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Washington’s Anti-Regulatory Crusade, and Why Your Job Hasn’t Killed You Yet
On the campaign trail, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is spreading the gospel of Perrynomics—a magical job-creation formula based on minimal government regulation of industry, combined with tiny tax rates and tight controls on lawsuits. In a state that seems inclined to cannibalize its own government, this agenda plays well. But a closer look reveals the high price of low regulation.
In recent months, politicians in both parties, including the White House, have claimed that scaling back regulations would unleash economic growth, suggesting that businesses should be liberated from rules that protect the environment, occupational health and other public interests. But a new analysis by Public Citizen presents a few unsung gems of federal bureaucracy that help keep us happy, healthy and sane. Several of these regulatory chart-toppers, not surprisingly, were enacted in defiance of heavy political pushback:
Clearing the Air. Since the days of the Lowell mills, so-called “brown lung” has been a hallmark of the miserable toil of poorly ventilated, dust-clogged textile factories. The disease, also known as Byssinosis, has historically hit women especially hard, spreading its signature coughing and lung scarring to thousands of workers around the world. The epidemic was virtually ignored until the 1960s and 1970s. Then came OSHA's 1978 rule requiring more lung-friendly machinery, and within a few years the prevalence of brown lung in the industry fell by an estimated 97 percent. And employers' grumbling about the "costs" of the rule faded when it became clear that the reforms improved the industry's efficiency as well.
Rule of (Keeping Your) Thumb. You'd think a rule that helps keep workers from getting accidentally hacked to pieces would be somewhat popular. But in the late 1980s, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) didn't mind sacrificing a few extremities here and there to resist the evils of regulatory "burdens." Industry moguls sued to block the Lockout/Tagout rule, which would force employers to mark potentially hazardous equipment with colored tags and provide safety training for workers. But the rule passed, and according to Public Citizen, made the shop floor a much less terrifying place:
An analysis of two union databases conducted in 2000 showed that hazardous energy-related fatalities declined, depending on the industry, by between 30 percent and 55 percent in the years following the enactment of the Lockout/Tagout rule.... OSHA currently estimates that the regulation prevents a total of 50,000 injuries and 120 fatalities per year.
Even NAM eventually backed off its opposition to the rule, apparently recognizing that workers do a better job when they have all their fingers.
Caves not Graves. OSHA issued safety standards for excavacation-related construction in 1989, designed to protect workers from subterranean collapse. Basic structural protections for trenching and excavation worksites have since become standard practice, and Public Citizen calculates that the reforms correlate with "a 40 percent decrease in the fatality rate."
Fire on the Prairie. A generation ago, America's farming industry was booming, in a really bad way. Grain facilities like silos and grain elevators were prone to deadly explosions when combustible grain dust mixed with hazardous gases. In spite of initial opposition from agribusiness groups and Reagan administration officials, OSHA enacted the Grain Handling Facilities Standard, which established environmental controls for dust and gas and required protective gear for workers. After seeing a “95 percent drop in explosion-related fatalities for certain facilities," reports Public Citizen, even industry groups eventually had to admit that workplaces that don't spontaneously explode are good for business.
Coal Quagmire. Despite major strides in workplace health and safety over the years, weak regulations and shoddy enforcement still plague various sectors. Public Citizen points to a dramatic reduction in coal mine-related deaths since Congress passed the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969, which the group describes as “the first comprehensive mine safety law creating mandatory inspection requirements, enforceable health and safety standards, and civil and criminal penalties for willful violations.”
But although Big Coal's underground empire has become less lethal, the many workers who perished in the West Virginia Massey mine tragedy more than a year ago are a testament to the dangers that still loom over workers every day. Politician's promises to strengthen mine worker protections have faded in recent months, and Massey Energy's sordid environmental and safety record has so far not compelled decisive action to prevent future disasters.
As industrial criminality mounts, protecting workers and the public from harm remains unfinished business. Yet Rick Perry and his Beltway brethren continue to preach their anti-regulatory gospel, peddling the fable that we will somehow get more jobs if the institutions that keep us safe, can't do their jobs.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllI think we need to avoid falling for this "jobs" crap. Virtually all the jobs in Texas Rick Perry policies created are dirty, dangerous, minimum wage jobs. Indeed, the whole southern US, and even the upper midwest, are becoming attractive low-wage havens for European manufacturers. Recall the recent revelations of low wages, racial discrimination and union-busting at IKEA's plant in Virginia. Sweden? Union-Busting? Capitalism corrupts everything it touches.
