The New York Times had an op-ed yesterday,

"The Working Wounded" - reminding me of an issue that I have always thought the Democrats SHOULD stand for, but which seems strangely to have disappeared in this election year.

Workplace Safety. Legislating improved safety rules for the millions of working people in this country, so they can work without fear of death or serious injury while they are doing their jobs.

The article has a number of startling facts in it which should make us realize that in the current global climate, compared to many other developed countries (some of which have been making real progress) we in the US are basically going backwards by ignoring changes in global attitudes and expectations on issues like worker safety. The level to which we ignore safety violations is absolutely appalling. It is a national disgrace.

Not only have important and necessary changes been postponed, and some rules even rolled back, but during the Bush Administration, the agencies enforcing safety have also had their budgets slashed, sending a message to the worst kinds of employers that they 'could get away with murder', literally.

For example, read this segment of the op-ed piece (summarized digitally from the NYT article)

"Mr. Elias wanted his workers to clean out a 25,000-gallon
tank that contained cyanide waste.  He refused to test the
air or the waste inside the tank.  He ignored the pleas of
his workers for safety equipment.  When the workers
complained of sore throats and difficulty breathing, Mr.
Elias told them to finish the job or find work somewhere
else.

Mr. Dominguez, a 20-year-old high school graduate, wanted to
keep his job.  Wearing just jeans and a T-shirt, he used a
ladder to descend into the tank.  Two hours later, covered
in sludge and barely breathing, he was removed from the
tank, a victim of cyanide poisoning at the hands of a
ruthless employer who would blame his "stupid and lazy"
employees for the incident.

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of
Evergreen Resources.  I was one of the lead prosecutors on
the case.  We quickly discovered that we had a major
problem.

My colleagues and I were shocked to learn that an employer
who breaks the nation's worker-safety laws can be charged
with a crime only if a worker dies.  Even then, the crime is
a lowly Class B misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of six
months in prison.  (About 6,000 workers are killed on the
job each year, many in cases where the deaths could have
been prevented if their employers followed the law.)
Employers who maim their workers face, at worst, a maximum
civil penalty of $70,000 for each violation.

We ended up prosecuting Mr. Elias for environmental crimes,
and he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.  I later became
chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes
section, and we started an initiative -- based on this case
and others like it -- to seek justice when workers were
seriously injured or killed during environmental crimes.  We
prosecuted some of the largest companies in America.  But in
cases where 'no environmental crimes were committed', we often
could not prosecute.

Employers rarely face criminal prosecution under the
worker-safety laws.  In the 38 years since Congress enacted
the Occupational Safety and Health Act, only 68 criminal
cases have been prosecuted, or less than two per year, with
defendants serving a total of just 42 months in jail.
During that same time, approximately 341,000 people have
died at work, according to data compiled from the National
Safety Council and the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the
A.F.L.-C.I.O.

It is long past time for Congress to change the law.  First,
Congress should amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act
to make it a crime for an employer to commit violations that
cause serious injury to workers or that knowingly place
workers at risk of death or serious injury.  Whether good
fortune intervenes and prevents harm to workers should not
determine whether an employer commits a crime.

Congress should make it a felony to commit a criminal
violation of the worker-safety laws, and the penalties for
lawbreakers should be stiffened.  The maximum sentence ought
to be measured in years, not months.

Congress also should change the worker-safety laws so that
ignorance of the law is no longer a defense.  Employers have
a duty to know their responsibilities under the Occupational
Safety and Health Act.

Finally, Congress should make clear who can be prosecuted.
Some courts have held that prosecution is limited to
companies and their owners.  Supervisors who order workers
to break the law, as well as responsible corporate officers
who fail to stop violations that they know are occurring,
should also be held criminally responsible, just as they are
under most other federal laws.

Most companies care about protecting their workers.  But
without a serious threat of criminal enforcement, more
workers will be put at risk by companies that put profits
before safety."

There's more...

On March 6, 2007, in Tulsa, Oklahoma:  

Eleazar Torres-Gomez was pronounced dead on the scene after apparently being dragged by a conveyor into an industrial dryer.  Torres-Gomez was trapped in the dryer--which can reportedly reach temperatures of 300 degrees--for at least 20 minutes.

Cincinnatti Beacon

Cintas Blames Worker for His Own Death

Occupational Hazards

OSHA requires companies that use this equipment to put guards on it to prevent precisely this sort of thing from happening.  And Cintas had already been fined once by OSHA in 2005 for operating industrial dryers without the required guards.  But they failed to do what OHSA ordered them to do, and Mr. Torres-Gomez lost his life.  

OSHA found that "Plant management at the Cintas Tulsa laundry facility ignored safety and health rules that could have prevented the death of this employee."

There's more...

This week's post is by Teamsters Organizing Director Jeff Farmer.

Unions are about members helping members, unlike advocacy groups such as the AARP, or professional organizations like the American Medical Association.

Yes, there are similarities -- such as national lobbying efforts, member publications and affinity credit card offers -- but for unions, these are ancillary, not primary functions.

I've never had someone come up to me when I'm wearing my Nature Conservancy T-shirt and say "Hey, I give to the Nature Conservancy too!" But when I'm traveling and people see my Teamster lapel pin, they will often comment that they are Teamsters too, or that their father was a Teamster or that they belong to some other union. That's because, as Mike said last week, unions are personal.

Our strength comes from our members, not how much money we raise or how many lobbyists we can field. It's about Teamsters standing with Teamsters, whether we're going up against an employer for better pay and working conditions or chipping in to help another member when times are tough.  

But you don't need to hear me preach about solidarity. I'll let our members tell you themselves. The following comments are from real Teamsters in their own words.

There's more...