juries and illnesses." Apparently, this language has been misinterpreted by the Department. Businessmen are not consulted with, they are fined. They don't receive advice, they receive citations. They are told what is wrong, but no one will tell them what is right.

Congress did not intend this to be primarily a criminal law; we intended it to encourage Federal, State and private cooperation in seeking safer working conditions for our workers. It appears that we must spell this out in third-grade language so the bureaucrats downtown can understand it.

This Act should be administered with a rule of reason. The Department should develop flexible means to accomplish the end result of employee safety and health, and sensible discretion should be used in issuing citations and proposed penalties.

Mr. Chairman, your committee has heard many witnesses during these timely hearings. You are well aware of the problems and the many proposals which have been offered to return this program to its original intent. Among the 90 different bills which have been introduced in this Congress to amend OSHA are four which I co-sponsored. Briefly stated, my bills would protect farmers and all small businessmen from the excesses of enforcement we have seen in the past. I thank the committee for its consideration of these measures and assure you that you will have my cooperation as you attempt to draw up corrective legis

lation.

In closing, I would like to mention something which has been of growing concern to me and to many of my constituents. This OSHA problem is but one example of the Federal Government's enlarging role in the everyday activities of our citizens. Almost every day I see or hear of instances in which the Federal bureaucracy with all its forms, regulations, guidelines, standards and required paperwork is proving to be a nuisance to the citizens supposedly served. This load is especially heavy on small businessmen and farmers, who cannot afford professional help to meet these requirements.

One of our colleagues from Texas reports that a meatpacker in his district was approached one morning by a Federal enforcement officer for the Wholesome Meat Act. The officer looked at the plant and told the meatpacker the floor would have to be washed down more often or he would be fined. That afternoon, the OSHA inspector appeared, only to issue a citation to the meatpacker for having a wet floor.

This would be humorous if it weren't true, but it happens all the time. Congress is partly to blame. We have written all of these laws, each with a noble purpose. But the total effect of these laws and the regulations which have been promulgated by the bureaucracy to carry them out is overwhelming the people these laws are supposed to be benefitting.

I hope your committee will keep this in mind as you draft your recommendations for amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

STATEMENT OF HON. BOB SIKES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the members of this Committee for allowing me the privilege of appearing before you in behalf of needed amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

When this measure first was passed, it was with the hope and expectation that it would bring a sharp decline in the number of industrial accidents which annually take many lives and injure thousands more. I do not question that the bill has resulted in a reduction of this type of accident, but in the Congressional zeal to enact this legislation serious inequities in the bill were disregarded, even though these inequities in the main were identified at the time.

With your hearings on Oversight of the 1970 bill, there is now an opportunity to correct some of the shortcomings in the existing law. This is particularly important in the way that the law affects small businesses, light construction, and the neighborly farmer.

I do not believe it was the true intent of the Congress to impose the same kinds of safety requirements on the neighborhood natural or bottled gas distributor as are imposed on the huge conglomerate operating a giant refinery. I do not believe it was the intent of the Congress to impose identical safety requirements on the small contractor who builds family dwellings or carports that are imposed on the contractor erecting a fifty story office building. I do not believe it was the

intent of the Congress to, in effect, halt the practice by farmers of allowing a neighbor in time of need to use their equipment on loan.

Yet, these are some of the results of the 1970 Act. Small non-manufacturing businesses or businesses with fewer than 25 employees cannot, under any conceivable stretch of the imagination, be lumped in the same category with the corporate manufacturing giants. To require identical safety standards for such diversity of safety hazard is unfair, costly and impractical, and it should be rectified.

I have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation which now is before this Committee for consideration. Similar proposals have been put forth by other members of the Congress. The time is late, but it is very necessary that corrective legislation be enacted.

I would call the Committee's attention in particular to four proposals which have been introduced.

H.R. 12068 would amend the 1970 Act to provide that businesses with fewer than 25 employees would be exempt from the Act provided existing state laws are applicable. This exemption would not. Mr. Chairman, serve to nullify the effect of the 1970 Act. It rather would recognize the difference between large and small business and it would take into account that, provided there are state laws to protect the workers, the federal regulations aimed at improving safety in big business would not work a financial hardship on the smaller business.

II.R. 12679 touches on the problem of the small versus the large contractor. This amendment would allow the Secretary to consider the difference between a construction job of huge proportions and a small job where the construction of a private home or small building is undertaken. The present law does not allow the Secretary to exercise this discretion and the result has been that the small contractor now must spend thousands of dollars for safety equipment he does not need, cannot use, and cannot afford. Obviously, this is unfair and H.R. 12679 would rectify this inequity.

