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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today urged Congress to oppose what she called “an unprecedented rollback” in workplace safety contained in a potential vote to repeal the much-needed ergonomic standards adopted last year after more than a decade of study.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) expressed the union’s “strong opposition” to a proposal to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify “this important workplace protection.” This vote, she said in a letter to every member of Congress, “will be one of the most important votes in the 107th Congress.”

Among the 150,000 federal employees in 25 agencies and departments represented by NTEU, Kelley said, are large numbers of working women and office workers, both groups of whom are “particularly at risk” for the kinds of musculoskeletal disorders, including carpal tunnel syndrome and back injuries, that are the subject of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

The problem is pervasive among women, she said, noting that while women make up some 46 percent of the workforce, they suffer more than 62 percent of ergonomic injuries. Throughout the American workplace, more than 626,000 such injuries were suffered as recently as 1997, she said.

Repealing the OSHA rules would “set back the clock on workplace safety and health,” Kelley said, adding that “the cost of making the federal workplace ergonomically safe will be made up many times over by

savings in reduced Workers’ Compensation claims, lost time and disability pay.”

She said this is an issue “that is both a matter of good workplace safety and a savings to American taxpayers.”

NTEU has been the leader in arguing for safety and health in the federal workplace, including the use of ergonomic furniture. A number of its contracts contain provisions dealing with this issue, including those at the Internal Revenue Service, Food and Drug Administration and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The OSHA rules and the broad issue of ergonomic injuries in the workplace were the subject of several studies over the past decade, and often enjoyed a bipartisan political understanding of the serious need to address them.

CRA is a legislative procedure under which no hearings are held, no amendments are permitted and debate is limited to a total of only 10 hours. If a bill under CRA is passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the president signs an enabling bill known as a “resolution of disapproval,” it reverses regulations.