Executive Summary
The Secretary of Labor has set three strategic goals for the Department: First, to enhance opportunities for America's workforce; second, to promote the economic security of workers and their families; and third, to foster quality workplaces that are safe, healthy, and fair. The 180 labor laws and related regulations that the Department of Labor (DOL) administers advance these goals.
Regulations that implement newly enacted legislation help DOL and its stakeholders work together to achieve that statute's goal by providing clear, effective, flexible plans of action for the regulated community. Rules that revise existing regulations also facilitate the achievement of DOL's goals by updating old or ineffective standards or by making them easier to understand and use. DOL has always recognized that changes in the workplace, such as new business practices, improved or safer technologies, or new hazards, may render existing rules ineffective or demand the creation of new ones.
In keeping with the President's plain language memorandum of June 1, 1998, the Department remains committed to issuing regulations that are easy to understand, effective, and that minimize burdens on the regulated community. Regulations that are easy to understand help promote voluntary compliance and improve customer satisfaction. Most of the regulated community would comply with workplace regulations if given the information and knowledge they need. When writing or revising rules, DOL will explore new approaches to achieve our regulatory goals at lower costs and with greater flexibility for the regulated community. DOL will also ensure that those who are protected by the new rules or must abide by them have been given the opportunity to participate in the rulemaking process and that they have been provided timely, user-friendly compliance assistance materials.
DOL's 1998 regulatory plan highlights the Department's 29 most important, significant regulations from five of our major regulatory agencies: Employment Standards Administration (ESA), Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA), and Employment and Training Administration (ETA). The entries in the regulatory plan were carefully selected as the most important; that is, they are essential to the fulfillment of the Department's three strategic goals.
The Secretary of Labor's Strategic Goals
A Prepared Workforce: This first goal is to assure that American workers have the opportunity to obtain the information and tools they will need throughout their careers to enhance their productivity and raise their standard of living. The new economy requires workers to continue their education beyond a high school diploma or even a college degree--education must mean lifelong learning and continuous development of new skills.
A Secure Workforce: The rapidly changing global economy imposes economic security concerns on both employers and employees. The life cycles of many products are shorter and shorter, requiring quick adjustments by both industry and labor. Competitive forces can lead to plant closures and layoffs, plant and employee relocations, and in some cases, to an attempt to avoid legal obligations. The Department will continue to do all it can to increase compliance with worker protection laws, protect workers' benefits, and provide workers with retraining.
Quality Workplaces: The intensely competitive global economy offers unparalleled opportunities for both business and labor, but also can pressure some unscrupulous employers to shrink from their responsibilities to their employees. Smart employers recognize that they must utilize all of the talent that is available to them and that a quality workplace is a productive workplace. The Department works with employers to prevent workplace discrimination and to help them recognize the benefits of ensuring equal opportunity for all workers. DOL also is committed to doing all it can to guarantee safety and health in the workplace and to obtain compliance with other important labor standards such as the minimum wage, overtime, and family and medical leave requirements. The Department is particularly committed to reducing the exploitation of child labor. The Department's ultimate goal is full compliance with employment laws which will ensure workers a safe, healthy, and fair workplace.
The Department's Regulatory Priorities
The Employment Standards Administration's (ESA's) Wage and Hour Division enforces several statutes establishing minimum labor standards that protect the Nation's work force, including the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Service Contract Act, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, and certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. These labor standards include requirements for payment of minimum wages and overtime pay, protections for working youth under child labor standards, job protection for employees who take leave for certain family or medical reasons, and minimum working conditions for agricultural workers. The regulatory activities required to implement these statutory responsibilities represent an important aspect of the Division's work--affecting over 100 million employees in the workforce. When developing regulatory proposals, the Division's focus is to assure fair, safe, and healthful workplaces for the Nation's workers, while at the same time providing clear compliance guidance and minimizing burdens on the regulated community.
Updating the child labor regulations issued under the FLSA will help guarantee a safe, healthy, and fair workplace for the Nation's working youth to balance their education with job-related experiences. Many workers first gain job-related skills through their initial exposure to work as teenagers. Updated child labor regulations that better reflect today's workplace will assist young workers in having safe jobs and enhance their opportunity to gain the skills to find and hold good jobs with the potential to increase their earnings over time. Ensuring safe and reasonable work hours for working youth will also ensure that top priority is given to education while allowing young workers to contribute to the economic security of their family.
