Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Bredenbeck.

And at this time, we'll ask Mr. Henzler to proceed with his testi

mony.

Mr. HENZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is William Henzler. I am president of Henzler Manufacturing Corp., Toledo, Ohio, and I am appearing today on behalf of the National Tool, Die & Precision Machining Association.

I welcome this opportunity to testify on the job safety law. My statement will support the points brought out by Mr. Bredenbeck in his testimony, and I will try to give some statistics that have bearing on the problem. I would like to preface these statistics by pointing out some items that should be put on the credit side of the ledger in behalf of American businessmen.

American businessmen believe in their Government. They obey its laws because they believe in the law, and they also believe that most laws are well-intended and are for the greater good of all citizens. Witness after witness in these hearings has testified that industry after industry has spent large sums of money and a great deal of effort in attempting to comply with OSHA. If at any point there is a lack of compliance, it's only because of misunderstanding or confusion concerning the law on the part of the employer.

I do not believe that any employer in the United States has picketed the White House, burned any buildings or carried any placards demanding the repeal of this law, even though he may find many of its

facets to be a burden to him.

Obviously, the purpose of witnesses here today is to try to correct some seeming inequities while using the processes provided to us by our Government.

Since the inception of OSHA, the National Tool, Die & Precision Machining Association has conducted more than 35 seminars in all parts of the country on the law for the benefit of its members and interested nonmembers. In our very first seminar, immediately following the enactment of OSHA, the audience even contained representatives from some of the major auto manufacturers.

After deciding that the Federal Register was much too copious and involved for most small businessmen, NTDPMA prepared a special 34-page booklet summarizing the law and emphasizing the points most applicable to the tool and die industry.

I am also very proud to report that NTDPMA implemented some time ago in conjunction with its insurance carrier-the Sentry Insurance Co.-a Loss Control Subcommittee devoted to the continuing reduction of accidents in tool and die plants. I think the following statistics are very important and have great bearing on the tryout press situation reported by Mr. Bredenbeck in his testimony.

Sentry Insurance Co., of Stevens Point, Wis., which carries the workmen's compensation insurance for hundreds of tool and die shops in our industry, reports from its most recent statistics-calendar year 1971--that there were a total of 17 accidents that year involving partial amputations of fingers. The important fact here is that none of these accidents came out of die setup on tryout presses.

I repeat, gentlemen, no accidents involving finger amputation from tryout presses. In addition to this, there were no I repeat no-hand injuries of any kind resulting from setup or tryout presses.

The National Tool, Die, and Precision Machining Association also conducts annually a national safety competition program among all of its members. Statistics for 1971 in this program reflect the above statistics.

Gentlemen, I have just described a perfect safety record involving tryout presses, yet OSHA calls for safety practices involved in working with the tools. Another problem in our industry lies in the OSHA restrictions regarding machine guarding.

Section 1910.212 states: The guarding device shall be in conformity with any appropriate standards therefore. On the absence of applicable standards, shall be so designed and constructed as to prevent the operator from having any part of his body in the danger zone during the operating cycle.

Now, to my knowledge, this paragraph is very nearly all inclusive with the exception of such specialized areas as a grinding. And this section of OSHA relating to machine guarding relates to a number of machines, types, and processes.

The employers are asked to assess the standards such as ASNI or MFPA for guidance. Gentlemen, let me be blunt. For the small businessman, any attempt to wade through the morass of individual and sometimes conflicting consensus standards is very nearly futile.

For the sake of argument, however, let us assume the employer is able to ascertain exactly what is expected of him. The next question is whether or not the recommended guardian is practicable within the framework of that particular machine operation, or in fact, possible within that framework.

In a number of cases we have reason to believe it is not. In my plant in Toledo I have a large milling machine. To be effective in performing the precision work necessary on this machine, the operator in many instances must follow a scribed line in the cutting area. To accomplish this he must be very close to his workpiece.

Machine guarding as presently defined by OSHA consensus standards will prevent him from doing so. We know; we have tried.

