Display Screen Equipment in the USA
Revolutionary science
I was lucky enough to be working in health & safety when the first computers started to become commonplace on office desks from the start of the 1980’s.
More often than not, computers in those days comprised a cathode ray tube monitor atop a metal-encased central processing unit kept cool with a noisy fan. The combined heat output could place a considerable load on any air-conditioning system (if you were lucky enough to have one) and a build-up of dust inside the terminals led to occasional reports of fires. I remember advising employees against sticking combustible materials (e.g. fluffy mascots) on top of their screens.
We shouldn’t underestimate the revolution of being able to rapidly process and share large amounts of data, compile spreadsheets, and type documents.
In the days before networked systems, we could send files by…. well, saving them onto a 1.44Mb floppy disk which was then walked over to a colleague’s computer or posted through an internal mail envelope. The small storage space wasn’t a problem at first while slide presentations were rare and digital cameras rarer still.
Questionable science
Later in the 1980’s however, a few spurious reports started to emerge from around the world alleging that the new visual display units (VDU’s) were causing miscarriages in pregnant women, and trades unions in the company I worked for started to demand that pregnant women, or those wanting to become pregnant, should have the right to transfer away from VDU work.
It took the company doctor to point out that congenital defects can arise in embryos within their first eight weeks - often before the mother herself knows that she is pregnant.
Some unions therefore demanded that all women of childbearing age have the right to transfer away from VDU work if they requested it. The problem was, we had very few alternative office jobs by then that didn’t involve VDU work.
Historically, something like one in six pregnancies ends in miscarriage – and this figure hasn’t altered despite millions of VDU’s entering the UK workplace over the last half-century.
It would seem that a handful of spurious studies had seized on a few workplaces where a cluster of mothers – say half a dozen – had all suffered miscarriages, and wondered what might have caused these personal tragedies. All other things being equal, the only new environmental factor seemed to be the arrival of VDU’s – which were promptly blamed for the miscarriages.
In the end, the clusters were dismissed as statistically normal (there being similar workplaces where no miscarriages took place), and the Health & Safety Executive Laboratory declared that the so-called radiation from VDU’s was below background levels; and in any case, cathode ray tubes were now being superseded by flat-screen monitors.
The story doesn't end there
EU-OSHA is the body which harmonises health & safety laws between member states, to ensure that no one state gains competitive advantage over others by lax social standards.
Early in the 1990’s they recommended that all EU states (of which the UK was then a member) adopt legislation to lay down minimum safety & health requirements for work with Display Screen Equipment (as it’s now known).
If you’re not familiar with the requirements to assess DSE workstations and make adjustments, you can read online the relevant EU Directive 90/270/EEC or its UK variant (still in force at the time of writing).
EU-OSHA’s concern was mostly to do with ergonomic constraints, since the human body is not best suited to sit in a static posture for hours on end. There were also concerns about the psychological load of unfriendly software, and employees being forced to (or rewarded to) make large numbers of rapid keystrokes suffering repetitive strain injuries. Eyesight problems can also be exacerbated by the specific distances involving a display screen.
Sauce for the gander
Edinburgh-based Institute of Occupational Medicine found in 2007 no positive evidence that the introduction of legislation on DSE work had reduced ill health in DSE workers. Other economies around the world therefore recognised the value of DSE legislation – but balked at the idea of introducing their own laws.
Many industrialised countries outside the EU therefore issue guidance or recommendations for employers to assess user workstations and adopt sound ergonomic (etc.) principles. A good example is the USA, which as reported in last month’s International Blog, offers a very helpful evaluation checklist. Contact us if you would like to know the DSE standards for other countries that you’re interested in.
If you manage a multinational company, we are sure that you endeavour to meet at least the minimum workplace health & safety standards for the countries in which you operate.
Is it conscionable however to offer different standards to employees based in other countries, or will you raise everything to a common denominator?
Applying the adage: “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”, you should ensure that the workstations of every employee have been properly assessed for hazards, regardless of country.
After all, some of them may well be posted in more than one of your operating countries, and need to be familiar with your standards uniformly.
Contact us
Arinite clients worldwide appreciate we provide practical, no-nonsense advice about what you need to do to establish and maintain a safe and healthy working environment.
Our team of health and safety consultants take pride in keeping health and safety simple.
If you need to call upon our expert assistance, or just for an informal chat, please call our office +44 207 947 9581, or type an enquiry to: https://www.arinite.com/contact-us/.
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