Office of Governor Gary Locke
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 13, 2002
Contact:  Kirsten Kendrick, Governor's Communications Office, 360-902-4136
Alt Contact:  Robert T. Nelson, Department of Labor and Industries, 360-902-6043

Gov. Gary Locke Praises Department of Labor and Industries for Innovation; 'Plain English' Wins National Acclaim

OLYMPIA – Nov. 13, 2002 – Gov. Gary Locke today praised the state Department of Labor and Industries for winning national recognition from two organizations for its innovative overhaul of Washington’s workplace safety and health core rules.

The Institute for Government Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University today announced that “Regulations in Plain English” has been selected as one of 99 semifinalists for the “Innovations in American Government Award.”

Fewer than 12 percent of the more than 1,000 applicants made it to the second round. Fifteen finalists will be selected in mid-December. Five winners will be announced in May. Each will receive a $100,000 grant to promote and replicate their innovative efforts.

The Council of State Governments next month will also present Labor and Industries with one of eight “2002 Innovations Awards” for the agency’s rewrite of the core rules into “plain English.” Of the eight programs selected, Labor and Industries’ revamping of its core rules received the most votes from the state officials judging the entries.

Both of the awards use similar criteria in evaluating innovation – creativity, effectiveness, significance and transferability.

“This is a perfect example of how we’re making state government more efficient,” Gov. Locke said. “By rewriting these rules, Labor and Industries has removed a lot of red tape and improved service to citizens.”

Labor and Industries set out to rewrite its core industrial safety and health rules in 1998 after business and organized labor complained. Both felt that the safety and health rules were a patchwork of obscure words, cobbled together over 30 years by lawyers, bureaucrats and lobbyists responding to lawsuits and political pressure.

At the time, the rules governing workplace safety were nearly a foot thick. Not only was it difficult to find a specific rule, once found, it was nearly impossible to understand.

With support from business and organized labor, Labor and Industries rewrote and reorganized the rules, putting them in an easy-to-find, easy-to-read format. They were released on Labor Day 2001. Since then, the regulations have been shipped to or downloaded by about 80 percent of the state’s 163,000 employers.

“Our responsibility is to make workplaces safer,” said Labor and Industries Director Gary Moore. “For that to happen, employers and workers need to understand what is required of them. It’s one thing to have a set of regulations sitting on a shelf. It’s quite another to be able to quickly and easily open them up to a page relevant to a particular situation. Our health and safety regulations were reorganized and rewritten in a way that allows employers to do just that.”

The core rules were the first step in an agency-wide effort to do a better job of communicating with its customers. Nearly 200 of Labor and Industries’ most frequently sent letters have been rewritten in plain English. Many of those letters also were translated into Spanish.

Labor and Industries also will rewrite industry-specific workplace safety and health regulations for construction, manufacturing and agriculture. Those easy-to-understand regulations will be put in place over the next two to four years.

Labor and Industries’ Washington Industrial Safety and Health Services Division regulates and administers the state’s workplace safety and health regulations. Labor and Industries’ Insurance Services Division runs the state’s workers’ compensation program, providing industrial insurance for about 163,000 employers and more than 2 million of the state’s workers.

Related links: www.lni.wa.gov; www.excelgov.org

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