A BOSS FOR OSHA After a long search, the Administration thinks it has found a man for a hard-to-fill job.
By - Anna Cifelli Isgro

(FORTUNE Magazine) – FINDING SOMEONE willing to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a controversial agency for 15 years, doesn't resemble the prince's search for Cinderella. Even the ugly sisters might turn down this job. The last OSHA director, Robert Rowland, served for a year but never won Senate confirmation because his critics alleged a conflict of interest. The Administration has been seeking a new director since Rowland resigned last spring. Now Labor Secretary William Brock, whose domain includes OSHA, believes he has at last found his man: John Pendergrass, 60, an industrial hygienist with Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. in St. Paul. Pendergrass still has to be formally nominated and then confirmed by the Senate. If he lands the job, he will become an instant target, but with a new twist. In the past labor and management often disagreed on how activist the agency should be. Unions generally charged OSHA with laxity in inspecting plants and setting health and safety standards to protect workers. Companies complained that OSHA's rulings were unduly restrictive and costly. Now both sides agree OSHA should be doing more. In five years OSHA has issued only two regulations for handling toxic substances, compared with eight during the Carter Administration. Some chemical companies, such as Du Pont and Dow Chemical, have begun to fill the void by setting their own health and safety standards. After the General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog agency, began to bark about OSHA, Brock took 25 aides on a retreat in suburban Maryland in November to draw up a plan for improving the department's efficiency. Part of the plan: speed up and improve rule making by OSHA. Says Mark de Bernardo, labor lawyer for the Chamber of Commerce, ''Expect a higher regulatory profile.'' OSHA may still run into roadblocks at the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees all proposed federal regulations. Standards for exposure to benzene, a solvent, have been stuck in OMB since March. OMB has also delayed an OSHA regulation aimed at protecting textile workers exposed to cotton dust, which can cause brown-lung disease. The regulation has been accepted by both industry and union officials, but the OMB argues that costs to businesses may be greater than benefits for workers. Should Pendergrass land the OSHA job, his greatest immediate challenge will be to enforce a so-called right-to-know regulation that went into effect in November. The rule requires employers to inform workers about the chemical composition of materials they work with. Says Geraldine Cox, a vice president of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, ''This will require lots of policing. Some smaller businesses don't even know they are required to comply.'' Pendergrass has dealt with OSHA issues for years. An affable Alabamian, he started an industrial hygiene department for a Boeing operation in Kansas in 1956, moving to 3M eight years later. Predictably, union officials are already suspicious of Pendergrass. Says one: ''His perspective is corporate.'' The new OSHA director can count on one thing: no honeymoon.