Chicago, IL.
Since January, some of the Republicans now in Congress have been waging an all out assault on safety and health protections for American workers. This attack has been launched on a number of fronts through proposals to gut the nation's job safety laws, cut the budgets of federal job safety agencies and "reform" the regulatory process by setting up new barriers to issuing necessary safeguards. It is being led by a group of House Republicans from the business community whose interest is protecting business profits rather than protecting worker health and safety.
H.R. 1834, introduced by Representative Cass Ballenger (R- N.C.), is the most serious of these anti-worker proposals. Under that bill OSHA could only enforce the law if a worker was killed, seriously injured or placed in imminent danger. In all other cases, warnings, not citations and penalties, would be issued for violations. Workers' rights would be stripped away by requiring that workers inform their employers before filing job hazard complaints with OSHA, and by eliminating a union's right to file complaints on behalf of its members.
H.R. 1834 would, moreover, repeal the Mine Safety and Health Act, eliminate the Mine Safety and Health Administration and put mine safety under the weakened OSHA law. NIOSH, the federal agency responsible for job safety research, would also be eliminated.
At the same time, House Republican leaders are also moving legislation to slash federal OSHA's enforcement budget, the funding for the MSHA program and the money for NIOSH research and training activities. This House Appropriations measure would prevent OSHA from developing or issuing an ergonomics standard or voluntary guidelines and from requiring any recording or reporting of the millions of serious workplace injuries and illnesses -- related to this serious hazard.
These Republican proposals can only increase the already high toll of workplace injuries and illnesses. Americans did not vote to roll back safety and health laws and protections for workers. We must intensify and expand our efforts to educate union members and to organize effective opposition to these measures.
The AFL-CIO urges members of Congress to reject H.R. 1834 and other legislation that weakens job safety and health protections and threatens workers' lives.