Your serious consideration in support of these and other recommendations for making OSHA more realistic in terms of application will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF HARRY D. PETERSON ON BEHALF OF MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: My name is Harry D. Peterson. I am Director of Employee Relations for the Minnesota Association of Commerce and Industry, which has its headquarters at 1600 Pioneer Building, Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Association is a voluntary, non-profit organization with a membership of approximately 1500 firms, organizations, and individuals conducting business in the state of Minnesota. The membership embraces employers engaged in all types of businesses-manufacturing, retailing, service, logging, mining, professional activities, and many others. Withn its membership are 63 local chambers of commerce and numerous trade and professional associations and through such organizations our reach extends to many thousands of additional employers in our state.

We appreciate the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee on the problems of small business as it seeks to understand and comply with the Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970. Particularly, we appreciate the efforts of the Honorable Congressman Robert Bergland of Minnesota in initiating action for these hearings based on his recognition of the problems that operators of small businesses are having with the new job safety act and its administration. Hopefully, the future may hold changes to substantially reduce these problems. We also wish to thank Congressman Bergland for his personal invitation to the Minnesota Association of Commerce and Industry for participation in these hearings.

When the Occupational Safety & Health Act went into effect, many employeroriented organizations recognized the need for dissemination of information on the new law to employers so that the goal of the act-to reduce accidents in all work places can be realized. Early last summer, the Occupational Safety Committee of our organization established a program for presenting a series of OSHA seminars in all areas of the state. Careful planning went into the development of the material to be used by the several seminar leaders, and supplies of OSHA publications were obtained for distribution at these seminars.

Beginning in September and running into last month, MACI presented 19 seminars with the co-operation of local chambers of commerce, other employeroriented organizations, the state safety council, and loaned management personnel. At a number of these, representatives of OSHA and the state Department of Industry also participated. Attending these 19 seminars were more than 2700 representatives of state business firms with a great percentage being owners or managers of small businesses. Almost every segment of business was represented.

In addition to these seminars, the MACI staff and committee personnel have made numerous OSHA presentations to civic and business groups at luncheons, annual meetings, and similar special gatherings. In our state, the MACI was not alone in trying to get the OSHA word out to the business community. Trade and professional organizations, insurance companies, trade schools and colleges, and others were also making presentations. Through the combined efforts of all, many thousands of business people in the state were reached.

Drawing on our own experience on OSHA seminars, special presentations, and contacts with individual employers, it can be said that no employer has yet indicated a lack of interest in providing safe and healthful work conditions for his employees. All employers, large and small, know the tremendous costs that accompany serious accidents to workers, some of which carry painful, permanent injury and even death. Of prime concern is the avoidance of pain and suffering to a worker or his dependents and the substantial loss of income for a family when its breadwinner is disabled or killed. Employers do not want to suffer the loss of services of skilled individuals as this usually results in disruption of production and other management problems. Of final consideration is the economic loss in terms of costs of medical care and workman's compensation.

Repeatedly heard at seminars and general discussions on OSHA are declarations, particularly of representatives of small businesses, that though they want to provide safe work conditions for employees, they are overwhelmed by the scope of the law and regulations and the lack of specific information and advice in how they are to comply with the law. Overshadowing the whole picture is the heavy hand of enforcement, which can descend on an employer if he fails to comply with very specific work place safety standards, most of which are written in extremely technical language. Few small employers have the personal expertise or trained personnel on their staffs to understand and interprete specific standards that apply to their job sites and the cost of retaining the advisory services of a safety professional or technician may be almost prohibative.

In passage of the Occupational Safety & Health Act, Congress declared its purpose and policy to seek to provide as far as possible for every working man and woman safe and healthful working conditions by "encouraging employers and employees in their efforts to reduce the number of occupational safety and health hazards in their places of employment . . ." The word "encouraging" is defined as stimulating or inspiring another to take certain positive actions. It seems that if there is to be true encouragement of employers to provide safe job conditions for their workers, there needs to be education of employers as to what they should do in this area. They must be given technical assistance so that with understanding they can make the changes necessary to eliminate hazards.

The shortcoming of OSHA to date is that there has been no inspiring of employers through the educational process. Encouragement so far is based solely on the fear of hard-fisted enforcement of the law through unannounced inspections and the issuance of citations and penalties. It is true that the law makes some reference to programs for the training of employers and employees, but none of this appears to have surfaced in OSHA to date. We have only heard so far about the number of inspections that have been made, the types of citations issued, and the money penalties generated. These figures hardly can be figured as inspirational and a form of encouragement to employers to act to reduce accidents in their work places.

