Clinton aims to reduce federal employee injuries

President Clinton wants federal managers to reduce workplace injuries by 15 percent over the next five years.

In a July 2 memorandum to agency heads, Clinton called on managers to make worker safety "a central value in each operation performed in federal workplaces." Workplace injuries cost the government $1.9 billion a year in medical bills and disability compensation, Clinton said.

"Even more disturbing is the pain and suffering of employees and their families that is caused by these injuries and illnesses and the fact that many of such injuries and illnesses are preventable," Clinton said.

Clinton set three goals for the federal government to meet in five years:

• Reduce the overall occurrence of injuries by three percent per year, while improving the timeliness of reporting injuries and illnesses by agencies to the Labor Department by five percent per year.
• Reduce injuries at work sites with the highest accident rates by 10 percent per year.
• Reduce the number of days injured employees spend away from work by 2 percent per year.

The average annual rate of work days federal employees lose because of injuries is 2.4 per 100 workers, compared to a private industry average of 3.4 days per 100 workers, according to Labor Department statistics. There were 152,000 reported federal workplace injuries and 146 fatalities in fiscal 1998.

The Postal Service had the greatest number of injuries last year, with 73,830.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a division devoted to reducing injuries in the federal workplace. The division offers training to agency personnel around the country (See www.osha.gov/oshprogs/).

The Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) processes federal employees' disability and workers' compensation claims. Agencies are supposed to submit their workers' claims within 10 days of receiving the claims from the employees. But according to OWCP, agencies only file claims on time in 50 percent of cases.

Injured federal employees have complained to Congress in recent years that they are treated poorly by the OWCP and by their agencies.