One of the biggest lies that Perry tells is that he has the best job creation numbers in the country. The truth is that when you count the increase in population during the same time, Texas is actually DEAD LAST in job creation. So not only were the only jobs "created" CRAPPY jobs that his UNEDUCATED population will NEVER get out of poverty working, but he actually didn't create ANY jobs at all.
Perry has been nothing but a total disaster for his state, and that was after they had to put up with W.
As the author mentions, Obama is promoting deregulation as much as Perry is. Perry is just screaming a little louder since he is competing in a large pack of devils for the GOP nomination while Obama will have no real competition for the 2012 nomination.
When I first started working in construction in 1970 (one year before OSHA was formed) it was standard operating procedure to accept injuries and fatalities as part of the cost of doing business. There were formulas for calculating the number of fatalities on big projects based on the dollar value of the project.
By 1990 OSHA regulations, enforcement and acceptance by at least the heavy industrial and civil construction sectors was resulting in positive improvements in injuries and fatalities, especially with respect to the 1989 underground rules the author mentioned.
Hopefully the global capitalists and the politicians they own won't set us back 40 or more years while actually killing more jobs than they create, in the process.
A good rule of thumb to go by is that whenever a politician from the red team or the blue team talk about jobs .... what they really mean is "profits." Profits, Profits Uber Alles!
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Bravo Michelle for a very well said statement. Currently I am feuding with my very own Senator Toomey (PA-R, of course or perhaps Tombey) over his advocacy for less regulation. I will be sending him the following video showing a car factory in 1936 with no OSHA and few Unions. I wonder how many limbs were lopped off or crushed here. The consequences of the 1911 Triangle Shirt Waste Factory fire had not yet fully penetrated to Congress and it still hasn't to the GOP.
http://www.dump.com/2011/07/15/fascinating-1936-footage-of-car-assembly-line-video/
Art, Allison Park, PA
Scaling back regulations to create jobs? Why not? The taxcuts haven't worked. What a scam! Clean Air Anyone? I laughed when I found out that the over-sized governor has asthma. Choke & gag, baby, choke & gag! I have no compassion for that konservative.
The main reason that cases of brown lung fell by 97% is that all those factory jobs went to Mexico and China ... That's more of a function of neo-liberalism and "free" trade deals than it is of OSHA regulations and enforcement. The once huge new England textile industry is gone ... and with it went the brown lung.
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While it is true that the number of US textile workers has decreased 40% in the last five years, according to a 2010 Reuters article ( http://tinyurl.com/3vgln5q ), to suggest that OSHA regulations do not protect textile workers is demonstrably untrue.
From a year 2000 OSHA publication:
http://tinyurl.com/3k8mkvl
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It is estimated that there are approximately 466 cotton using establishments in these textile sectors. It also can be estimated that between 70,000 and 105,000 employees work in these establishments.
It is estimated that the prevalence rate of byssinosis among cotton textile workers was approximately 20% in the early 1970's. The completion of studies confirming these rates and OSHA's announcement of regulatory activities led some firms to lower exposures leading to an estimated prevalence rate of 12% just before OSHA issued the Cotton Dust Standard in 1978.
The provisions of the Cotton Dust Standard, lowering workers' exposure to cotton dust and requiring medical surveillance, transfer to lower exposure areas, work practices, etc., helped reduce the byssinosis prevalence rate to approximately 0.68%. The number of workers with byssinosis has been reduced to approximately 700 from approximately 12,000 in 1978 and 50,000 in 1970 (when the number of exposed workers was higher). The cotton dust standard has been highly successful in protecting the health of cotton textile workers from byssinosis and achieving the stated objective of the OSH Act.
OSHA had estimated that the capital cost of the Cotton Dust Standard would be $550 million in 1977 dollars, which was the low end of varying estimates. The actual cost was $243 million in 1982 dollars or $153 million in 1977 dollars.
The reason for the lower costs was that the standard encouraged industry to invest in more productive equipment to come into compliance. Industry purchased such things as automated opening equipment and air-jet looms to come into compliance rather than utilizing add-on ventilation.
A further result was that the Cotton Dust Standard contributed to increasing industry productivity growth, which was 2.5% per year in the 1972-79 period and increased to 3.5% per year in the 1979-1991 period. It is clear that the technological changes since the standard was issued have been positive for the industry and the standard has encouraged those positive technological developments.
