good job under difficult circumstances in implementing the act according to the intent of Congress.

Thus, Mr. Chairman, my second major point to the committee would be that this committee and other Members of Congress can helpby insuring every effort is made to alert our constituents to work with trade associations and to support the Department of Labor's efforts to create awareness of the requirements, impact, and goals of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

One of the complaints that come, both to this committee and I am. sure to every Member of the Congress, is that there are those who either have been inspected or may be inspected who don't know about the standards, or are unaware of OSHA as it applies to their business. As time goes on, and there is a greater awareness of the act, as the standards become more readily available and understandable, this problem will not be with us to the extent that it is today.

The amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Dennis, would have been a disastrous step backward in the very work that is necessary now. By slashing funds it would have effectively cut out State participation, it would have limited needed resources in providing published materials, and it would have forced the Department to focus more on compliance and less on information.

The amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Findley, and the Curtis amendment adopted in the Senate yesterday are also seriously mistaken. I find it difficult to understand why workers in a firm of fewer than 25 employees should be allowed no coverage in an area that involves their safety and health. It is for that reason Congress, when it passed the act, did not exempt categories of employment. The Findley amendment establishes a bad precedent in failing to recognize that safety and health hazards bear little relationship to the size of the business or number of employees.

This is not the same problem faced in the Fair Labor Standards Act where one might define by number of employees or gross number of dollars the type of provisions which should apply. A small sawmill or chemical company can be every bit as dangerous as a large one. This kind of arbitrary cutoff simply doesn't deal adequately with the concerns expressed by those in small business operations.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, of all of the suggestions that I have seen offered, both in terms of legislation and in statements before this committee, the one helpful suggestion that has been made is the idea of allowing consultations at the plantsite, without invoking the full compliance mechanism in the act. I would support an effort to enable the Department to have a technical assistance capability which could, upon request, go to a plant to help an employer fully understand how the standards apply to that operation. As I know the committee is aware, guidance on applicability is given now in the literally thousands of requests which have come to the Department. But, this consultation under the law cannot take place at the plantsite. It must be said, Mr. Chairman, that the consultation idea will not easily be accomplished. From my standpoint such a program should be in addition to the regular enforcement program, and any consultation staff should function independently from the compliance officer. In moving to the consultation idea, there is also the problem of what

a technical standards staff should do when, while offering assistance, it finds an imminent danger situation at a plant. A carefully defined role should be established for the technical assistant so that there is, in such circumstances, consultation with compliance officers.

The bill from the outset involved two fundamental changes from the old method of health and safety work. First, it provided for a significantly greater role for the employee as contrasted to the old view that safety was solely a management prerogative. Second, it provided for immediate enforcement of standards.

The reason for these very important changes has to do with the whole history of the development of the act and with the significant increase in deaths and injuries that was taking place. Employers had little incentive to comply with standards under the old system because they knew they didn't have to do anything until an inspection took place. Such a procedure in a law of this scope would not, in my view, work well.

It had been my original thought that the Department of Commerce or the Small Business Administration might be the appropriate place to provide for technical assistance on standards application. In exploring the concept, however, I came to the reluctant conclusion it would not be appropriate to further splinter the safety and health effort.

Thus, Mr. Chairman, it is my hope that this committee in its deliberations and recommendations to the legislative committee, if any, would be willing to seriously consider a consultative mechanism. It would be designed to alleviate the legitimate complaints of those who desire to voluntarily comply but lack the staff and financial resources necessary to hire an individual to interpret the massive set of standards. Such a move would be helpful in achieving the agreed upon goal of the safer and more healthful workplace environment.

Let me just briefly make a couple of other comments and then throw the floor open to you.

The decision of the Department to amend its recordkeeping requirements to exempt businesses of eight or fewer employees is a sensible move. As you know, the Department continues to want to develop, even with this exemption, a capability of judging the hazards in those businesses. This is vital to our effort to pull together the accurate data which we now lack about the extent of accidents at the worksite. And I must say in all openness and honesty, Mr. Chairman, the recordkeeping provision was a unanimous decision on the part of the committee in both the House and the Senate. It is something about which we felt strongly. We simply do not have adequate data on the kind of accidents and deaths taking place in the worksite. The National Safety Council's figure of 14,200 deaths in 1971, or 2.2 million disabilities, seriously undestates the extent of accidents and deaths in the workplace. It is for that reason that recordkeeping is felt to be so important.

This is one other amendment which again, in hindsight, I think Congress should have adopted. It relates to the States' role. Had more careful consideration been given to this problem I would have opted for 75 percent/25 percent matching formula as a more appropriate figure in the effort to more significantly involve the States in this whole effort.

