OSHA Leaves Worker Safety Up To Industry
As reported by Stephen Labaton of the New York Times on April 25, 2007, and summarized by Ursula Keen
OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and in short, it is charged with overseeing workplace safety.
It seems to me that under the Bush administration, OSHA and the EPA have changed for the worse, if you are pro the working person. Apparently, the fox has been put in charge of the hen house as it is, and now, industry is free to get away with murder — quite literally.
OSHA’s practices under the current administration are to limit new rules and roll back those it considers cumbersome regulations that are imposed unnecessarily on big business and consumers. Across Washington, Bush’s political appointees — interestingly, often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues such as driving hours for truckers, logging in forests, and corporate mergers.
Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, according to public health experts. It has imposed only one major safety rule, and the only significant health standard it issued was actually ordered by a federal court. (-Guess that federal judge was not appointed by Bush)
God help you if you have been exposed to the food additive diacetyl and develope a rare, life-threatening disease that ravages your lungs aka “popcorn worker’s lung” because OSHA did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill at the Jasper popcorn plant in Missouri.
On diacetyl, OSHA’s agency head, Edwin G. Foulke, stated that, “the science is murky” on whether the additive causes “popcorn worker’s lung.” However, when it’s your own lung(s), the science isn’t so murky as testified to in front of Congress, from the perspective of Mr. Eric Peoples — a once healthy 35 year old former popcorn plant worker at the Jasper plant, who was recently told by his doctors that he will need a double lung transplant.
Without an OSHA standard, which would establish the permissible level of exposure for workers, companies can set any limit of exposure they want. How scary is that?