WASHINGTON (PAI) - A federal appellate court has ordered the Bush Labor Department to explain, within a month, why it has taken eight years to impose a rule that requires companies to buy protective equipment and clothing for their workers.

The ruling, disclosed Feb. 20, but handed down four days before, orders Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to take no more than 30 pages to explain their stalling. Then the United Food and Commercial Workers and the AFL-CIO, which sued to get the agency to move, get 40 days - also starting Feb. 16 - to file new arguments about why the administration should act.

The court ruling is a positive move for the millions of workers whose employers refuse to buy them protective equipment - such as goggles, hard hats and gloves - because OSHA does not require them to do so. Unionized building trades workers generally have the use of those items spelled out in collective bargaining agreements. OSHA has such requirements for some specific industries, but not for industries overall.

And the agency had been working on a rule since 1999 to get all industries to buy the protective equipment for their workers, and had taken all but the final step - actually issuing the federal rule forcing them to buy personal protective equipment (PPE) for their workers. That laggardness pushed UFCW and the AFL-CIO to sue on Jan. 3.

"The Bush administration's failure to act is putting workers in danger," UFCW said in hailing the latest ruling. "By OSHA's own estimates, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died due to the absence of this rule.

"Workers in some of America's most dangerous industries, such as meatpacking, poultry and construction, and low-wage and immigrant workers who suffer high injury rates, are vulnerable to being forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of OSHA's failure to finish the PPE rule.

"The new rule would not impose any new obligations on employers to provide safety equipment. It simply codifies OSHA's longstanding policy that employers, not employees, have the responsibility to pay for it," UFCW said.