Since the passage of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act, I have spent an increasing amount of my time in dealing with questions related to implementing the act.

I look forward to participation in the September hearings announced by Chairman Daniels, and I stand ready to work with all of my colleagues in matters regarding this act. Specific suggestions, whether in the form of legislation or relating to standards, are helpful as we strive to reduce the over $9 billion loss to the American economy and the suffering of those who are exposed to safety and health hazards. I thank the Chair and the committee for giving me a chance to be here.

(The prepared statement follows:)

REMARKS OF CONGRESSMAN WILLIAM A. STEIGER, OF WISCONSIN, BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AFFECTING SMALL BUSINESS, HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, ON THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: First of all I want to thank the Chairman and all the members of the Committee not only for taking the initiative in holding these hearings but also for allowing me to present this testimony today.

Having tried to carefully review the available testimony thus far, I believe the hearings can be helpful in appropriately focusing on the views and concerns of small businesses throughout this country. Most of all, Mr. Chairman, I hope it is possible to retain some perspective about this Act.

I am not surprised by the depth of feeling expressed by my colleagues in the House and Senate, by representatives of associations, and by individual businessmen who have communicated with me and others in Congress. This Act does have a profound impact. It should surprise no one that in the early stages of implementation there are questions raised, concerns expressed, and efforts from all sides to modify the original Act. That is as it should be in a democracy.

I am sure the Committee recognizes that any Act of this magnitude-which touches so many so deeply-would in its early stages arouse this kind of reaction. While I have not attempted to go back and review the reaction following passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act or the Wagner Act, I imagine our predecessors in the Congress found very similar reactions from their constituencies.

Clearly there had been hostile and heated reaction in 1916 when Congress first ventured into the area of child labor standards. Let me quote for you the view of the majority opinion of the Supreme Court when it struck down the first nationwide Child Labor law, the Keating-Owen Act, in 1918:

"The Act," the Court said, "is repugnant to the Constitution. It not only transcends the authority delegated to Congress over commerce but also exerts a power as to a purely local matter to which the federal authority does not extend." By regulating the hours of labor of children in factories, the Court forthrightly declared in its conclusion, "Our system of government [will] be practically destroyed."

As we now know, it was another 20 years before the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 contained the same child labor provisions that had been approved by Congress in 1916.

I make this point because I think it important to understand that time is a significant factor in alleviating and correcting what now appears to be insurmountable problems.

The theme of many people, both before this Committee and in correspondence to me, has to do with certain standards that are regarded as nuisance items, such as split toilet seats. These criticisms aimed at the Department of Labor might more accurately be directed at Congress for we should have had the foresight to realize that because the need to combat job injuries and illnesses was urgent-there would be tremendous pressures on the Department to have a full set of standards in place when the Act became effective. For the failure to sufficiently anticipate these pressures I bear special responsibility.

I must say in all honesty that were we to pass the Occupational Safety and Health Act again the single most important change I would make in the Act would be in setting the effective date. The Williams bill as passed by the Senate provided an effective date of 30 days following signature by the President. The Steiger-Sikes bill as passed by the House had an effective date of 120 days. The Conference Committee adopted the House version, but it is now apparent that four months was insufficient time for the Department of Labor to gear up for the enormous task ahead,

The Department has now, as you know, announced a timetable to modify some of the standards. But had Congress provided adequate time to carefully develop each standard, such review and modification might not be necessary.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, let me suggest to the Committee that substantial consideration was given by the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare to the question of the initial standards to be promulgated by the Department. There are, as you know, consensus standards or established federal standards. Many of the standards are those which the federal government has used for many years in contracts under the Walsh-Healy Act. Many have been used as guides by industry and many were already in force in states such as Wisconsin as their safety and health codes. Thus, these standards are neither new nor had they come from the bowels of the bureaucracy in the Labor Department without adequate attention to their effectiveness, legitimacy or propriety.

My first point to the Committee, therefore, would be that the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare have been under horrendous pressure to hire a staff to promulgate standards, to establish a compliance procedure, to train inspectors, and to carry out a campaign alerting employers and employees of their responsibility in what, in hindsight, was a very, very short period of time.

As the Committee may remember, one of the issues hotly contested in the Daniels bill versus the Steiger-Sikes bill was the concept of an independent standards commission. I felt then and I still feel that the establishment of standards ought to be separate from enforcement. That was an issue on which the Conference Committee did not accept the House version. I for one would be willing to continue to work toward a more complete separation of powers.

I would like to take this time to review briefly some of the legislative history of the Williams-Steiger Act, and discuss some of the issues still confronting us today. I am also including for the record the more detailed statement which I made during a one hour Special Order on the Floor of the House on March 29, 1972.

