After Eight Years of Bush, Can OSHA be Fixed?

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/25/after-eight-years-of-bush-can-osha-be-fixed/

by Mike Hall, Feb 25, 2009

The Bush administration left a lot of wreckage in its wake. The crumbling economy, the home foreclosure crisis and a broken health care system are getting most of the recent headlines and calls for immediate repair.

But for the men and women who get up and go to work every day—and want to come home alive and without injury—there is something else the Bush administration trashed that needs fixing and fixing fast—the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

A special edition of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NYCOSH’s) newsletter “Safety Rep” asked nearly three dozen safety and health experts from the union, scientific and academic worlds this question:

After eight years of Bush can OSHA be fixed?…During the last eight years, tens of thousands of workers died or were injured on the job—a direct result of the failure of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to promulgate new standards and stringently enforce the law.

Writing in the special edition’s introduction, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says the first major step must be bringing in new leaders, including

the administrators of OSHA and MSHA who are actually committed to a strong federal role in worker safety and health and who see their roles as advocates for worker protection.

And in stark contrast to the Bush administration, the new leaders should bring workers and their unions and safety and health professionals, as well as employers, into the process of developing agendas and setting standards.

FULL story at link.

[madrchsod]

1. my daughter has 12 credit hours of osha training...

before she was laid off. they nicknamed her the "safety nazi" because she took her safety inspections seriously as did the company she worked for. i think we will see a new day for safety of the us worker now that we have people who care about us.