Labor Dept. Orders Safety Locks on Plant Machinery

The federal government Thursday gave 631,000 factories and plants two months to install locks so that power to machinery is cut off during maintenance and repairs, a step the Labor Department said will save 120 lives a year.

The department said the new rule will affect 39 million American workers, most of them in manufacturing and service industries, and estimated that it will also prevent 60,000 injuries a year, 28,000 of them serious, such as loss of limbs or crushed bones.

It will cost the affected establishments $214 million in the next year for the necessary equipment and training and $135 million in subsequent years, the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said. Those costs will range from $120 for small establishments--such as a small print shop--to $28,000 for large plants with scores of machines, OSHA said.

The regulation, 10 years in the making, is tougher in its final form than when it was proposed.

At first, the government proposed requiring that employers either install locks or place warning tags on the power source to alert workers that the machinery was being worked on and was not to be activated.

But the final rule released Thursday places far greater emphasis on locks, allowing tags only when an employer can prove that equipment cannot be “locked” or that its tag program is as effective as locks.

“We have so many fatalities, loss of fingers, crushed bones and other serious injuries because these precautions are not taken,” said Alan McMillan, acting chief of OSHA. “This will have a major effect on workplace safety.”

Joseph Kinney, executive director of the National Safe Workplace Institute, a nonprofit job safety organization that has been bitterly critical of OSHA in the past, praised the issuance of the new rule.

Standard’s Applications

The standard applies to most machinery used in manufacturing and in services such as industrial laundries. OSHA data shows that packaging and wrapping equipment, printing presses and conveyors account for a high proportion of accidents blamed on a failure to cut off power during major maintenance and repairs.