Mr. MORAN. No, Mr. Chairman, I think the Commission operates well and efficiently, and it has a proper statutory base, and so far as the Commission is concerned, I wouldn't think that any modifications would be appropriate at all.

Mr. DANIELS. Do you have any fiscal problems? Do you believe you are sufficiently funded?

Mr. MORAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we are sufficiently funded, and the President's budget as proposed-I guess it was enacted by the House this week-will adequately fund us for 1973.

Mr. DANIELS. Just one further question now, and I will conclude. What percentage of cases that come before you involve penalties for safety as compared with health violations?

Mr. MORAN. Again, Mr. Chairman, I don't have those figures, but from what I have seen I would say the vast majority were safety violations; a very small minority were industrial health violations.

Mr. DANIELS. Would you be good enough to furnish this committee with a letter to supplement your testimony here today?

Mr. MORAN. I will be glad to, Mr. Chairman.

(The information referred to follows:)

During fiscal 1972, in cases that came before the Commission, there were 25 instances (9.2%) of alleged violations of health standards; 181 instances (65.4%) involving safety standards; and 70 instances (25.4%) where the instance involved standards which contain both safety and health characteristics. Mr. DANIELS. Thank you very, very much. It was a pleasure to have you here and hear your testimony.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM D. HATHAWAY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MAINE

Mr. DANIELS. Our next witness is the Honorable William Hathaway, a Member of Congress from the State of Maine, a former and very active member of the Education and Labor Committee, during which time he worked very, very hard and diligently to develop this legislation that we are considering today. I am sorry that he saw fit to leave this committee and to move over to the Appropriations Committee, but that was his wish, and I am certain he will have something constructive to offer this morning.

I welcome you, Mr. Hathaway.

Mr. HATHAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here. I thought I could do you more good on the Appropriations Committee. So far I haven't been very successful because the President has vetoed some of the increments that I have made in the appropriations for education and labor.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Eshleman, and Mr. Ruth, it is a pleasure to be with you. As the chairman mentioned, I did participate in the drafting of this act, and I think that is one of the most pleasurable experiences I have had in the House. I am sorry to see that the act is not working out as well as we anticipated it would work out, but I think it is more the fault of the administration than the act, itself, and I am not going to be critical of the administration in that regard because I realize under any new law it is difficult for any administration, Re

publican or Democratic, to carry out the intent right off the bat and to have a great deal of success with it.

We did provide in the congressional findings and purpose that the congressional intent was to encourage joint labor-management efforts to reduce injuries and disease. Perhaps we should have made it labormanagement and Government efforts, because the only way that this. act is going to work out is through cooperation of both the Government and labor and management.

The British have had a great deal of experience under an act quite similar to this, and they have developed a cooperative spirit between the Government and labor and management, and the act has worked out quite successfully.

I know in States in the United States where various occupational health or safety standards were imposed, such as in the State of Maine, the State laws had worked out very well, but only because there had been instilled a spirit of cooperation between those who were enforcing the law and those supposed to be obeying it.

I am sure both labor and management want safe and healthful working conditions, but as we all know from what has happened so far in implementing the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the administration has blunted this effect.

Many inspectors have been arbitrary and caused hardships for employers and thus they have injected a spirit of hostility rather than cooperation.

Now, to be sure, that isn't all the Labor Department's fault. Many employers just weren't operating safe premises. They should have known better, and they were mad because they were caught at doing things they should have known were unsafe, but in many other instances there have been inspections made and penalties issued by inspectors in a very arbitrary way, and thus I think the overall effect has been to create a spirit of hostility rather than cooperation, and we all know from experience with any other law we just don't have enough policemen to police all of the violations that may occur, so if we don't instill the spirit of cooperation, the act just isn't going to work at all. Now, there have been some suggestions made. One has been that we allow a first offender, so to speak, to get off without any charges whatsoever. We discussed this first bite position when we were in the throes of drafting this legislation, and the only difficulty with it is that many employers would simply wait until an inspector came around before they did anything about cleaning up the unsafe conditions on their premises, and this might take a period of a year or so.

In the meantime many accidents would be occurring.

But I do believe that the amendment that has been offered by Mr. Steiger which provides for consultation inspection with proper safeguards and I am not sure that Mr. Steiger's amendment has all the safeguards in it that I would like to see it have-would have a fairly good effect in promoting the cooperation that I think is necessary to make the law effective.

The only thing I am concerned about, Bill, there is no explicit provision saying that a person who has need for a consultation and in the meantime the inspector comes around can get off the hook and say,

"Well, I have asked for a consultation and the inspector gave me this penalty prior to the time the Labor Department came around."

If the law clearly says he is supposed to have copper tubing, and he asks for consultation to see whether or not he should have copper tubing, he should not be able to put off any penalty for not having copper tubing because he is waiting for consultation.

It would be tantamount to that first bite position that has been offered by some Congressmen as an amendment to this law.

But I think the consultation in general is a good idea because they might not understand the regulations.

I was going around the other day not for the purpose of seeing whether this act was being carried out or not, but I ran into a friend of mine having a great deal of trouble with the act. He just handed me this 300-page book and said, "Here, you read it," and you could see after reading a few pages of it, unless you were a Philadelphia lawyer, it would take you a considerable amount of time to read, digest, and understand it.

As a matter of fact, I have a letter from that gentleman and another employer in my area that I would like to put in the record at the close of my testimony which is not very far off.

Mr. DANIELS. Without objection, the letters that Mr. Hathaway has just mentioned will be included in the record.

