Labor in response to the same question. Did they respond to you in writing?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Most of it is by phone. They prefer it by phone, from what I understand. They prefer a phone call to the district office or to one of the people.

Mr. BERGLAND. Did you ask them to confirm this advice in writing? Mr. ELLIOTT. No; I did not.

Mr. BERGLAND. In any event, this was given to you by telephone? Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes; it was. I recorded the phone conversations directly after I spoke to them. That is why I am sure of the facts that I stated.

Mr. BERGLAND. In the case of the rag issue, did you talk to three persons in the same office?

Mr. ELLIOTT. No. There was one in the Washington office, one in the Hartford office, and one in the Boston office.

Mr. BERGLAND. And you got three different answers?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes.

Mr. BERGLAND. And the same was true with the question of air pressure?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes, sir. The air pressure one were the Washington and Hartford offices.

Mr. BERGLAND. What did you do?

Mr. HUNGATE. Where are your rags?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Very frankly

Mr. CONTE. You really don't have to answer that.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I took answer (C), which was the easiest, and actually I think the most commonsense approach. I think if an OSHA inspector had been there, it would have been the choice he would have picked. But try and do it on the phone. Just try and explain your situation, your layout, on the phone. It is very difficult.

Mr. BERGLAND. To this date you don't really know if you are in compliance?

Mr. ELLIOTT. No, but I have had our local fire people in, and they feel we are perfectly in compliance.

Mr. BEGRLAND. What about the fellow who gave you advice to store them outside or to be disposed of daily? What if he called on you?

Mr. ELLIOTT. I have on file the different answers from the different OSHA people. I wrote them down right after the phone call. I have all that in my files.

I really don't think there will be a problem once you can see it. It is just not that big a thing. When you only have 30 people

Mr. BERGLAND. I wouldn't be so sure.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I hope it is not that big a thing. It just didn't seem so. These things are not oily.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUNGATE. They probably do have a manpower problem if they started in with these regulations and they are all new and this voluminous. For every small business in the United States, it would take a lot of manpower.

Mr. ELLIOTT. A lot of small businesses are not aware of the fact a law exists or they don't feel it applies to them. I don't think they would request that many voluntary inspections.

Mr. HUNGATE. But the Labor Department with its responsibility extending to all small business, that is where I see they have a manpower problem. They have responsibility whether you know you are under it or not.

Mr. ELLIOTT. That is true.

Mr. CONTE. If you will yield, Mr. Chairman, we gave them all the employees that they asked for this year. I think it was about 1,100 extra. That was before the amendment.

I think you can help them in the appropriation process and also in the administration by giving them more personnel for research, development, and advisers, rather than by giving them personnel for enforcement. If what Mr. Roncalio says is true, and you get into the enforcement end, and a whole group descends on a small town in Wyoming, they will raise havoc.

One thing we have to be careful about is too many people on the enforcement end, and each individual with a quota to reach in order