To our knowledge, the only direct effort to provide some education for employers on OSHA prior to the beginning of enforcement of that law was the mailing of the booklet describing Recordkeeping Requirements under the WilliamsSteiger Act. This publication was issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to all employers who at that time were filing regular reports for federal tax purposes. This particular publication contains an open letter to employers signed by Secretary of Labor Hodgson within which this sentence appears, "We urge you to review the contents of this booklet that you may know and respond to your obligations under this new Act". The booklet contains a summary of the law, making general statements about its provisions, including those having to do with the promulgation of safety and health standards. The balance of the booklet deals with the subject of employer obligations for maintenance of records on job accidents or illnesses. The booklet provides no information to employers on how they could acquire copies of the various standards with which they had to comply, yet they became subject to inspections, citations, and fines for not having their places of employment meet these unknown standards. This then has been the extent of the education effort generated from the government to employers about OSHA. It hardly represents true encouragement of employers for voluntary compliance with the new law.

Part II of the Federal Register of May 29, 1971, contains national consensus standards and established federal standards adopted by the Department of Labor as the starting point for judging safe and healthful work conditions for most business establishments. Unfortunately, when the OSHA enforcement machinery was set in motion, similar machinery was not geared up to produce sufficient quantities of this 247-page book to meet the needs and demands of all employers whose business places would be judged on the basis of these standards. Even now, many months after OSHA enforcement started, there are employers and organizations which cannot get delivery of orders for copies of the Federal Register. Even in our own case, MACI is still awaiting delivery of a supply of these books on which an order was placed in early March. As a result, we have been unable to pass copies of this important publication on to members who have requested them through us. A similar situation has prevailed but to a somewhat lesser degree in the inability of the U.S. government printing office to fill orders for copies of the act itself.

Even if an employer is able to acquire a copy of the Federal Register containing the standards, there is every likelihood that he or his staff people will not be able to understand and interpret many of the standards. Lacking that understanding, the employer cannot even make a personal judgment as to whether or not his operation is in conformity with the standards. These problems are undoubtedly greatest for small businesses but even large businesses with their safety professionals and technicians are having some problems in understanding areas of compliance. The small employer is almost completely adrift, probably can not even afford the services of a technical consultant if one were available to him to assist him in understanding how to get into compliance with specific standards.

Many of the standards deal with levels of exposure to irritants-noise, dust, toxic materials . . . and sophisticated testing equipment has to be used to measure exposure levels. Few small businesses are equipped with the necessary testing equipment or have ready availability to a technician who has the equipment and knows how to use it. Yet these businesses are subject to inspection by OSHA and if the safety and health standards are not met, they are subject to citations and possible fines.

The law in its current administration is directed fully towards enforcement, and an OSHA compliance officer makes inspections solely for the purpose of detecting hazardous conditions or evident non-compliance with specific safety and health standards. His role is that of a policeman, and he is not allowed to serve as a counselor to the employer whose plant he is inspecting. He is not authorized to advise the employer on how to overcome non-compliance problems in his plant by telling him what changes he should make, the type of equipment to obtain, or other general advice. Following inspection, the employer may receive citations and possible fines. He will be told what conditions in his plant do not meet the standards and given specific periods within which to correct alleged unsafe conditions, but he is not given any help through advice as to how to accomplish that end. True, the employer has the right to appeal to the review commission if he feels that citations and fines are not appropriate, yet few small employers can afford the cost and effort that may be connected with using the appeal process.

It is unfortunate that OSHA does not give its compliance officers the authority to counsel with employers and point out to them how they can overcome their non-compliance problems. In Minnesota, inspectors for our labor and industry department have a good record of working with employers in advising them how to overcome some of their operational deficiencies. This has been done with good results without diminishing the effectiveness of tough enforcement where there are violations and where penalties and citations are appropriate.

In its enforcement of the act, OSHA can and does issue citations and money penalties on first inspection violations that are noted. It is inappropriate that with so comprehensive an act and regulations as we have in OSHA that first inspection violations should be so handled until there has been a greater period of time allowed for employers to become fully informed on the law and to have had available to them the advice and assistance of safety professionals and technicians to help them get their houses in order. The appropriate way to encourage employers for voluntary compliance with the law is to make available to them good technical counsel and to judge them for penalty purposes only after they have had the chance to make necessary changes.

Based on OSHA discussions with hundreds of employers, most of them repre senting what would be classed as small business, we feel that the thrust of OSHA needs to be changed from one of firm enforcement to one of encouragement of employers through education and technical assistance. This can be done without weakening efforts to improve work places and insure more safe and healthful working conditions for all men and women. Suggestions for change are these: OSHA should devote a considerable part of its effort in the next year to make sure that all covered employers are aware of their obligations under the act. Even though more than a year has passed since OSHA went into effect, there are undoubtedly many small employers unaware that the law applies to them as well as the giants of industry.

Assured prompt distribution to all employers of OSHA publications dealing with administration of the law. Special effort must be made to insure that employers know the standards that apply to their particular places of operation and are made aware of changes in those standards as they are approved.