It is also clear that the rule did not have any significant negative economic impact on a substantial number of small businesses. The large majority of firms affected are small businesses as defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA). Sales in the major cotton- using SICs increased from $20 billion in 1982, to $27 billion in 1992 to $38 billion in 1996 to $40 billion in 1998. Sales of small businesses as defined by the SBA in those SICs increased from $34 billion in 1996 to $36.5 billion in 1998. Sales of the smallest firms in that period increased from $6 billion to $10 billion.
Further evidence of the health of the small business sector is the entry of new small businesses into the cotton using SICs. The number of establishments with 1-19 employees increased 21% from 1977 to 1992, and the number of firms with 1-19 employees increased 55% from 1990 to 1996. (Different statistical series were available for the different periods.)
There is a continuing need for the Cotton Dust Standard. Without the exposure limits, medical surveillance, and other requirements of the standard, byssinosis prevalence rates would increase. All commenters supported the retention of the Cotton Dust Standard, and there were no criticisms that it was too complex. The stakeholders understand the standard, and its more technical requirements are necessary for effective medical surveillance and accurate monitoring.
http://tinyurl.com/3k8mkvl
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Despite the loss in jobs, to suggest that the decrease in brown lung is due solely to offshoring is untrue. It is also untrue that workers do not need OSHA regulations to protect their health.
I said that neo-liberal trade deals were the main reason ... not the sole reason ... for the decline in cases of brown lung. And I stand by that. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a loss of 70% of the jobs in textile mills and textile products since 1990 ... and even by 1990 the textile labor force had already decreased by a quarter or more from its peak in the mid 70s.
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And that's not in any way meant to disparage what OSHA does ... or to imply that workplace regulations are unnecessary, or that they drive businesses away. I know for a fact that OSHA regulations have forced employees to clean up work environment atmospheres over the past 3 decades. I've worked in several different factories (not textile) and have had people tell me that "back in the day" in the 70s and 80s you could hardly see across the shop due to all the oil particulates and other crap in the air ... and now, the place has air nearly as clear as that of an office.
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Don't get mad at me for pointing out the facts! Get mad at the greedy capitalists who figured they could save a buck by polluting Chinese lungs.
As a professional surveyor I have been involved in large heavy construction for many years, and forbidden by law to become part of a professional organization that would be akin to a union. I've been on both union and non-union projects and I can say without a doubt that the union projects were much safer.
Why? Because in the building boom heyday of national development when the unions were strong much of the inspection and correction of common-sense safety equipment and procedures were the responsibility of the unions themselves. Union BA's main function on the job site was to constantly inspect safety devices and listen to concerns of their journeymen. The contractors ultimately paid for the cost of safety equipment, but as the piece points out, overall safety results in greater profitability and timely completion of contracts.
The non-union projects I have been involved with were always much less safe. One reason is that non-union contractors hire many unqualified and untrained persons at much lower wages, and these workers are either unaware of the dangers created by their employers, or the dangers they themselves create carrying out their duties, or are cowed by financial reality into keeping their mouths shut and their paycheck coming, and they have no-one such as a union to speak on their behalf.
Job safety, even under the best of circumstances, is problematical. I worked on a major expansion of the Cleveland Clinic and it was entirely a union project and on most days the maximum safety that could be achieved existed. One morning however, proves how easily things can go awry.
As we began another 250yd floor pour in the early dawn light a woman driver hit one of our laborers as he worked around a concrete truck. Nothing major, but bad news travels quickest of all and before you knew it everyone from the basement to the topmost floor was talking about young Billy, who got hit by a car. Several ironworkers and electricians were performing maintenance inside the shaft of one of our construction elevators and someone neglected to engage the lockout, probably distracted by the Billy incident. Several of these men were crushed in the shaft when it descended on them.
At that point management should have shut the job down for the day, but of course we know that is not how things work. By then absolutely everyone on the job was buzzing about these accidents and wouldn't you know a carpenter walked backwards of a flying floor form we had just maneuvered into place and the handrails and toeboards had not been put in place yet. He fell several floors and was seriously injured.
A laborer friend of mine could not understand that I was not angry that I made less than most of the Union workers on the job. My reply to him was that if he was going to break his back in a lifetime of strenuous labor that he damn well deserves to be compensated for it.
