Ian Urbina’s magisterial probe in The New York Times of OSHA’s failure to police long-term health risks—like harmful fumes caused by glue used in furniture plants—is without doubt a great example of agenda-setting public-interest reporting of a kind that, sad to say, is becoming increasingly scarce among mainstream business news outlets.
The 5,400 word piece—yet another example of the indispensability of longform newspaper writing that itself is becoming an endangered species—explores how and why the furniture industry increasingly uses a chemical known as nPB despite warnings about its consequences for workers from no less an authority than the chemical companies that used to manufacturer it.
The story is smart to point out that OSHA devotes most of its resources to headline-grabbing accidents when toxic workplace air incapacitates 200,000 workers a year and, as the story explains, more than 40,000 Americans a year die prematurely from exposure to toxic substances at work—10 times as many as those who die from refinery explosions, mine collapses, and other accidents.
A few things about the story stand out:
1. The target. OSHA is part of the shadow Washington, the permanent government of regulatory agencies that are vastly under-covered given their importance, the abundance of stories to be found among them, and the number of journalists working in the capital. If only a small fraction of the 15,000 journalists who covered the Republic convention, for instance, could be diverted to the agencies, the news would be vastly more interesting, not to mention useful. The Times, to paraphrase, Willie Keeler, is going where they ain’t, and to great effect.
2. The people. The anecdotes are understated and all the more compelling, and heartbreaking, for that. We’re told, for instance, that Sheri Farley, a 45-year-old worker stricken with “dead foot” from nerve damage, can’t stand the vibration that her kids make playing in the trailer where they live. One of the poorly understood attributes of great journalism is that it can connect segments of society that normally have nothing to do with each other, in this case, the Times elite audience with the working poor of North Carolina. The story reminded me of of how infrequently I read quotes from someone who doesn’t have a college degree.
3. The documents. Here’s where interactivity really strengthens a story. This OSHA-required log of work-related injuries shows a long list of incidences of “alleged neurological injury” that the company itself had to record over and over.
And so on.
The flaw in the story is its framing. In a long story like this, it’s necessary to explain what it’s all about, usually with a phrase that begins, “This story shows …”
A couple of additional subtexts: the NYT story briefly notes that NC is deputized by OSHA (as are about half the states) to run its own compliance program. The oversight and management, or lack thereof, of these "state plans" is itself a story; there is a vast difference between federal enforcement and state enforcement due to resources and yes political will. Perhaps more significantly, the most difficult barrier OSHA faces in issuing new regulations (health or safety) is the Obama administration OMB. A story on what is being done to the silica standard would curl your eyebrows.
#1 Posted by DC lawyer, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 10:14 AM
One key point the story only touches upon is North Carolina runs its own state-based Occupational Safety and Health operation. State-plans, are they are called, must, at a minimum, follow federal OSHA's rules.
NC-OSHA was responsible for (1) the inspection and enforcement of the company, and (2) the health and safety of North Carolinians.
- Dan
#2 Posted by Daniel Glucksman, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 10:24 AM
Here's one way to think about it, Dean: Once the Times has demonstrated the guilt of "a company using demonstrably dangerous practices for costs reasons, and a compromised regulatory regime," it also has to demonstrate its own innocence. While you would think the relationship between these two would work one way, it actually works the other.
Meaning: You would think that the more convincingly the Times reporting shows the guilt of the company and the inadequacy of the regulatory regime, the less need there would be for the Times newsroom to advertise its own innocence. After all, they nailed it with their reporting, right? But somehow the opposite is true. The more the reporting leads to an inescapable conclusion or lesson, the more imperative it is to round off, weaken, fuzz up, qualify and "other side" the thing to death.
"The law of unintended consequences" and OSHA as the agency Americans love to hate (really? more than the TSA, the IRS?) are there as signals or advertisements meant to show an awareness and respect for the "get the government off the backs of business people" perspective that would otherwise take a hit from the story. That's the production of innocence. It's time we recognized that it interferes with the production of honest long form investigative reporting.
More on the production of innocence:
http://pressthink.org/2011/08/why-political-coverage-is-broken/#p29
#3 Posted by Jay Rosen, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 11:36 AM
OSHA has never received funding that can meet the needs of challenges it faces. Indeed, the various and vast challenges brought by USA Industry implies the political power behind this state of affairs.
In the 1990s I remember reading a report that concluded that if OSHA initiated inspections starting tomorrow a work site would be more likely to see Haley’s comet before seeing an inspector. They tend to rely on “whistle blowers” who have little or not protection from retaliation by their employers.
#4 Posted by Roy Silver, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 12:04 PM
And besides the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Congress also gets in the way of new standard setting. When OSHA took the initiative to do an ergo standard (some 10+ years ago?), Congress passed a bill preventing them from doing so.
