Column from April 2003 Maine Labor News
BUSH
UNDERMINES OSHA AND YEARS
OF WORKPLACE SAFETY EFFORT
By Edward Gorham
President
Maine AFL-CIO
These problems – these workplace tragedies – are with us all the time
everywhere. The problem is in Maine, in our entire nation and throughout the
world. And, to tell the truth, we have been doing and are doing a poor job of
meeting the challenge of providing safe workplaces.
As one line of the worker’s song goes, “We just came here to work. We
didn’t come here to die.”
Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy
Just last month New York City dedicated as a city landmark the Triangle
Shirtwaist sweatshop factory where 146 girls and young women died 92 years ago.
The mayor of New York noted that this was one of the worst industrial disasters
in national history and added that “worst of all it was largely
preventable.”
The Triangle workers, largely Jewish, Polish and Italian women from the
ages of 13 to 23 tried to escape but the factory owners had locked the exits to
keep workers at their machines. Some exits were just blocked and there were no
sprinklers.
So, we might say, “Yes, but that was almost a century ago.”
Workers Still Dying on the Job
We can “fast forward” to just a few years back and find 24 poultry
workers dying unnecessarily because the exit doors of their plant in the south
were illegally locked in defiance of OSHA regulations. And close to 6,000
American workers are still dying every year on the job – the vast majority of
them in preventable “accidents.”
During the period from 1980 through 1995, at least 93,338 workers in the
U.S. died as a result of trauma suffered on the job, for an average of about 16
deaths per day (NIOSH). The Bureau of Labor Statistics (Department of Labor)
Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) has identified 5,915 workplace
deaths from acute traumatic injury in 2000. BLS also estimates that 5.7 million
injuries to workers occurred in 1997 alone; while NIOSH estimates that about 3.6
million occupational injuries were serious enough to be treated in hospital
emergency rooms in 1998.
One in Ten Maine Workers Harmed
Not too long ago a federal survey found that nearly one in 10 Maine
workers is injured or sick because of their jobs – the highest rate in the
nation at that time.
In the summertime millions of teenagers go to work and in the year 2000
more than 70 of them died there – one about every five days. Many are totally
unprepared for the job or the hazards that threaten them and many employers put
little or no emphasis on their safety.
And the problem of workplace safety is far from being limited to Maine
and the nation.
Safety Is A Worldwide Problem
The International Labor Organization estimates that approximately two
million workers lose their lives annually due to occupational injuries and
illnesses, with accidents causing at least 350,000 deaths a year. For every
fatal accident, there are an estimated 1,000 non-fatal injuries, many of which
result in lost earnings, permanent disability and poverty. The death toll at
work, much of which is attributable to unsafe working practices, is the
equivalent of 5,000 workers dying each day, three persons every minute.
This is more than double the figure for deaths from warfare (650,000
deaths per year). According to the ILO's SafeWork program, work kills more
people than alcohol and drugs together and the resulting loss in Gross Domestic
Product is 20 times greater than all official development assistance to the
developing countries. Hazardous substances kill 340,000 per year, with a single
substance, asbestos, accounting for 100,000 of those. Exposure to daily
occupational hazards such as dust, chemicals, noise and radiation cause untold
suffering and illness, including cancers, heart diseases and strokes.
Accidents Can Be Prevented
According to the ILO, at least half of the deaths from accidents could be
prevented by safe working practices and all accidents are avoidable and
preventable.
We need to face the fact that even one workplace death is too many. We
need to work for and insist on safer workplaces that do not kill, injure or
cause illness.
Some Employers Just Don't Care
There is a group of employers who just don’t care. They consistently
violate OSHA regulations and put workers at risk. They can get away with it
because OSHA itself is being weakened and attacked. And it is President Bush and
the Bush Administration who have led this attack and shown a consistent pattern
of actions undermining OSHA and putting tens of thousands of workers at risk.
During the time he has been in office President Bush and the Bush
Administration have clearly demonstrated a strong antagonism not only toward
organized labor but toward virtually every measure that would help strengthen
OSHA and improve workplace safety for all American workers. This does not
include the many actions Bush has taken that affect national health and the
health of working families in general in areas involving such issues as arsenic
in our drinking water and the outrageous cost of prescription drugs.