I used to work at a place that was so zealously anti-union that the first order of business every morning during the management meeting was "What's the union up to".... But there was no union. The red-alert union hysteria happened because the word "union" was found written on the wall in a bathroom.
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It's the capitalist equivalent of someone using the word "bomb" on an airplane.
Workers have almost zero leverage to bring to bear against the totalitarian private kingdoms called corporations that run the economy and macromanage our lives. regardless of whether or not we are employed by one. The workforce has been so beaten down, demoralized, and shattered over the course a generation that people have just accepted these conditions as a new normal.
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A guy came up to me at a job just two weeks ago as I was taking some notes about an unsafe working condition. And he said to me repeatedly "can you please not use my name in your report because I can't afford to lose this job." He was worried that reporting a safety hazard could cost him his job...
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Good story that illustrates the way one triggering incident irrationally provokes a clusterfuck.
BTW, that also happens on a bureaucratic, pencil-pusher level. When I was on the regional staff of the state unemployment insurance agency, I had to handle "customer" complaints.
Every so often, you would come across claims that had inexplicably turned into train wrecks. Sometimes the claimant may have started this off by raising a ruckus that inspired deliberately bad service, or frantically getting "too many cooks" involved to straighten out a minor snafu.
But often you would find these uncanny chains or strings of one error or screw-up after another; the claim really seemed jinxed.
BTW, since someone is bound to ask-- any particular reason you specified "'woman' driver"?
May 19, 1920: Matewan Massacre
The spring of 1920 was a troubled time in the West Virginia coalfields. A nationwide coal strike settled during the winter had won unionized miners a 27 percent wage increase. Unfortunately, the settlement didn't help most miners in southern West Virginia, the largest non-unionized coal region in the country. When the United Mine Workers (UMW) stepped up its campaign to organize Logan, Mingo, and McDowell counties, coal operators retaliated by hiring private detectives to quash all union activity. Miners who joined the UMW were fired and thrown out of their company-owned houses. Despite the risks, thousands defied the coal operators and joined the UMW. Tensions between the two sides exploded into violence on May 19, when 13 Baldwin-Felts detectives arrived in Matewan to evict union miners from houses owned by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. Matewan chief of police Sid Hatfield intervened on behalf of the evicted families. A native of the Tug River Valley, Sid Hatfield supported the miners' attempts to organize. He was also known throughout Mingo County as a man who was not afraid of a fight. After carrying out several evictions, the detectives ate dinner at the Urias Hotel then walked to the depot to catch the five o'clock train back to Bluefield, Virginia. They were intercepted by Hatfield, who claimed to have arrest warrants from the county sheriff. Detective Albert Felts produced a warrant for Hatfield's arrest, which Matewan mayor C. C. Testerman claimed to be a fake. The detectives didn't know they had been surrounded by armed miners, who watched intently from windows and doorways along Mate Street and, while Felts, Hatfield, and Testerman, faced off, a shot rang out. The ensuing gun battle left 7 detectives and 4 townspeople dead, including Felts and Testerman.
http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/calendar/matewan.htm
the detectives were paid killers - nothing less - their kind and ilk abound today in fascist america and they demand the same treatment - nothing less
consider the ensuing battle of blair mountain
"In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal workers, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their rifles and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia.
Only the declaration of martial law and the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms.
The upheaval burst forth in the small town of Matewan in Mingo County, the center of West Virginia's richest coal field. This part of the conflict, aptly portrayed in the 1987 John Sayles dramatic film, Matewan, which won the Academy Award for best cinema tography, can and should be rented at most video stores. The cast includes Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones, and David Strathairn (all working for union scale) amongst others you'll surely recognize. The labor position on class warfare is powerfully delivered by newly arrived labor organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) to the miners:
Ain't but two sides to this world. Them that work and them that don't. You work, they don't. That's all you got to know about the enemy."
http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr05/blair.htm
this is the real history of workers in the us
heroic men and women standing up for their rights in the face of murderers and capitalists who hire them
today the goons are people like the aipac bitch wolf von blitzer on cnn and hannity, the repressed homosexual bill oreilly and fat boy limbaugh
then there's the fbi and the cia
blackwater/xe etc
bankster terrorists
goldman sachs and otto von obummer over there in the whitehouse
Thanks for this history lesson, medmedude. Other readers as ignorant as I was about Blair Mountain will profit from reading the glendale.edu link. It is a great piece, well-written. So many cameo appearances -- Billy Mitchell, apparently planning to bomb US soil, Warren Harding calling out the Army to defend the business interests, the lawless Baldwin-Felts agency (a domestic forerunner of Blackwater?), a secretary of Labor (William Wilson) who actually sided with labor.... perhaps the first use of the term "rednecks" (with an entirely different meaning) ...
