A federal standard to improve sanitation on U.S. construction sites is "dead in the water," according to an OSHA representative we spoke to last week.

Over the last several years, we have reported on efforts to improve the hand-washing standard for construction sites by the OSHA Advisory for Construction Safety and Health, which makes recommendations to the federal safety agency.

In 2000, the committee made several recommendations to OSHA that would have mandated the placement of hand-washing stations or antiseptic gel dispensers within or next to portable toilets on construction sites, and lowering the ratio of toilets-per-worker to one in 10 from one in 40. That year, the situation looked good for passage.

Then, in the Dec. 3, 2001 Federal Register, which contains OSHA's priorities for the next 12 months, the new sanitation proposal was effectively buried, at least for now, by a single line: "OSHA is withdrawing this entry from the agenda at this time due to resource constraints and other priorities."

In January, OSHA's leaders were out among various business groups talking about the agency's agenda, which has changed considerably under the Bush Administration. OSHA Administrator John Henshaw said the agency would only take on health and safety issues that are "doable." R. Davis Layne, deputy assistant secretary of labor, told another group that the new list was designed "to really reflect what we think we can accomplish."

Apparently, better sanitation on construction sites is apparently not "doable." But it's impossible to explain to us how an extremely low-cost item like placing hand-sanitizing dispensers next to portable toilets would have much of an effect on an employer's bottom line.

"If there was one, easy way OSHA could improve the lot of construction workers, this would be it," said Larry Edginton, safety and health director for the Operating Engineers International Union, who sits on the safety and health advisory committee. "It's the right thing to do. If the people at the Department of Labor would spend one day on a construction site, and see the sanitary conditions our workers have to endure, things would change in a hurry."

If poor sanitation practices actually resulted in worker deaths, this would be a more important issue. Medical experts we've talked to say that hepatitis and other infectious diseases that people tend to acquire from not washing their hands after using the bathroom make people sick, but are rarely fatal.

This isn't really a political issue, because a sanitation standard didn't get passed during the eight years President Clinton was in the White House. It isn't much of an economic issue, either - hand sanitizers are cheap, and putting more portable toilets on construction sites just isn't that big of a cost.

This is a health and human decency issue. Construction workers aren't asking for a lot, just a place to relieve themselves and a place to wash. On some sites, a stand of trees or a culvert is the only convenient place to go, which isn't much different from working conditions a hundred or even a thousand years ago.

There are some construction employers who go above and beyond what's required, and do provide workers with hand-sanitizers. Some go so far as to provide heated, clean, toilet trailers - a big leap above having to use the typical, disgusting portable toilets.

But for other employers, a nudge is going to be needed, and it isn't going to come from the federal government any time soon. The nudge toward better sanitation could come from unions, if members speak up and insist on geting better bathroom facilities written into collective bargaining agreements.

The other untapped resource in all of this is MIOSHA, which has the ability to meet or exceed federal OSHA requirements when it comes to job safety measures.

Whenever this issue comes up, most people acknowledge the problem, but few are willing to do anything. Maybe now is the time for construction workers to demand that they stop being treated as second-class citizens.

Author Victor Hugo said, "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come."