The UAW last week resurrected its 1993 petition to the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, calling for a comprehensive standard for occupational exposure to metalworking fluids that includes a permissible exposure limit of 0.5 mg/m3 or less, medical surveillance, exposure monitoring and other protections.
The UAW petitions OSHA to take this action based on a large body of additional scientific evidence for respiratory disease and cancer caused by exposure to metalworking fluids under prevailing conditions, as well as new knowledge regarding microbial growth and exposure control measures, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger wrote in his April 28 petition.
Gettelfinger said that new evidence has emerged since OSHAs 2003 denial of the earlier UAW petition, and he urged OSHA to act immediately.
In 2003 – during a Republican administration – OSHA formally denied the labor unions 1993 petition for a metalworking fluid standard, stating, The health effects evidence available at this time is not compelling. The evidence linking current formulations of metalworking fluids to cancer is equivocal at best. MWFs aerosols are associated primarily with respiratory conditions of widely varying levels of severity, and the risks MWFs pose for such conditions are unclear.
The UAWs legal appeal was rejected on the same grounds in 2004.
In its new petition, the UAW claims that since 1999, there have been 227 reports in peer-reviewed literature on metalworking fluid exposures. Of these, the UAW said three identified excess cancer associated with metalworking fluid exposure. Other studies, the union said, strengthened the associations between fluids and respiratory effects and systemic toxicity from absorbed chemicals.
Jeffrey L. Leiter of Leiter & Cramer PLLC, legal counsel to the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association, brought the UAW petition to the associations attention yesterday. Leiter said he had anticipated such a petition to OSHA with the change in administrations last year.
Leiter noted that ILMA members have been actively supporting an ongoing ASTM effort to develop voluntary standards for metalworking fluid exposures.
ILMA has been in the leadership position on this issue since the first UAW petition was filed in October 1993, Leiter told ILMA members. We will put our collective heads together to recommend and then execute ILMAs response to the unions petition.