H.R. 14644 goes to the heart of a tradition in America, that of one neighbor helping another. In this case, I refer to the small farmer who loans his equipment to a neighbor to help with the harvest or planting. Under the terms of the 1970 Act, this kind of neighborliness is construed as an employer-employee relationship and thus comes under the terms of the Act. H.R. 14644 would alleviate this ridiculous situation simply by defining the terms of an employee as one who is paid for what he does. A farmer loaning his equipment and even operating it himself would not be considered an employee if he were not paid monetarily for his neighborly act.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would call the Committee's attention to H.R. 13943 which, in effect, summarizes the several amendments I have discussed here today.

I sincerely believe these amendments are needed if the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is to work to the advantage of all without undue hardship on a few.

There is no question that the federal government has a role in establishing safety and health standards in large business or in businesses with unusual risk and hazard. This is a proper role for government. But I believe it is unjust for these regulations to apply across the broad spectrum of industry and lump the small business firm with the large manufacturer or industrialist. I urge the Committee give serious consideration to the points I have raised. We are talking, not only about safety and health, but also about the very existence of many businesses in America. What good will have been done to enforce stringent, unworkable safety standards on a business in order to protect a few workers if those same regulations force the company out of business and throw its workers out of jobs.

I respectfully request favorable consideration of these proposed amendments.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SLACK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I respectfully submit this statement in connection with your Subcommittee's hearings on the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (P.L. 91–596).

Because of my concern over the failure of the Department of Labor to recognize, in promulgating safety standards under the Act, that light construction and

heavy construction are two separate and distinct industries, I introduced H.R. 13588 which is now before this Subcommittee. I speak in support of my bill and similar legislation introduced by some 140 of our colleagues in the House.

When the 91st Congress considered and passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, now P.L. 91-596, I was among those who favored the proposal from the very beginning. I believe we acted positively and in the public interest when we established the authority of the Federal Government to set occupational health and safety standards. The rising amount of accidents on the job demanded some action, and we had to respond.

Although I am no longer active or involved, there was a time when I was engaged in home construction as a small builder. I am personally familiar with the problems and hazards of the industry. I still maintain a friendly relationship with many builders active in the home construction industry. Recently I had an opportunity to observe first-hand the effects of the standards established by the Department of Labor under terms of P.L. 91-596 on home builders and renovators. I must report to you that as a by-product of our worthy efforts to reduce job-site accidents, we have encouraged a set of conditions which substantially increase the building costs for home units, cripple small builders, discourage new home starts, and wreck havoc among employers and employees in the light construction industry who must interpret and adhere to a lengthy and complex safety standards obviously intended for a completely separate and distinct industry.

The standards established for all those engaged in construction, whether light or heavy, by the Labor Department under P.L. 91-596 may well serve the purpose to protect workers in heavy construction from a number of repeated hazards, but many of the hazards simply do not exist in the home construction industry. I can assure you from my own experience that light construction and heavy construction are vastly different industries. The nature and potential for harin for workers in the two industries bear little similarity. Thus, to require builders in light construction to adhere to standards designed for the heavy construction industry, as the Department of Labor is now doing, gives rise to chaos and works a grave hardship on employers and employees alike in the light construction industry.

My bill does not excuse home builders from the requirements of P.L. 91–396, Lut simply directs the Department of Labor to promulgate separate standards for light residential construction. Not only have some 140 of our colleagues in the House introduced identical bills, but a companion bill, S. 5630, has been introduced in the Senate.

Should this legislation be enacted, the Department of Labor would encounter little difficuly in imposing new and more equitable safety standards on those in light construction. My friends in the home building industry inform me that they are working through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop standards tailored to light construction. Requirements that do not pertain to light construction are being eliminated and new ones to protect workers against hazards not covered under present regulations are being developed. This project is well under way and it is expected that ANSI standards will be ready and available for the Labor Department by the end of this year or early next year.

During the past year, there has developed sufficient experience to permit a dispassionate appraisal of the situation. I have had an opportunity to talk with a great many of my constitutents in the home building industry, to visit their job sites and to talk with their employees. Believe me when I tell you that those in light construction have been done a grave injustice by having to adhere to a myriad of complex rules and regulations obviously designed for an entirely different industry.

Confusion exists not only in the minds of builders, subcontractors and other associates in the residential construction industry, but also among the OSHA compliance inspectors who must understand and interpret the regulations in order to enforce them. It is necessary that in order to eliminate this confusion and to obtain fair, equitable and uniform application of the regulations that these standards be separated. There are numerous OSHA regulations which, by admission of OSHA personnel, are not intended to apply to light residential construction, but still there is no way of positively determining this from the regulations themselves.