Updating and clarifying the criteria that define the minimum wage and overtime exemptions for ``executive,'' ``administrative,'' ``professional,'' and ``outside sales'' employees under the FLSA and clarifying when ``helpers'' may be used on federally funded and assisted construction contracts covered by the prevailing wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon and related acts will help guarantee workers a secure and quality workplace. Revising and updating these regulations will help employers meet their obligations voluntarily and enhance employees' understanding of their rights and benefits.
ESA's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is charged with enforcing the requirements of Executive Order 11246, selected provisions of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA), and section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Regulations issued under the Executive Order and the two acts cover nondiscrimination and affirmative action obligations for Federal contractors and subcontractors. They help to ensure that workplace policies and practices are fair and provide equal opportunity to all workers. OFCCP's regulatory plan entry, the proposed amendments to regulations implementing Executive Order 11246, some of which became effective in 1997, will streamline and clarify the existing regulatory language and reduce paperwork requirements of covered Federal contractors while ensuring that their obligations under the Executive Order and the two acts are met.
The mission of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is to protect the safety and health of the Nation's miners. The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act) places primary responsibility for preventing unsafe and unhealthful working conditions in mines on the operators, with the assistance of the miners. The Mine Act requires MSHA to determine compliance with Federal safety and health standards through inspections and investigations and to work cooperatively with States and the mining industry to improve training programs aimed at preventing accidents and occupationally caused diseases.
MSHA is committed to providing the Nation's miners with a safer and healthier workplace. Despite MSHA's past efforts, miners face safety and health hazards daily at levels unknown in most other occupations. Government intervention alone cannot eliminate occupational deaths, injuries, and illnesses in mining. The commitment of miners, mine operators, and Government is needed. MSHA's 1998 regulatory plan reflects this commitment. It will continue to concentrate on improving existing health standards and addressing emerging health hazards in mining--especially occupational exposure to coal mine dust, noise, and diesel exhaust particulate. These health hazards are pervasive in all types of mines; that is, surface and underground mines and large and small mines.
Several significant regulatory actions exemplify MSHA's commitment to improving workplace health for miners. The first action addresses the need to update the Agency's existing standard for exposure to noise. The noise final rule will improve the level of protection provided by existing standards. Many miners are currently exposed to the maximum noise levels currently permitted by MSHA regulations and, as a result, may be suffering hearing impairments.
To complement the recently finalized diesel-powered equipment standard, MSHA has issued a proposed rule for diesel particulate for underground coal miners to reduce the potential health hazards associated with the exhaust emitted by diesel-powered equipment in the mining environment. MSHA soon plans to issue a proposed rule for diesel particulate for underground metal and nonmetal miners.
While there have been significant reductions in levels of respirable coal mine dust over the years, some miners exposed to respirable coal mine dust at certain mine operations continue to develop coal workers' pneumoconiosis (black lung) and silicosis. In February 1996, the Secretary convened a Federal Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee) to assess the adequacy of MSHA's current coal dust program and standards, as well as other ways to eliminate black lung and silicosis among coal miners. The Advisory Committee submitted its report to the Secretary in November 1996. MSHA is continuing its efforts to implement the Advisory Committee's recommendations, which involve both regulatory and administrative actions. Based on the recommendations of the Advisory Committee and other findings, the Agency is considering rulemaking to lower the exposure limit to coal mine dust, to extend the x-ray medical surveillance program to surface coal miners, and to provide a means to verify operators' dust control plans.
MSHA identified the above actions for the 1998 regulatory plan because occupational lung diseases and hearing loss are the most serious and pervasive occupational illnesses in mining. Together, MSHA believes that these expanded health initiatives will greatly improve health protection for miners, thereby helping achieve the Secretary's goals of a safe and secure workplace.
Several years ago, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recognized the need to find a better way to carry out its mission--to save the lives and improve the safety and health of America's working men and women. In the regulatory arena, this meant that OSHA had to define a regulatory approach to support its Strategic Plan objectives, establish clear and sensible priorities, emphasize consensus-based approaches to rulemaking, focus on developing a basic safety and health programs rule, and rewrite difficult-to-follow rules in plain language.
The 10 regulations in OSHA's regulatory plan directly support OSHA's mission, as well as the Secretary's goal of assuring America's workers a quality workplace by fostering workplaces that are safe, healthy, and fair. Each regulation is designed to reduce occupational deaths, injuries, and illnesses among America's workers or to enhance compliance through ``plain language'' revision of detailed, out-dated, and confusing regulations. OSHA's plan entries address the causes of the most dangerous occupational injuries; i.e., those with fatal or disabling consequences, those affecting large numbers of workers, those for which recognized solutions are available, and those identified as top priorities by the Agency's Strategic Plan. In addition, some entries, such as OSHA's revision to its reporting and recordkeeping system, are included because employers, employees, academics, and safety and health professionals have long recognized these efforts as essential to obtaining better data on workplace injuries, fatalities, and illnesses.
