Elana Levin

Workers Killed on the Job, Again. (as we honor Workers Memorial Day)

Twice the past week I read the same headline "Transit worker killed in a subway accident". I want to take a moment to repeat how much I respect the workers who help make this city run, quite literally. Transit Workers got the short-end of press coverage over a year ago and though the public supported the striking workers far more than the press would make you believe there has always been more to it than meets the eye as DMI Fellow Adrianne Shropshire wrote.

Friday was Workers Memorial Day, a day to remember workers killed or maimed on the job. From the AFL-CIO blog:

In the United States, health and safety advocates will focus on the Bush administration's troubling workplace safety record, including cutting funds for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and reducing its enforcement of safety rules. (Check out Bush's record at our BushWatch website.)

The administration's proposed fiscal year 2008 budget for worker safety and health programs provides $490 million for OSHA, which, adjusting for inflation, represents a $25 million cut since Bush took office. OSHA enforcement staffing levels have been cut from 1,683 positions to 1,543, and staffing for development of safety and health standards has decreased from 100 positions to 83. To inspect each U.S. workplace, it would take OSHA 133 years with its current number of inspectors.

On the job deaths shouldn't be shrugged off as acceptable in the year 2007. The blog The Weekly Toll counts the dead and pushes for better policy (or as they say in the labor movement "mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living"). A new very impressive workplace safety blog called The Pump Handle has stepped in to fill some of the information gap created when my favorite expert, Jordan Barab had to stop blogging. You see, the man behind the blog Confined Spaces is now working for the House Education and Labor Committee so while it means his incredible informative blog isn't being updated, I do sleep sounder knowing that Congress will be listening to him and not just to corporate lobbyists preaching what Cyrus Dugger calls the "Safety Is Too Expensive Business Model."

In fact, the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor is stepping up to bat with a new bill called the Protecting America's Workers Act which has been proposed to reduce the number of workers killed or injured on the job.

A major Occupational Safety and Health Administration failure to protect workers from a chemical used in the manufacturing of microwave popcorn garnered some excellent reportage last week. It is about time the public reads headlines like the one in the NY Times saying "OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry" because it has been a hallmark of the Bush presidency.

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Posted at 9:56 AM, Apr 30, 2007 in Government Accountability | Governmental Reform | Labor
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