Klieg light on OSHA

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

The deaths of 10 construction workers on the Strip over 17 months — the subject of an ongoing Las Vegas Sun investigation — have once again caught the attention of Congress.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, will hold a hearing this summer focusing on the performance of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

A spokesman for Woolsey’s committee said OSHA is weak in at least two areas — it is not assigning enough staff to inspect job sites and it lacks the “political will” to hold employers accountable when they put workers at risk.

Since March 30 Sun reporter Alexandra Berzon has been writing about safety conditions — including stepped-up completion deadlines — at construction sites on the Strip.

Berzon, along with the Sun’s Washington reporter, Lisa Mascaro, reported Sunday that Woolsey senses OSHA should be playing a much stronger role in today’s construction environment.

“What’s happening in Las Vegas and other major cities ... there’s this need to move faster,” Woolsey told the Sun. “It’s taking its toll ...”

Woolsey’s announcement of a House worker-safety hearing followed a similar hearing April 29 in the Senate, during which Las Vegas safety issues revealed by Berzon’s reporting were discussed.

At that hearing, the majority staff of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released a report. One of its findings, that OSHA is too lenient on employers following construction deaths, mirrored what Berzon reported in March.

“If you improperly import an exotic bird, you can go to jail for two years,” the committee’s chairman, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., had said. “If you deal in counterfeit money, you’re looking at 20 years. But if you gamble with the lives of your employees and one of them is killed, you risk only six months in jail.”

We hope Congress follows through on these hearings and passes legislation to strengthen OSHA and motivate employers to consider safety their No. 1 priority.