Consider the following Bush record directly impacting workplace safety:
Held no public
nomination process for important safety group
The
Bush administration’s Department of Labor reversed more than 30 years of
practice and closed the nomination process for the National Advisory Committee
on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH)
Shuts workers, unions
out of most safety studies
The
Bush administration announced formation of a national advisory committee on
ergonomics Dec. 4, 2002 to study causes and methods to prevent workplace
ergonomic injuries that hurt some 1.8 million workers a year. But for the first
time in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 32-year history, a
workplace safety advisory committee did not contain an equal number of union and
management representatives.
Acted
to Block Funds
Acted to block funds to
monitor health of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers and money for
firefighters
President
Bush said Aug. 13, 2002 he would not release the $5.1 billion Congress approved
for supplemental homeland security programs. Those funds included $90 million to
monitor the health of workers who cleaned up the rubble at Ground Zero.
Offered toothless,
voluntary ergonomic guidelines
The
Bush Labor Department has announced a watered-down, voluntary and unenforceable
plan to replace the tough ergonomics standard the Bush administration helped
kill last year. The new plan would rely on as yet undeveloped voluntary
guidelines for selected industries, which are not even identified.
Eliminates
OSHA Positions
Proposes eliminating 83
full-time safety and health jobs at OSHA and cutting $9 million from safety
programs. In his proposed budget, President Bush cut $9 million in funding for
health and safety initiatives. He also tried to eliminate 83 full-time
Occupational Safety and Health Administration jobs.
Bypassed Congress to
appoint labor solicitor opposed to worker safety measures
Acting
while Congress was in recess and bypassing the Senate confirmation process,
President Bush appointed Eugene Scalia as the U.S. Labor Department solicitor or
chief attorney. Scalia faced considerable opposition in the Senate because of
his extreme views. He has written that ergonomics is “quackery” and fought
numerous worker protection initiatives by OSHA and other agencies.
Stopped Department of
Labor action on almost 30 job safety initiatives
The
Bush administration’s Department of Labor regulatory agenda for 2002 withdrew
or halted action on 16 pending Occupational Safety and Health Administration and
13 pending Mine Safety and Health Administration safety actions. These actions
would have strengthened job safety protections for workers.
Fights
Against Accurate Records
Bush's labor secretary
rejected a proposal for accurate reporting and record keeping of workplace
injuries.
On
June 19, 2002 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, responding to business groups,
including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, rejected a Labor Department proposal
requiring employers to separately report musculoskeletal injuries as part of a
workplace injury record-keeping rule going into effect next year. These
problems, including carpal tunnel syndrome and back sprains, accounted for more
than one-third of the 1.7 million workplace injuries
Sought
to limit legal rights of workers with repetitive motion injuries.
The
Bush administration’s Justice Department filed a brief in June with the U.S.
Supreme Court siding with Toyota Motor Corp. in its fight against an
assembly-line worker.
Canceled OSHA grants
for 19 workplace health and safety programs.
The
Bush administration's Department of Labor revoked previously approved federal
grants for safety and health training programs for immigrant workers, small
business employers and employees and workers in high-risk jobs such as
construction.
Repealed key worker
safety rule.
Bush
supported and signed the first-ever congressional repeal of an Occupational
Safety and Health Administration worker protection rule, killing OSHA's
ergonomics standard that would have prevented hundreds of thousands of workplace
injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, each year. His March 21, 2001
signature overturned more than a decade of work by OSHA. The record showed that
simple changes in how a job is structured could dramatically reduce the number
of painful injuries.
A
Tragic Safety Record Under Bush
Statistics can be boring
to read but the statistics of workplace death and injury have a tragic human
face – they represent the death and injury of workers and the economic and
emotional decimation of working families. Organized labor on Workers Memorial
Day April 28 and in the months ahead needs to rededicate itself to workplace
safety and to the election of a president and administration in Washington that
will fight for worker safety and the strengthening of OSHA.
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