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Show THE VOICE OF BUSINESS How do you vlue 3 fauBvasin SStfe? By Ki. luiicl I.. Lli r. 1'i.v.i.l.nf CluimlxT of Comiiu-ivr of ilic I 'iiilcil Slnli-s One of the oldest and I believe the most unfair charges against business people is that they are always more preoccupied with making money than with protecting the welfare of their employees. One such typical criticism is that businesses are willing to cut back on safety expenditures in the workplace, even though this may result in serious illness or endanger human lives. Thus, we're told, businesses should be made 10 accept unlimited government regulation regula-tion to ensure that the responsibility of protecting workers is met. This whole argument is horribly simplistic in at least three respects. First, it totally ignores that ut the some 14 million businesses in America today the overwhelming majority are small businesses in which personal relationships relation-ships between managers and their employees are close, and the lines of authority are often nearly invisible. I know that in Hollywood business people are practically always stereotyped as cold, callous and unfeel- inR But in the real world, the typ.ca business leader is the neighbor next door who happens to share America s Judeo-Christian principles. That ,s not the kind of person who sits around trying try-ing to figure out how to make an extra buck by taking risks ast his employees expense. Second, the argument also ignores that when business people do think in purely economic terms about the bottom bot-tom line, they find one of their highest priorities is to protect their employees. After all, it is industry, not government, which must pay the most for worker s compensation, both directly, in terms of coverage, and indirectly, in terms of less work-hours and declining productivity. produc-tivity. Thus, business has the greatest incentive to keep its people well. Third, more and more businesses are coming to realize that they might save two lives with the same resources the government mandates they spend to save one. Consider the example of Deere and Company which manufactures manufac-tures farm and other heavy equipment and employs 51,000 people in 11 manufacturing sites. Between 1972 and 1974. this company followed tne rules ol the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to the letter. Every single nitpicking one. Result? Worker injuries rose by an alarming 42 percent. So the company changed its strategy and decided to shift its priorities away from OSHA and toward what it knew would uork in its plants to reduce accidents and injuries. In so doing, it was implicitly accepting sole responsiblity for protecting its workers by moving systematically to identify and eliminate hazards where they were. By this year. Deere's safety performance perfor-mance had" dramatically improved. All injuries were down by 74 percent, serious injuries by 76 percent and days off bv 89 percent. Is Deere merely an isolated example? Consider f the 25-year period prece-fW creation in 1971-when 1 handling safety and health' its own serious injury j'ei steadily declined. ki Since OSHA's inceptio fu however, and since the hugf JT increase in its budget, a: billion in regulatory exP1 dustry and consumers, the dent trend has reversed d.la begun climbing again, if pressured by OSHA's redi er other government regulate!11 flation and taxation, bus."'1 had to reduce their invested"' and safer plants and equip-r1 The trouble with so man-, in Washington is that they r6 been exposed to the respo-r. the real world where per ' stantly struggling- to mfz with limited resources, ar,:L idea of forcing industries to 5, than $100 million a year to ; iL regulations that might, jus: j one-half of the hypothec J rightfully considered absu.-;f .' The Supreme Court, U agrees. In a major vicv.j.. business community ag; . case in which the U.S. ClG heavily involved, the Cir ? ed that OSHA cannot imp. r standards on industry L. workers' exposure to ben I proving that current sUii1: safe. The' decision is very P and represents a big step rr direction. Another is that wbec . L, deciding difficult issues: Jading Ja-ding workers' health a;:L, grow ing proportion of the r .jj trust a team of ma; workers, rather than dividuals or governrr.er. L can understand why. t |