December 23, 1990

I MANAGED to miss most of the snapping and growling around the controversial Video Display Terminal Worker Safety Ordinance, until last week when my answering machine and e-mail started bearing tidings of curiosity and a little excitement.

The ordinance, recently approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (though at this writing, subject to veto by the mayor), is a 20-page document that explicitly details ergonomic workstation standards for those who spend most of their jobs in front of computer screens.

The idea is to quash the spread of “repetitive strain injuries,” or RSI, caused by too much computer keyboarding, which can cause sufferers to lose the use of their hands. Vision complaints and other problems have also been long associated with computer use, though no one has given credence to that batch of statistical evidence until recently.

Lest you think this ordinance is founded on the ravings of people who receive signals from Mars in their fillings, or a scheme cooked up by the nation’s unions to bleed more money out of the poor, ravaged U.S. corporation, please note that the standards in the VDT ordinance are a consensus of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the World Health Organization and American National Standards Institute guidelines.

In a nutshell, the VDT ordinance requires employers to provide adjustable workstations (seats, limb rests, keyboards, monitors), periodic breaks from VDT use, and education to keep people appraised of how to stay healthy. Not such a bad thing, eh? Especially since this equation keeps people at work and out of the offices of very expensive doctors and physical therapists.

But when I sashayed into the Board of Supervisors clerk’s office in City Hall on Tuesday morning to pick up a copy, I stepped into the bureaucratic version of Dante’s Inferno. The phones were ringing off the hook, messengers were waiting to pick up copies of the ordinance for law offices, and people like me were standing at the counter, wanting information — what’s going to happen, what’s going on?

That’s because the prospect of this ordinance makes the business community’s blood run cold. They argue that legislating the protection of worker health is going to cost money, the economy’s already in bad shape, and oh my God! San Francisco is such an anti-business town, we’re moving to San Ramon.

This attitude makes me want to retch. First, what is anti-business about not maiming the workers who make your companies successful? Second, this ordinance won’t pillage individual businesses nearly as much as the hand-wringers are saying it will. I priced an ergonomic workstation when I got walloped with RSI a year ago, and it didn’t cost anywhere near $8,000, or even $4,000 for that matter.

I love San Francisco, and I want to stay here and help cultivate a vital economy. But let’s return to the original reason for this ordinance: the alleviation of job-related suffering. Have you ever known someone with carpal tunnel syndrome or tendinitis? Have you seen the looks on their faces when they try to do something as innocuous as open a car door?

Let me describe the pain: It is the functional equivalent of sticking a knife into your wrist; if you’re really having a good day, the pain shoots up to your elbow and down to your fingers, and whatever was in your hand isn’t any longer. Some of these people cannot safely hold a cup, or use a knife to cut their food. They cannot drive or carry groceries. They cannot pick up their children to give them a hug.

So what are we going to do? Euthanasia would be the most expedient solution for companies burdened with RSI sufferers, but it’s still against the law.

Seriously, folks, if the ordinance hasn’t already been vetoed or emasculated by a nervous Board of Supervisors, I suggest that you pick up the phone and call City Hall and let them know that you want to live in a city that protects the rights of its citizens to a safe work environment.