It may be possible in numerically controlled or computerized machinery-all of it very expensive and in many cases far beyond the price the small businessman in our industry can afford to pay-but it is not possible in the bulk of the industry's present machinery without the extensive and expensive modifications.

For the highly skilled craftsmanship operations of the tool and die industry, compliance with these two provisions is expensive, difficult, and in almost all cases, is impossible as a practical matter. One knowledgeable member has carefully estimated that compliance with the guarding and feeding rule would increase tooling costs by 65 percent for process conversion, 60 percent for engineering design. 40 percent for rebuilding existing tools, 50 percent for tool building, 75 percent for engineering new tooling and by 100 percent for quoting of new tooling. This member has also estimated that costs for machine setups would jump by 150-200 percent. The point is, gentlemen, if these modifications were necessary and crucial to the safety of the employee, there would be no excuse for not having them; and no expense would be too great to install them.

In tryout, and in some aspects of machining, these modifications are not necessary to the point indicated by present OSHA legislation.

These conversions would only inflate the cost of tooling at a time when inflation may be our most pernicious enemy-at a time when we are trying to get into world trade and compete with the other industrial nations of the Western Hemisphere.

You may have noticed from the newspapers last week that the tool and die industry is about to complete the signing of contracts with the Soviet Union for furnishing of $60 million worth of consumer goods factories. If you read the articles, you will know that we were able to successfully compete with the Germans, the Japanese, and the English in this. This would not have been possible were we in the process of doubling or tripling the cost of die tryout and the machinery necessary for the die tryout.

Gentlemen, the U.S. tool and die industry stands ready to comply with any reasonable legislation which will benefit the industry and its employees. But the current strictures of the Occupational Safety and Health Act resulting, we believe, from the vagaries of broad, sweeping, undefined regulations will cripple our ability to function effectively as a viable base of the economy.

It will cause undue and most certainly, unjust hardship on the small businesses of our industry. Our intent today has been to offer you a clear picture of exactly how and why OSHA will cause these hardships and how and why the present strictures of the law are at once difficult and very nearly impossible to live with.

In conjunction with several other trade associations representing related industries, NTDPMA now participates in an informal ad hoc committee aiming at clarifying the job safety legislation for our respective industries and at providing input to the Labor Department on ways and means that the law can be modified to meet the harsh work-a-day realities of the industrial marketplace.

We strongly urge that this distinguished subcommittee recommend to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for safety that such informal committees as ours be formed; that special, official advisory committees for various industries be developed to furnish him with specific details and suggested modifications of OSHA.

If not, we fear that the job safety act will become another vague and uncertain embodiment of the law and will exact harsh penalties on the industries and employees which it was conceived to serve. Gentlemen, I thank you for your time and your patience. Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Henzler.

Mr. Hardman, do you have a statement at this time?

Mr. HARDMAN. No, sir; we're ready for any questions you have.
Mr. BERGLAND. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH. I am not quite clear now. At first I thought you gentlemen were saying that you cannot comply with OSHA's paragraph D and so forth, and then later I thought you were saying that it would be very, very expensive to comply.

Which is it?

Mr. BREDENBECK. The strict interpretation of not placing hands or parts of the body between points of operation in the die-if we strictly observed that, I imagine we possibly could work under that condition. However, we have to remember when we try out dies, we are operating the press up and down to check out a certain function. of the die.

We may do 15 minutes worth of work, a half hour's worth of work to change and we have to operate the press again to determine other changes.

Now, if we go by strict interpretation of this law, we couldn't do that. We would have to operate the press, determine what change is to be made, pull the die out of the press, work on it then, and put it in again.

Now, sometimes it takes a whole day just to set up one die to do 10 minutes worth of work, just to get it in the press. It may take half a day to pull it back out again, and it is just not practical. It doesn't make any sense.

Mr. SMITH. It could be done but it would be terribly expensive.
Mr. BREDENBECK. It would be ridiculous.

Mr. HENZLER. That is where in some of the statistics I reported the cost is almost 100 percent more than what it costs us presently to do, which would put us out of a competitive field.

Now, we would not be able to get any orders because we would have to quote so high.

Mr. SMITH. The change that's needed then is to permit some kind of safety blocking or such.