In reviewing the development of the legislation and maintaining proper perspective, it is essential that the following be kept foremost in mind: During the period between 1960-1970, on-the-job injuries were increasing at an alarming rate to the point where at least 14,500 persons were killed and 2.2 million disabled every year in American industry-a casualty rate far higher than the Vietnam War at its peak. In order to deal with this crisis in occuptional safety and health it became imperative that Congress take decisive action. No one ever claimed this problem could be controlled without cost and discomfort: it was clear that there was no reasonable alternative to strong legislation.

It was President Johnson in 1968 who proposed the first nationwide occupational safety and health bill. During that year, the Committee on Education and Labor held extensive hearings on that legislation and eventually reported a bill which became known as the Hathaway bill. At that time I offered a number of suggestions which were turned down by the committee and published in the minority views of the committee report accompanying that bill. Because it was late in the session, the House never considered that legislation.

In 1969 when President Nixon came into office, he asked each department to assess its legislative priorities. The Department of Labor placed safety and health at the top of its list. President Nixon, after consultation with all segments of the business, labor, and safety communities, then proposed this Administration's safety and health bill. Congressman Daniels subsequently proposed a new bill which was cosponsored in the other body by Senator Williams of New Jersey. Throughout all of 1969 and 1970 hearings were held on these proposals, and many factors went into the decision by Congress to eventually consider and pass legislation of this kind. For example, the AFL-CIO made this subject their No. 1 legislative priority for the 91st Congress. The business community represented through the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufac

turers, as well as various trade associations, switched from opposition to a Federal law to support for a Federal law. The Nixon administration's leadership and initiative, the emphasis on safety as reflected in the Coal Mine Safety Act, and the Construction Safety Act were all part of the background leading to the eventual signing of the Williams-Steiger Act.

Some may have forgotten the controversy between the Daniels bill and the Steiger-Sikes bill and the fact that there were significant differences in these bills. For example, there was the question of whether an inspector could on his own shut down a plant at the work site; the question of separation of powers between the promulgation of standards, inspections and enforcement; and provision for insuring the right to due process at each stage. All of these were involved in the House debate and were, I believe, reasons for the vote by the House to adopt the Steiger-Sikes substitute. The Williams bill contained major differences, and the Conference Committee had to wrestle with the task of reconciling them.

The Williams-Steiger Act is a compromise-one which did not then and does not now reflect 100 percent the views of the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the Nixon administration, Senator Williams or Bill Steiger. But it does reflect legislation which at the time it was passed was supported by all of the organizations, association and individuals who were active in this field.

Almost from the first day the Act became effective, there has been controversy surrounding its implementation. Those in the AFL-CIO, the UAW, and organized labor generally claim the Act is not being enforced vigorously enough. And there are those such as the men who have appeared before this Committee who claim its enforcement is, if anything, too vigorous.

On balance, I believe the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare are performing an extraordinarily good job under difficult circumstances in implementing the Act according to the intent of Congress. As I indicated at the outset I think time will help to alleviate some of the problems discussed before this Committee; specifically the complaint of those who have been or may be inspected has been that they didn't know about the standards or were unware of OSHA's application to their business establishment. As time goes on, as there is a greater awareness of the Act, as the standards become more readily available and understandable, that problem will not be with us to the extent that it is now.

Thus, Mr. Chairman, my second major point to the Committee would be that this Committee and Congress can help to ensure every effort is made to alert our constituents to work with trade associations and to support the Department of Labor's efforts to create awareness of the requirements, impact, and goals of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Dennis, would have been a disastrous step backward in this very work. By slashing funds, it would have effectively cut out states participation, it would have limited needed resources in providing published material, and it would have forced the Department to focus more on complinance and less on information.

The amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Findley, is also a serious mistake. I find it difficult to understand why workers in a firm of fewer than 25 employees should be allowed no coverage in an area that involves their safety and health. It is for that reason Congress, when it passed the Act, did not extemp categories of employment. The Findley amendment establishes a bad precedent in failing to recognize that safety and health hazards bear little relationship to the size of the business or number of employees.

This is not the same problem faced in the Fair Labor Standards Act where one might define by number of employees or gross number of dollars the type of provisions which should apply. A small sawmill or chemical company can be every bit as dangerous as a large one. This kind of arbitrary cut off simply doesn't deal adequately with the concerns expressed by those in small business operations.

May I say, Mr. Chairman, that the one helpful suggestion that has been made by so many including the Nixon Administration is the concept of consultations on the plant site without invoking the full compliance mechanism. I would support an effort to make it possible for the Department to have a technical assistance capability which could, upon request, come to the plant to help an employer fully understand how the standards apply to that operation. As I know the Committee is aware, guidance on applicability is given now in terms of the literally