Federal grants should be made to set up technical assistance programs. Employers must have sources of information and advice on how to comply with OSHA, including the availability of skilled safety personnel to make plant visits on request and point out alterations needed to bring a plant into conformity with standards. Technical assistance service could be set up within the framework of OSHA or under the management of existing state accident prevention agencies. Another possibility would be in funding private organizations, such as state safety councils or organizations of safety professionals, to make the service available to employers.

It is recommended that the law be amended so that first inspections by OSHA be treated as advisory and that where nonconformity with standards are noted, compliance agreements between the parties be worked out with reasonable times for abatement of alleged unsatisfactory conditions allowed. No citations or fines should be levied on first inspections except where violations are very serious and represent obvious disregard by the employers of the health and welfare of employees.

Your serious consideration and support for these and other recommendations for making OSHA more realistic in terms of its application to small business will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for permitting me this opportunity to appear before this subcommittee.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you very much for a very constructive and well-thought-out statement. We appreciate your coming here today. I do have a few questions.

You held a series of 19 meetings around the State?

Mr. PETERSON. That is correct, sir.

Mr. BERGLAND. That was to inform employers of their responsibility under the act?

Mr. PETERSON. That is right.

Mr. BERGLAND. What sort of information were you able to give them in view of the fact that evidence has been received at this hearing that information of various sorts is often given to the same question?

Mr. PETERSON. Fortunately, Mr. Chairman, our seminars had to be along the line of what is the law, what are the recordkeeping requirements and what are the standards.

Our main idea was to at least make employers aware that there is a new law. We were not able to give them the technical assistance in interpreting the standards. We do not have that expertise ourselves.

We can only say that "This is what the law permits your employees to do," in terms of the employee privileges of asking for inspections and accompanying on the walk-around, things of this

sort.

And the employers right to accompany the inspector, of course, and also to appeal. We took the law step-by-step to explain it to them. We took the recordkeeping booklet and tried to explain as best we could what we understood the recordkeeping requirements were. Then we at least alerted them to the depth of the standards that were in this booklet.

This was the extent tha we could go o in covering the subject matter because we are not the technicians, as possibly Mr. Barbe, who was here before, would be as an engineer. We are not.

Our thought was let's make them aware that there is a law. Few employers knew about it.

I might point out that our first seminar was held in your district, in Fergus Falls, last September 27 or 28. In spite of the fact that we had

given it substantial publicity through the chambers of commerce and through our membership, and in other ways, through the newspapers, we sent a staff of five individuals to put on the seminar, including the area director for OSHA and the State labor and industry commissioner representative up there and had 30 people out to attend. They did not at that moment even realize that it applied to them.

After a period of several months we began getting calls and contacts from chambers of commerce in the area, saying, "Now our people recognize that there is a new law." The word has gotten around. Will you come back?" We have been back in the area with three additional seminars. This is true all over the State.

Mr. BERGLAND. I think I have had at least 30 letters from businessmen in Fergus Falls alone on the application of this in the last 2 months.

Mr. PETERSON. I would point out we take no great credit for what we think is a leadership role in getting the word out. There are many other organizations that have tried to do the same thing. The Minnesota Safety Council have participated in most of our seminars and they have held meetings, they have met with special industry groups.

There have been the shorter presentations, such as the noon luncheon presentations we have made to the Rotary and Kiwanis, whatnot, all throughout the State. Yet, hardly a day goes by that I don't hear of someone who has said, "I just talked to a man today who said he knows nothing about OSHA." The extent of its application to all employers just has not permeated, has not settled in.

To respond, we were not able to go into the technical details and respond to the interpretation of a technician. Some could be answered. Mr. Fern, the area director, was with us on those seminars, and his explanation was in terms of how they view their responsibilities, what they could do and could not do. I do not have any horror stories about the activities in Minnesota.

We think we have a pretty good OSHA office. We have not felt that there has been any Gestapo tactics used in thta area. But the feeling is this is possible. A different area director, different agents, can come in and change the whole complex of things.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you very much.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you.

Mr. BERGLAND. Our next group represents the Retail Farm Equipment Dealers in the Dakotas and Minnesota, headed by Mr. Ken Austin.

TESTIMONY OF KENNETH AUSTIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MINNESOTA-SOUTH DAKOTA IMPLEMENT DEALERS' ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY ARNOLD TANK, PRESIDENT, JULIAN NEWHOUSE, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, AND WILLIAM NOBLE, WASHINGTON COUNSEL

Mr. BERGLAND. Would you please introduce your delegation for the benefit of this committee?

Mr. AUSTIN. With me today are Julian Newhouse, national director of our association from Minnesota and South Dakota; our president, Mr. Arnold Tank, a farm equipment dealer at Villard, Minn. Also

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