Hearing no objection, it will be so ordered. (The letters referred to follow :)

T. J. MURPHY FUR CO., Lewiston, Maine, June 29, 1972.

Hon. William D. HATHAWAY,

House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR BILL: Last Tuesday night, I attended a seminar, held at Steckino's, on the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA). I would have to say that I think this is the most poorly organized attempt at legislation that I have ever seen. There has never been any attempt made to educate employers as to the requirements of the act, none of the people who are involved with the act seemed qualified to answer questions concerning it, there are no copies of the regulations themselves available for purchase because they are out of print and, even though the act is being constantly amended, the only way possible for an employer to keep up with the amendments is to purchase the congressional register and separate the wheat from the chaff which, of course, amounts to 98% to 2%. All of the above, Bill, gives you a general idea of what OSHA is all about or. at least, as much as people are able to tell you who are in a position to understand it, supposedly.

On the first inspection, there is a right by the inspector to impose penalties and fines, even though there has never been an opportunity for the employer to purchase the law and to read it or to have anyone explain it to him. It would seem to me that there should have been an obligation to educate employers on the full scope of the act without penalties and then, upon inspection, point out any possible violations with a time limit for the employer to correct them without fine.

Overall, it would seem to me that the entire situation amounts to enlarging the bureaucracy of the Department of Labor, Federal and State, and I, for one.. feel it has been handled in a very poor manner.

Hope everything else is going well.

Kindest regards,

DAVID S. MURPHY.

WADE & DUNTON, INC., Lewiston, Maine, June 19, 1972.

Representative WILLIAM D. HATHAWAY,

Cannon House Office Building,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE HATHAWAY: Please advise me how you voted on the ridiculous Williams-Steiger Act OSHA.

I have numerous local businessmen that have delegated me to write to you for this information concerning your vote.

Our Company here has been in business 87 years without any serious type accident all these years, yet you people pass a law that applies completely to all, regardless of their accident record or type of business. This once again proves how little effort you apply to your elected position.

Very truly yours,

T. M. KERRIGAN,

Treasurer.

Mr. HATHAWAY. Another suggestion, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, since we want to further foster the spirit of cooperation necessary for effective administration of the law, is that the Labor Department should separate the standards applying to various industries and provide readable publications setting forth these standards, publications that are understandable to the layman because many of the standards are difficult for a small employer to understand. Not that he isn't as intelligent as a large one, but the large one usually has available to him a lawyer or legal staff that can go over this for him, whereas the small employer might not be able to hire a lawyer and have him interpret the standards for him.

Also, I think there is, there has been some trouble with respect to dissemination of the standards. I know we got many requests and we furnished registers to many employers in my district because they were unable to get them any other way. I think that probably has been cleared up by now, but that should not be the case.

Now, I would like to just in closing reiterate my very strong support for the act. It is not just pride of authorship, but rather a basic recognition that 14,000 deaths and 22 million injuries a year from industrial accidents are grisly and very disgraceful statistics for this Nation in this day and age. I was very sorry to see the House the other day vote to cut off funds for those employing 15 or less because I don't think that is going to solve the problem.

I think the testimony, as I recall, before this committee is that the smaller the establishment was, the greater frequency of accidents, and actually those are the ones who should have more attention paid to them rather than less.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DANIELS. Thank you, Mr. Hathaway. I have no questions to ask. I do want to compliment you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come here today and give us the benefit of your thinking. Mr. HATHAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DANIELS. I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Steiger.

Mr. STEIGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have no questions. I am delighted that the gentleman from Maine,

Mr. Hathaway, would come home to the Education and Labor Committee, and we are pleased that you would make your appearance. We missed your wit and wisdom as a member of the committee. Mr. HATHAWAY. Thank you.

Mr. STEIGER. And only hope that you can turn around a few more votes among your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee on occupational safety and health.

Mr. HATHAWAY. Thank you. I shall try. It is a fairly conservative committee.

Mr. DANIELS. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Eshleman. Mr. ESHLEMAN. I have no questions.

Mr. DANIELS. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Ruth. Mr. RUTH. Well, I say welcome home, Bill. It is a pleasure to have you.

Mr. HATHAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DANIELS. Our next witness is the Honorable George C. Guenther, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.

You may summon to the witness stand, Mr. Secretary, any members of your staff that you desire.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE C. GUENTHER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF LABOR FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH, ACCOMPANIED BY BENJAMIN W. MINTZ, ASSOCIATE SOLICITOR FOR OSHA, AND RICHARD SCHUBERT, THE SOLICITOR OF LABOR Mr. GUENTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to introduce the witnesses who are accompanying me. On my left, Mr. Richard Schubert, the Solicitor of Labor. On my right, Mr. Benjamin Mintz, the Associate Solicitor for Occupational Safety and Health.

Recognizing the time constraints, I will attempt to rapidly go through the highlights of my testimony. We spent a good deal of time, Mr. Chairman, in preparing this testimony to make it responsive to the comments made in particular by those appearing in previous hearings, both in the House and in the Senate, many of whom have appeared before you or will be appearing before you in this current session.

I would, therefore, recommend the testimony to the members of the committee as containing responses to many of the controversial issues that have been raised with regard to the act and its implementation, and, having said that, I will quickly touch upon some of the major highlights.

The first major section of the testimony has to do with the controversy that exists over the act's implementation at the present time.

In order to achieve the goal of safer and more healthful work places, it was clearly the congressional intent that implementation be rapid, and that results be demonstrated at the earliest possible time. In accepting this directive, we have attempted, at the same time, to be reasonable and responsible in implementing, in a balanced manner, all of the complex elements of the act. It has been a fine line to draw, and we have been accused both of going too far, too fast, and of moving too slow and with insufficient vigor. Although this committee has al