Summary: Private sector employers spend about $60 billion each year on workers' compensation claims associated with musculosketal disorders, which involve illnesses and injuries linked to repetitive stress or sustained exertion on the body. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has tried to develop a workplace standard that would require employers to reduce ergonomic hazards in the workplace. A draft standard that OSHA circulated for comment in 1995 generated stiff opposition from many employers because they believed that it required an unreasonable level of effort to address ergonomic issues. Since then, Congress has limited OSHA's ability to issue a proposed or final ergonomic standard. GAO found that employers can reduce the costs and injuries associated with ergonomic hazards, thereby improving employees' health and morale as well as productivity and product quality, through simple, flexible approaches that are neither costly nor complicated. Effective ergonomics programs share certain core elements: management commitment, employee involvement, identification of problem jobs, development of solutions, training and education of employees, and appropriate medical management. OSHA may wish to consider a framework for a worksite ergonomics program that gives employers the flexibility to introduce site-specific efforts and the discretion to determine the appropriate level of effort to make, as long as the effort effectively addresses the hazards.