I am indebted to persons engaged in light residential construction for a summary of the situation based on the hard and practical experience of the builders

themselves. I ask you to give careful consideration to the statement of fact and suggestions contained in the summary as follows:

Light residential construction is limited to structures no more than three stories high without elevators. Not only is work in light residential construction smaller in scope than heavy construction and conducted by fewer employees on the job site at a given time, but the exposure to possible injury differs also. To start with, the excavations are different. Large structures often have need for big excavations in which to place massive footings and below grade floor levels. Light residential excavations are almost always limited to one story basement excavation or to slab-on-grade. In heavy construction, the movement of large quantities of earth from reasonably confined areas requires more massive equipment, trucks and personnel than does the simple excavation of a home basement. Both the length of time and number of persons exposed to more hazardous conditions are greater in excavations for heavy construction.

The same rationale applies to the building height. The difference between a two-story house and a twenty-story office building is visually obvious. But it is also different from a safety standpoint. Because the individual living unit is small, there are fewer craftsmen working on it and there are fewer activities at one time. On the other hand, it is common to observe a number of floors of a multi-story building under some phase of construction at one time. The number of people and diverse activities in which they are engaged tends to create situations in which individuals are not aware of structural changes, changes in material placement, changes in crew locations, and the like, all of which can lead to potentially dangerous conditions.

These conditions do not exist in light residential construction. Rarely do more than a few people work on a house at one time and they know the condition of the work site while they are there. They normally do not have other crews working above, below and around them creating hazards for which they are not prepared.

The claim has been made that separate sets of standards for light residential construction would cause confusion to the worker where he may be working on a heavy construction job one day and a light construction job the next day. This claim is not well founded. Typically, workers are not only trained but prefer to stay on work with which they are most familiar. Therefore, crews who work on residential construction typically do not work on heavy construction jobs and vice versa. This fact is further borne out by the recognition in wage rates and working conditions. Wage rate differentials for heavy construction workers and light residential construction workers are not at all uncommon.

An example of the regulations which work a hardship on the home builder, and I can readily understand why it does, is one which requires that when dropping waste materials more than 20 feet to any point lying outside the exterior walls of the building an enclosed chute must be used. This requirement originally had no height feature in it requiring all materials to be dropped through chute without regard for the height for the point from which the dropping took place. A change was requested to permit the free drop of material up to three stories. The change was issued with the twenty-foot figure. This excludes the three stories in many light residential units by several feet. In a large structure with numerous crews all working on and around it, chuting waste material to lower levels makes good sense from a safety standpoint, since it is difficult to control the movement of large numbers of workers and large amounts of discarded material. On the other hand, in home building, clean-up is done by a few laborers who can gather up the relatively few pieces of waste, and discard them under very controlled conditions. As there are few craftsmen working on a given house at a given time, these are usually of one trade, disposal of this waste material can take place without endangering them and a chute is not needed.

I believe, and sincerely hope that you will agree, that the foregoing illustrations make it abundantly clear that the implementation by the Department of Labor of P.L. 91-596 with respect to construction safety is contrary to our intentions when we passed this law. It is imperative that corrective action be taken to require the Department of Labor to issue separate safety standards for light construction. Accordingly, I urge that this Committee act with all due speed in favorably reporting the legislation that my colleagues and I have introduced which would require this much needed corrective action by the Department of Labor.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT OF 1970 (OVERSIGHT AND PROPOSED AMENDMENTS)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1972

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2261, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dominick V. Daniels (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Representatives present: Representatives Daniels, Gaydos, Grasso, Green, Esch, Steiger, Ruth, and Veysey.

Staff members present: Daniel Krivit, counsel; Loretta Bowen, clerk; and Jack Miller, minority associate counsel for labor.

Mr. DANIELS. The Select Subcommittee on Labor will come to order. Today we continue our hearings with reference to oversight on the Occupational Safety and Health Act recently enacted by Congress as well as on the various bills introduced in this session of Congress with reference to amending that law.

Our first witness this morning is the Honorable Orval Hansen, Representative of the Second District of Idaho.

I extend our welcome to you and we are happy to have you here. You may proceed in any manner you prefer. If you desire to read your statement or submit it for the record and summarize it, I leave that judgment up to you.

STATEMENT OF HON. ORVAL HANSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you. I will, if I might, insert my statement in the record with attached correspondence reflecting statements from constituents that I have received, and in view of the long list of witneses and constraints on time, I will make one or two summary comments.

In attempting to summarize the reactions in my own district to the Occupational Safety and Health Act I will say there is general agreement on the need for this kind of legislation, on the need for passage of legislation which will insure for the working people of this country a safe and healthful place to work.

But there is concern about the practicality of some provisions of the law and of the standards and regulations promulgated under the law. It seems to me that in trying to improve and perfect both the law, regulations, and the administration of it, if we can make it

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