#5 Posted by Thurman Wenzl, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 02:52 PM
Thanks for the good comments, everyone. Jay, the quest for innocence fits perfectly here and, yes, it's doubly egregious coming in a piece that is documented,as you suggest, at *great length*. A good rule of thumb is that if you *can* be forthright then you are absolutely obliged to be. It's more than just a shame to leave anything on the table ("unintended consequences"? Come on). Limp longform discredits the form itself (See: WSJ, lately). It's a form that, probably uniquely, has to justify itself every single time.
#6 Posted by Dean Starkman, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 03:02 PM
A few observations and questions: 20 years or so ago I was looking at OSHA reports out of an explosives factory that essentially owned the Hartford suburb from which it operated. All the records were admirably open and available, except those documenting how and why fines were reduced in conference. I asked the OSHA administrator, "how's anyone to know that these fines weren't reduced because the CEO came in with a bag of bagels for ya?" OSHA man just spluttered. Has anything changed?
Then too: Walk into any furniture emporium and ask to buy a big couch. Prices start at about $850 and move up from there. $3,000 is not out of the question [obviously this exempts Manhattan where it's more like $5,000 to $30,000, depending on the name of the "designer." But I digress].
Break down the materials in the couch. How much of that is real hardwood--hickory? Metal brackets? Springs? Cushions. Fabric. Glue*. All together this costs how much? The US-based guys are paying the assemblers $9 per hour, which is roughly the same as I was paid to make, finish and install butcher block stuff circa 1989. Is anyone else in the furniture supply chain--from the owners of these factories to the salespeople in the Broyhill showroom--earning the same or less than their forebears were 24 years ago?
*Glue ingredients are trade secrets. I know this because, upon reading the article, I went out to my garage to read the label on the can of 3M "Yellow" formula Hi-Strength 90 spray adhesive I bought last week to stick some carpet and vinyl trim down in my car. No mention of any chemicals in particular; the word "trade secrets" appears about five times on the list.
#7 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 03:35 PM
Great piece, Dean, but I think your point about how the Times tries to sugarcoat OSHA's lack of oversight doesn't quite hit the mark. I do think the folks at American Conservative rightfully point out that the Times reporter nails how negligent OSHA can be while still illuminating how even that lack of regulation is still shrouded in good intentions. You can read more here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/tragedy-in-the-factories-and-the-new-york-times/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tragedy-in-the-factories-and-the-new-york-times
#8 Posted by Sheila, CJR on Mon 1 Apr 2013 at 06:47 PM
Dean, several U.S. trade magazines, including Occupational Health & Safety, of which I am the editor; Safety + Health; Professional Safety; EHS Today; ISHN; and The Synergist, do indeed cover what federal OSHA does and fails to do, and we also cover state plan agencies' activity to a lesser extent. Most of the comments above are spot on about the budget challenges, litigation, and congressional opposition that has crippled OSHA's attempts to update its standards, as well as OMB now holding up some proposed rules indefinitely.
#9 Posted by Jerry Laws, CJR on Tue 2 Apr 2013 at 02:53 PM
Contrary to what the author insists, I think it is a real *strength* of this terrific article that it does not insist on a black-and-white melodrama to make its points. One man's "strange ambivalence" is another's complexity, I guess. Yes, there is a story here about a chemical manufacturer hoodwinking its customers, who in turn treat their employees like "flies," but there is ALSO a story of myopic regulation (I should know, as I led the OSHA regulation of the chemical that 1-BP is substituting for) and of organized indifference to enforcement from that point forward. It is possible (and it simply happens to be true) that OSHA is both hated by "freedom-loving" ideologues all across the country, AND deserving of severe criticism for reacting to it with extreme meekness.
As for the distinction that Urbina absolutely made clear between the federal program and state-run plans like in NC, this is also more complicated than the author or several commenters above make it. Some states do a far better job than the federal program, and many others do far worse than NC does. After all, while NC indeed engaged in the "complain, inspect, repeat" charade Urbina exposes so well, at least they were in the plant trying to make a difference, which is more than one can say for the federal program.
I urge readers, as Mr. Starkman suggests, to read and download the entire trove of documents Urbina painstakingly assembled for this story. This IS a story of unintended consequences, but it has not ended yet-- there clearly are ways to assemble upholstered foam without exposing employees to barbaric concentrations of either 1-BP or methylene chloride. That is what our 1997 rule was supposed to solve, and what awaits a response by both OSHA and EPA to this wake-up call from the Times.
#10 Posted by Adam Finkel, CJR on Wed 3 Apr 2013 at 05:17 PM