Friend or foe?
Burin says OSHA is both
By Candace
Doyle
Editor
Friend or foe?
That's an oft-asked
question by contractors of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Chuck Burin, area
director for the Eau Claire-Minneapolis office, has an easy and unapologetic
answer: Both.
Burin, who's been
with OSHA since 1975, said that what he finds challenging about his
work with the U.S. Department of Labor agency is its two-pronged approach
to safety: enforcement and compliance.
"The big
thing everyone hears about is enforcement," said Burin, who oversees
eight OSHA staff members and whose office conducts between 160 and
180 inspections a year. "It's not just the enforcement part of
it."
Lesser know, though,
is OSHA's vigorous efforts to not police industry but to help prevent
work-related injuries and deaths in the first place. It's an effort
that has paid off, too, as since the agency was created in 1971, occupational
deaths have been cut in half and injuries have declined by 40 percent.
"They're
sort of the OSHA guys with the white hats," Burin said of the
agency's compliance assistance personnel.
Those OSHA staff
members, he said, work with companies to establish safety programs
and explain how a safe work and job site can impact a firm's bottom
line by reducing workers' compensation expenses.
"If people
are not injured on the job, you don't have to worry about replacing
them," he added.
Occasionally,
Burin said, he'll hear from companies that have adopted safety programs
at OSHA's urging - and that gives him satisfaction.
"You don't
get a lot of those," he said.
When all else
fails ...
Sometimes, though,
compliance doesn't work, and Burin said enforcement's the only just
solution.
"When they
don't want to do that, we're going to come in," he said.
But rather than
seeing OSHA as a menace, Burin said companies that repeatedly fail
to comply with the agency's regulations and put workers at risk should
be viewed that way.
"Sometimes
you find employers out there, especially with fatalities, you just
consider bad actors," he said.
And Burin has
no qualms about citing repeat offenders - or helping in criminal investigations
if the facts of the case merit.
He recalled an
Eau Claire case in which the U.S. attorney in Madison got involved
and issued criminal charges. Burin said the company had been repeatedly
told that a paper-coating machine it used needed to have a lock-out
feature. But, he said, the company's senior people failed to comply,
and a man working inside the coater became trapped inside, was crushed
and died days later.
"They were
well aware that system did not have a lock-out," he said. "That's
the frustrating part - when they just don't seem to think safety and
health mean anything."
It's instances
like that, when compliance doesn't work, Burin said, that make OSHA's
enforcement capabilities understandably needed.
But even that
can't make up for a lost life.
"You still
have a family out here who has a member who died," he said.
Burin's seen a
lot over his 27-year stint with OSHA -- and he's worked in Jackson,
Miss., Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis for the agency.
Originally from
Pennsylvania, Burin, who now calls Apple Valley -- just south of Minneapolis
-- home, graduated from the University of Kansas and earned a master's
degree in business administration from Mississippi College in Clinton,
Miss.
Before joining
OSHA, though, he spent 11 years in the Marine Corps as a pilot, where
he was introduced to aviation safety issues, and worked briefly in
the private sector and for the Internal Revenue Service.
But when a job
opened up with OSHA in Jackson, he threw his hat in.
"I had been
somewhat familiar with OSHA with my aviation safety work," he
said.
He is still involved
in aviation as a member of the board of directors for the OV-10 Bronco
Association, a group of people who flew or have an interest in the
Corps aircraft.
And Burin still
flies but only logs on about 20 to 30 hours a year.
"It's enough
to keep my hand in it," he said.