who knew?
http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr05/blair.htm
yesterday my son and i walked into mexico stopping for a moment befor dropping a quater into the turnstile to admire the tall fense between our nations. "i've always hoped i might some day afford to live in a gated community!" i joked. texas is a huge state with a variety of ecologica-economical centers. of course as the world reaches peak oil, crude states such as oklahoma and texas look good on paper. however, if you take a closer look at ground level, you'll see ghost towns with sink holes where not too long ago citizens splashed gleefully in texas tea! only a few months ago energy developers cordined off areas all over our poor border area hoping for another gusher. guess they couldn't find enough to excite, but i did hear about some new business for storing something or other. nuclear waste?
we saw lots of semis pulling canvas-cover flatbeds into mexico and i wondered if unemployed u.s. intenerate farm worker hopefuls lay hidden under the tarps. my son commented that no product laden trucks travelled north. i had high hopes for nafta that it might lift all boats. border economies generally intertwine with shoppers and tourists moving back and forth. xenophobia does neither nation any good. much of texas economic growth comes from retired middle class labor who come to spend the winter in the sun and make that ss check, 401k earnings, et al go further. these part time residents aren't called snowbirds, but rather winter texans because flea markets, all you can eat restaurants and affordable health care for the aging have long been a mainstay of the deep south economy. sure, the summer months are slower, but full timers from both sides maintained a steady cross-border business community. this trip we two were the only act in town.
although this state avoided the big housing bubble fiasco, we watched as struggling citrus growers sold land to housing developers. cleared land invites drought so that many saw the cost of irrigation and cattle feed rise and rise while profit per acre dropped. cannot blame them for grabbing a lump sum and retire. fuel industry mogals have won over the food wholesalers for the corn fields, but as drought conditions hold tight the corn turns into crispy critters on the vine and our cattleman lacking water and feed corn have been forced to sell off the live stock while it's still alive.
both major political parties promise to get back to economic growth. i take that to mean continuously increasing our standard of living. when any part of a body experiences unstoppable growth, we call that a cancer. we need to rethink the impossible dream and work toward a sustainable economy. perry's just another ego-centric self-promoting preying fool. i wouldn't wish him on the nation
NAFTA was NEVER intended to "lift all boats". It was INTENDED to destroy our jobs, wages, benefits, political power and futures. Look at it's structure from the bottom up. It gives NO environmental or worker protections, and even leaves entire COUNTRIES to the whims of business. It dropped tariffs that kept our jobs here, and NO ONE ELSE lowered theirs to the same levels we have. He ONLY way it would EVER work would be if the companies were prohibited from changing countries for labor cost reasons. Unless everyone RAISES their wages to meet the other country, then the ONLY way wages can go is DOWN. And do you REALLY think that everyone would raise wages? That is totally AGAINST the idea of NAFTA.
All NAFTA was supposed to do was to destroy the worker's lives in this country. As such, it's done EXACTLY what it was SUPPOSED to do. It robbed us and gave what we had directly to those at the top who already had more than they would ever need. Now look where they are and look where we are. This was ENTIRELY by design.
I remember hearing about this on NPR when they first passed this turkey. I remember thinking to myself within about 20 seconds that this was going to be a TOTAL disaster for those of us who weren't on the very top, and I have been right. It was SO obvious that I couldn't believe that ANYONE in this country would fall for it. Why we STILL do is TOTALLY beyond me.
"Unless everyone RAISES their wages to meet the other country, then the ONLY way wages can go is DOWN. And do you REALLY think that everyone would raise wages?"
yes, yes, i bought into the pretty ribbons and bows, never suspecting the viper coiled just beneath the pretty paper. i did not mean to imply that i still stubbornly hold to that naïve idea. however, to this day i do not believe human dignity and respect come with a dollar sign attached. i've long felt that our national pride from branding ourselves as the "richest, most powerful" as well as our national fascination with fame and fortune fails to serve the ideals of democracy. sure, lifting all boats would require some boats to level down. i did not like the corporate definition of success driven by the ambition for more and more toys, never satisfied but must be upwardly mobile. i wanted the satisfaction from a job well done, not the stress of measuring self-worth against another's accomplishments. the value of currency is not a fixed value and to believe happiness comes from the next wage or salary increase is like a mirage in the desert. jefferson believed that knowledge is the true currency of democracy. now, i like that! the more we share knowledge with one another, wisdom grows. we should not shame one another for lack of information. the real shame is failure to learn from our mistakes. all of us claim 20-20 vision in seeing someone else's foolishness, but we can only broaden our intellectual horizons when we see our own.
