The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited a committee to develop a national consensus standard on work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The committee finalized its work, and the NAM, the National Coalition on Ergonomics and 16 other organizations filed a joint appeal to ANSI on 1/24/03. Our appeal opposed the standard because: (1) it was developed by a committee that does not represent all affected interests, (2) it did not adequately consider objections during the process, (3) it raised barriers to participation, manipulated the work and gave inadequate notices, and (4) the final result is not a true consensus of views. Adoption of this standard represents an end-run around the process of developing a national position on ergonomics at the U.S. Department of Labor. There was great concern that the proposed ANSI standard would be used by OSHA in the future as the basis for "general duty clause" citations against manufacturers.
On 10/7/03, the ANSI Executive Standards Council (ExSC) found that there were serious questions as to “whether the NSC has been able to satisfy fully [the criterion of providing continuity of administrative oversight and support of its standards activities] in the past and whether it will be willing and able to do so going forward.” It expressed particular concern about the continuing delay in answering the appeal filed in January and its “passive” responses to questions about its commitment in the future.
In light of these concerns, the ExSC imposed three conditions on NSC: (1) it must reaffirm its willingness to provide the resources necessary to serve as the Secretariat of ASC Z365, (2) it must hold a hearing on all pending appeals within 60 days, and (3) it must be audited by ANSI's Audit Director. If these conditions are not met, “then the accreditation of ASC Z365 with NSC as the Secretariat shall be withdrawn and any affected ANSs [American National Standards] shall also be withdrawn.”
On 10/29/03, In a very big victory for the NAM and its members, the NSC decided to surrender its role as secretariat to the Z365 Committee. A consensus could not be reached after the NSC spent 13 years and over a half million dollars working with the flawed committee. The Z365 proposal would not have carried the same weight as an OSHA ergonomics regulation, but the NAM and its members were concerned that OSHA could have used the voluntary ergonomics “consensus” standard to cite companies as a recognized hazard under its General Duty Clause.