National News Release
Friday, April 7, 2000
Contact: Susan Hall Fleming (202) 693-1999

The Occupationsl Safety and Health Administration's hearing in Portland, Ore., on its proposed ergonomics standard will now run 10 days, from April 24 to May 5, 2000, the agency announced today.

The Portland session continues the informal public hearing, which began March 13 in Washington, D.C., and is slated to continue April 11 in Chicago. The Chicago portion of the hearing will be held in the James R. Thompson Center Assembly Hall at 100 W. Randolph Street, Chicago, Ill. The April 24 session in Portland will be held in Courtroom 16 in the Mark Hatfield Federal Court House at 1000 Southwest 3rd Ave, Portland, Ore. Both the Chicago and Portland portions will begin daily at 8:30 a.m. and end at approximately 5:00 p.m.

A schedule of witnesses is posted on the OSHA website at www.osha.gov on the ergonomics hearing subpage. The agency has already notified participants whose scheduled presentation times have changed. Hearing participants were required to notify the agency of their intent to testify by Jan. 24, 2000, if they wanted more than 10 minutes for their testimony.

OSHA published its ergonomics proposal in the Nov. 23, 1999, Federal Register. The proposed standard would cover 27 million workers and prevent an average of 300,000 injuries each year, saving the U.S. economy $9 billion annually. Copies of the regulatory text, as well as the preamble and other supporting materials, are available on the agency's website on the main ergonomics subpage.

Official notice of the extended dates and location for the Portland session is expected to appear in the Federal Register April 11, 2000.

This news release is on the OSHA Internet homepage at http://www.osha.gov.

Information on this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 693-1999.