Hummingbird - You have good thoughts and write well but your lack of capitalization is just too stressful for my aging eyes so I tend to skip your posts.
We have to start calling deregulation and similar such outgrowths of fascist neo-liberalism what they truly are:
ANTI-HUMAN
When you are putting the safety of human beings and their ability to survive at risk - be it at a job site or in their own home - you are clearly advocating a philosophy that is ANTI-HUMAN.
And if you are advocating anti-human policies, what does that make you?
A traitor to your species.
What Michelle Chen must understand: profits of the few are more important than the well-being of the many.
Chen sez: "In recent months, politicians in both parties have ... suggest(ed) that businesses should be liberated from rules that protect the environment, occupational health and other public interests."
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What they really need to be "liberated from" is all the excess cash they're sitting on.
Totally agree.
And let's not forget all those over regulated Pharmaceutical corporations. Obviously, after people started dropping dead from taking lipitor, they would stop using the product. Dead people make lousy customers. That would hurt Pfizer's bottom line so, in the wisdom and majesty of the free market competitive forces, Lipitor would withdraw the product because of poor sales. Who needs the FDA? Not Pfizer. They can then develop a new pill using competitive market forces as their guide.
Some prudent corporate investments in PAC coffers for the District Attorney and some judges is a great investment too. Dead people's relatives can sometimes interfere with free market forces. We can't have that.
If free marketeers would only look at the long term rather than the short term bottom line, they and the world would be a better place. The problem with the free market theory is, the marketeers who drive the free market are more often than not, genetically born with extreme near sightedness. Being so near sighted they are incapable of preceiving any other reality but today's bottom line.
This is one of the major positions of Chen's article. As she points out, the imposed regulations that the near sighted corporateers fought against, increased corporate bottom line profits over time.
As the saying goes, "The proof is in the pudding." Even with the proof, the genetic defect so permeates the corporateer classes, that they still can not see that stewardship raises all ships. Thus, we have NAFTA and the removal of jobs to other nations where the worker can more easily be exploited to satisfy today's greed abyss of the genetically defective short sighted corporateer.
It doesn't help that they are also sociopaths.
Headline should read Corporate America's Anti-Regulatory Crusade as they direct Washington's congresscritters.
I call it the invisible gland.
We must do away with OBAMA who is promoting more Free Trade with Vietnam, and other low paying countries. The last Shoe Making Factory in the country located in Maine will have to close if the latest attempt at free trade is successfull. Keep in mind that it was our democrat
president, Bill aka "Slick Willie", Clinton who signed of on Nafta, the same Clinton who is now worth over 200 million dollars. The base of the Democrat Party is being destroyed through Nafta and the destruction of our industrial base. Who will question the Clinton Machine?
Aglebert, get a load of this one..Back in the '70's , a worker who was killed on the job ,ie like a crane platform giving way and he fell into a acid tank, General Motors called his death a VOLUNTARY QUIT. I THINK THAT WAS TO KEEP THEM FROM LAWSUITS.......Q
It's a perfectly sound conclusion if one applies the self-sealing deductive logic of management-serving general counsel:
The worker wasn't discharged, aka fired; he wasn't furloughed or laid off; in short, he wasn't involuntarily separated from his employment by the employer.
Ergo, it stands to reason that he left work voluntarily, i.e. quit!
Elementary, my dear qwikslver!
The illustrations, examples, and stories included in the comments on this article are enlightening and informative. If any of the commenters or readers who haven't commented would like to have their stories become part of a larger narrative about the benefits of public protections (like workplace safety rules), please let the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards know about them. CSS is gathering such stories for its website and to share with policymakers and members of the media.
You can submit your stories at http://www.sensiblesafeguards.org/contact. Please be sure to provide your full name and e-mail address so that we can circle back to you with any questions.
Brian Gumm, Communications Director, OMB Watch and Communications Team Member, Coalition for Sensible Safeguards