The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is responsible for protecting the safety and health of workers in the United States, but its own reports indicate that setting safety standards is a low priority at the agency.

With changes in technology, equipment and work practices, developing new rules to improve worker safety - especially in construction - is vital. According to the Laborers Health and Safety Fund of North America, there are 27 actions under review by OSHA, each with handles like "pre-rule," "proposed rule," and "long-term action." Only two are complete, and one is held up in court. Fourteen of those 27 are construction-related, and the average time for some sort of resolution to take place is 7.4 years.

"Enforceable safety standards raise the bar and ensure a level playing field for all contractors," says Laborers General President Terence M. O'Sullivan. "Drafting and adopting new standards would significantly decrease ongoing injuries, illnesses and fatalities" among construction workers.

The Laborers safety fund pointed out that OSHA has a three-pronged mandate: (1) to issue safety and health standards; (2) to enforce those standards; and (3) to assist companies in compliance. Currently, only three percent of the agency's budget is devoted to standard setting and the actual dollar amount, relative to inflation, has declined in recent years.

Falls are the most common cause of construction fatalities, yet the Walking Working Surfaces and Personal Fall Protection Systems standard has languished more than 16 years since the first action was initiated. Over the last 13 years (data for earlier years is unavailable), 9,149 American workers have been killed in falls, an average of 703 per year.

Similarly, hearing loss is a widespread problem among construction workers and it has been 20 years since a hearing conservation standard was issued for general industry. Four years have passed since work began on a possible standard for construction but, now, no further action is promised.

Discussion of an excavation standard began in 2001; five years later, it is still in the "pre-rule" stage. A possible silica standard also remains in the pre-rule stage three years after it was first considered and more than 60 years after the Department of Labor promised to eliminate the threat of silicosis from American work sites.

"As these examples indicate, OSHA's process is so slow that sometimes advancing science has rendered a permissible exposure limit or another aspect of a standard obsolete by the time it is adopted," O'Sullivan said. "The basic problem is the lack of political will to create and improve standards and to keep them up-to-date. Congress, the Executive Branch and OSHA must expand funding and accelerate rulemaking immediately."