Mr. HENZLER. Which we do anyway. It is a standard that our industry does already, and Mr. Bredenbeck testified.

Mr. SMITH. They've not incorporated that standard by reference. Mr. BREDENBECK. There's no reference whatsoever for the use of tryout presses or presses in tryout. There's no reference. It only refers to production, and this is where there has to be some change.

Mr. SMITH. Some of the testimony prior to today has indicated just by reference they incorporated volumes of regulations and so forth, and did not incorporate yours apparently, nor make any exception. That's all the questions I have.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Gentlemen, Mr. Bredenbeck first made reference on page 10 of your statement to a suggestion that all industries create some sort of an ad hoc committee to advise the OSHA administrators on the development of regulations.

Have you been so invited to participate in these discussions?

Mr. HARDMAN. Not really. There is one ad hoc committee sometimes referred to as the B-11-1 committee, that several related industries and metal working industries participated in.

I think Mr. Bredenbeck's suggestion is that industries like tool and die and stamping, et cetera, that find they have particular problems complying with OSHA where there is a lack of clarification of the law, be encouraged to have their own advisory committees that could sit down with representatives of the Labor Department and work out the items that are pertinent only to that industry rather than have some overall committee try to encompass all of industry and interpret clouding the issue even further.

Mr. BERGLAND. Mr. Henzler, on page 5, I think you said that you have such a committee?

Mr. HENZLER. Yes. We had a loss control committee.

Mr. BERGLAND. You have been counseling with the Labor Department on this particular matter, or do I misread your statement?

80-497 0-72- -25

Mr. HARDMAN. The loss control committee of the association is a safety committee. It was in existence long before OSHA, and it was devoted purely to creating a safer workplace and safer equipment at all times and reducing loss by accident.

Mr. HENZLER. And we have had a safety committee within our association that governed our members in the tool and die industry alone. Mr. BERGLAND. It seems to me you have a very legitimate case to bring to the attention to the Department of Labor with respect to the distinction between the commercial stamping process and the manufacturing of dies. The rules in this instance apply uniformly to both, and it's obviously a matter that commonsense would suggest changes be

made.

Have you in any way presented your case to the Labor Department? Have you called this to their attention?

Do they know about this distinction?

Mr. HARDMAN. Keep in mind that until this time the way OSHA has been written there's been no trial inspection. There's been no chance for information.

There's no way to call a Federal officer and say I want you to look at this and give me a reading on it. He says I'm going to give you a reading; I'm also going to give you a fine.

So people have been very reluctant to invite Federal officers in. There's no trial inspection of any kind.

Mr. BERGLAND. We think that happens to be the greatest weakness in the regulation at the moment. Has anyone been cited for violation of this particular rule?

Mr. HARDMAN. Neither of these two gentlemen, but we have many that have. The fines have not been large. The inspectors have been well behaved and have done their job well, as the law is written.

But still, it is an intolerable situation because they are being hit with something before it is explained to them.

Mr. BERGLAND. One more question, Mr. Henzler.

On page 2 you made reference to a 34-page booklet. Do we have copies of that?

Mr. HENZLER. We can get you copies.

Mr. BERGLAND. Would you get us copies for the committee files?
Mr. HENZLER. Yes. We will make sure the copy comes.

Mr. BERGLAND. Thank you.

Mr. Smith, anything else?

Mr. SMITH. During the 90-day period, did you contact the Labor Department or complain about the regulations?

Mr. HARDMAN. No. I don't think so. Everybody wanted to try to get a handle on the thing, and we still really don't have a full handle on it. Obviously, with what all of these witnesses have paraded here, everyone is still somewhat confused.

Mr. SMITH. Well, that was my next question-why didn't you?

Mr. HARDMAN. Well, I withdraw that and say that we did in one instance ask for a clarification very early in the game, on presses, and nothing very substantial came out of the Labor Department.

Mr. SMITH. Was it difficult to get replies and find out exactly what was going to be expected?

Mr. HARDMAN. The reply was reasonably prompt, but it was not a clearcut answer, and even then Labor officials, Mr. Ginther himself,