OSHA Issues Final Rule to Protect Workers From Exposure to Respirable Silica

After decades of delay, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a final rule to curb lung cancer, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease in America's workers by limiting their exposure to respirable crystalline silica. The rule is comprised of two standards, one for Construction and one for General Industry and Maritime.

CWA applauds the passage of this long overdue rule. OSHA estimates that the rule will save over 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis each year, once its effects are fully realized. The new silica rules are the most significant OSHA standards issued in decades.

About 2.3 million workers are exposed to respirable crystalline silica in their workplaces, including 2 million construction workers who drill, cut, crush, or grind silica-containing materials such as concrete and stone, and 300,000 workers in general industry operations such as brick manufacturing, foundries, and hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

Key Provisions of the New Standards:

• Reduces the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air, averaged over an 8-hour shift.

• Requires employers to: use engineering controls (such as water or ventilation) to limit worker exposure to the PEL; provide respirators when engineering controls cannot adequately limit exposure; limit worker access to high exposure areas; develop a written exposure control plan, offer medical exams to highly exposed workers, and train workers on silica risks and how to limit exposures.

• Provides medical exams to monitor highly exposed workers and gives them information about their lung health.

• Provides flexibility to help employers — especially small businesses — protect workers from silica exposure.

Labor unions, safety experts, and health organizations have urged a tightening of silica exposure standards since the 1970s because research shows that particles of the mineral, when inhaled, can cause silicosis, a disabling and sometimes fatal lung disease. In the 1970s, when OSHA set the original silica standard, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was already recommending that it be reduced to the 50-microgram threshold.

However, progress was stymied for decades by resistance from affected companies and regulatory inaction. OSHA’s previous permissible exposure limits (PELs) for silica were outdated, inconsistent and did not adequately protect worker health. The previous PELs were based on studies from the 1960s and earlier that did not reflect more recent scientific evidence showing that low-level exposures to silica cause serious health effects, including lung cancer.
Mr. Perez, the labor secretary, acknowledged that companies might sue the department in an effort to block the new regulations.

“This is no different than the story of asbestos,” Mr. Perez said. “After 40 years, the political will has finally caught up with the science.”

More information about silica and the new standards can be found on OSHA’s webpage at https://www.osha.gov/silica/index.html

If you have concerns about silica exposures in your workplace, please contact Micki Siegel de Hernandez, CWA District 1 Health and Safety Director at msiegel@cwa-union.org or 212-509-6994.