Some of OSHA's standards, particularly those adopted wholesale from national consensus standards in 1971, are written in highly detailed, specification-driven language that limits compliance flexibility and makes it difficult for employers and employees to comply. To address these problems, OSHA has launched a series of initiatives aimed at streamlining and rationalizing the Agency's regulations and ensuring that all future OSHA rules will pass plain language and common sense tests. In addition, the Agency is actively soliciting input from stakeholders--business, labor, small employers, professional associations, and affected government entities--as it moves forward on these rulemaking initiatives. The OSHA rules in the 1998 regulatory plan reflect the rulemaking approach that is being followed by the ``New OSHA.'' For example, the Agency is actively working with stakeholders to develop permissible exposure limits (PELs) for a group of air contaminants that both OSHA and the regulated community recognize as hazardous to worker health. The rulemaking requires the development of new risk assessment methods for linking exposure to these substances to such potentially life-threatening effects as neurological damage, occupational asthma, and heart disease.
One of the most important regulatory initiatives ever undertaken by OSHA--development of a safety and health programs rule--is the centerpiece of the Agency's current regulatory plan. This rule will ensure that employers in the general and maritime industries treat worker protection as a fundamental goal of their business and will help employers identify job-related hazards in the workplace, correct those so identified, and prevent others from occurring. Evidence of the effectiveness of safety and health programs in achieving OSHA's ultimate goal--the prevention of deaths, injuries, and illnesses on the job--is widespread and growing daily, as more and more companies report that their accident rates and their workers' compensation costs have fallen after the implementation of such programs. OSHA has held a series of stakeholder meetings designed to identify ways of meeting the business community's need for a strong but simple rule and of recognizing existing safety and health programs that are demonstrably effective. Included among these was a series of regional meetings with small businesses, and employees at small businesses, to gain input on the rule at the grassroots level. The Department believes that, by actively involving both employers and employees in the implementation of safety and health programs, this rule will help to produce the high-performance workplaces of tomorrow. In summary, OSHA's regulatory strategy is designed to achieve a body of rules that will make sense to ordinary people and protect the safety and health of the U.S. work force.
The Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA) administers and enforces the provsions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA). ERISA establishes reporting, disclosure, and other standards applicable to an estimated 700,000 private-sector employee pension benefit plans, covering approximately 85 million participants, and an estimated 6 million employee welfare benefit plans, including group health plans covering approximately 185 million participants. PWBA's regulatory priorities for 1998 continue to focus on efforts to simplify and otherwise facilitate compliance with benefit laws, to improve pension and welfare plan coverage, and to protect the benefits of American workers. PWBA's top regulatory priorities involve implementation of the President's directive to adopt regulatory changes for group health plans, consistent with the recommendations of the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry; to improve the disclosure of health care benefit information; and to strengthen the claims review processes to ensure timely claim determinations and full and fair reviews of denied claims. A continuing high regulatory priority for PWBA is implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996, amendments to ERISA.
PWBA's other top regulatory priority is to work with the Department of Health and Human Services to develop regulations under the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998, establishing a model qualified medical child support order for use by State child support agencies to facilitate the extension of health care coverage to children under their jurisdiction.
Section 5001 of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 authorized the Department of Labor to provide Welfare-to-Work Grants to State and local communities to create additional job opportunities for the hardest-to-employ recipients of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)--the new system of block grants created by passage of the new welfare reform legislation. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) has issued interim planning guidance under this legislation. Moving people from welfare to work is not only a primary goal of Federal welfare to work opportunities but also responds to the Secretary's goal of a Prepared Workforce. Guidance and regulations reflect minimal amplification of the law and were written only when further information or clarification was needed to make the program operational. Reporting requirements assure program integrity and provide timely information for tracking performance against established measures. Performance measures will be consistent with long-term goals. Wherever possible, existing regulations and systems will be used.
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998, signed into law by President Clinton on August 7, 1998, makes significant changes to employment and training programs. The Act establishes a single delivery system for adult employment and training and for dislocated worker employment and training that maximizes worker choice in the selection of occupations and training providers. The Employment and Training Administration will issue regulations and other guidance and provide technical assistance designed to permit maximum State and local government flexibility in implementing the Act.