If you don’t already know, the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), a/k/a Obama Care, does not take effect all at once. (I say “if you don’t already know,” because a recent poll shows that 42% of Americans are unaware that Obama Care is currently the law of the land).

Title I of the Act, which is considered one of the most controversial parts of the Act, does not take effect until next year. Once it takes effect, employers may not make employment decisions based on an employee’s health care decisions. Employers will, of course, make decisions that impact employees negatively, because the ACA will increase employers’ costs and responsibilities associated with health care. This is why employees need to be aware of their new rights.

You have probably heard about the many employers who have started cutting employee hours to evade having to comply with Obama Care. If you’re one of them, you’re out of luck. The law doesn’t protect you yet.

Starting on January 1, 2014, an employer may not retaliate against you based upon your health care selections. Specifically, an employer cannot terminate, demote, discipline, intimidate, threaten, deny benefits or promotion, reduce pay or hours, blacklist, or fail to hire an employee based on the fact that the employee:

• Provided information relating to any violation of Title I of the ACA, or any act that he or she reasonably believed to be a violation of Title I of the ACA to the employer, the Federal Government, or the attorney general of a state;
• Testified, assisted, or participated in a proceeding concerning a violation of Title I of the ACA, or is about to do so;
• Objected to or refused to participate in any activity that he or she reasonably believed to be in violation of Title I of the ACA; or
• Received a credit under section 36B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 or a cost sharing reduction under section 1402 of the ACA.

If an employer retaliates against you for engaging in any of these activities after January 1, 2014, you may file a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration(“OSHA”). OSHA has a broad range of powers to help employees combat the “evildoer” employers, including the powers of investigation, enforcement, negotiation, settlement, and the ability to award damages. The employee’s first, and critical step, is to file a claim with OSHA within 180 days from the date of retaliation.

Unlike most employment discrimination cases, the standard for proving retaliation in these cases is much more employee-friendly. You only need to demonstrate you had a reasonable belief that the employer was retaliating against you. Further, you will only need to provide evidence that your health care decision was a factor in the retaliation, not the only factor in retaliation. Hopefully, employers will have a much more difficult time defending against these types of discrimination cases. With any luck, this will deter them from violating the ACA in the first place.

This article was originally printed on Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home on May 10, 2013.  Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Ryan Price is an Associate Attorney at Donna M. Ballman, P.A., Employment Advocacy Attorneys.

The West, Texas, fertilizer plant, where a fire and explosion last week claimed at least 14 lives—including 11 firefighters and EMTs—and injured more than 200, was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1985.

In 2011, the West Fertilizer Co. filed an emergency response plan with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that said there was no risk of fire or explosion, despite the fact that as much as 54,000 pounds of flammable and toxic anhydrous ammonia could be stored on the site.

While the plant reported that it was storing up to 270 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate to state authorities—Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh needed just two tons to blow up the federal building and kill 168 people—it did not report that fact to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In addition, several other federal and state agencies had pieces of the regulatory responsibility to protect the workers and community. The plant was surrounded by homes, a senior citizen housing project and a nearby school. But as Bryce Covert of Think Progress writes:

Many of these agencies have previously cited and/or fined the company. But they aren’t required to coordinate with each other, and small distributors like the one that exploded are part of a system that focuses more on larger plants.

While those state and federal agencies may inspect certain segments of a plant’s operations—emissions, for example—OSHA is the agency with the broadest mandate and authority to inspect a plant’s entire operations, enforce safety and health laws and, if need be, shut it down. But as the 2012 AFL-CIO report Death on the Job notes, OSHA is so understaffed and underfunded that federal inspectors can inspect each workplace on average of one each 131 years.

There are some 2,200 OSHA inspectors for the country’s 8 million workplaces and 130 million workers. In Texas, OSHA conducted 4,448 inspections in the past fiscal year, a pace that would mean it would visit every workplace in 126 years, according to Death on the Job.

In addition, says AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario, the West Fertilizer plant had just seven employees and “these kind of workplaces are not typically inspected by OSHA.”

What people don’t understand is how limited resources are to oversee workplace safety and health.

BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster calls the 35-year gap, since the last inspection at the West Fertilizer plant, “a stunning indictment” of OSHA’s underfunding.

While the Obama administration has increased funding for OSHA after nearly a decade of cuts under the Bush administration, the Republican sequester now in place “means fewer inspectors to monitor facilities like the West Fertilizer Company,” says Keith Wrightson, worker safety and health advocate for Public Citizen.

Small budgets also make it even harder for the agency to issue new safety standards. The agency’s budget is similar to what it was several decades ago, but the size of the economy—and the number and complexity of workplaces to inspect—has grown tremendously.

Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, says, “This tragic explosion points to the need for more resources allocated to OSHA.”

With adequate funding for more OSHA inspectors, more potentially dangerous sites— like this fertilizer manufacturing plant—can be inspected and hazards abated.

But while workplace safety advocates have pushed for stronger health and safety standards—including chemical safety standards for facilities such as West Fertilizer, Covert writes:

Even with all of the evidence that the plant fell through a variety of regulatory cracks, an industry-backed bill with ties to the Koch brothers with the support of 11 congressmen would reduce the EPA’s powers to regulate major chemical sites.

For a more detailed look at the regulatory history of the West Fertilizer plant, see this Huffington Post report by Chris Kirkham and Ben Hallman.

This article was originally posted on the AFL-CIO on April 23, 2013. Reprinted with Permission.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety.

As high temperature records are broken across the United States, health and public safety advocates are calling on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to finally issue a rule protecting workers from extreme heat. In 1972, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended a heat standard, but OSHA has still failed to implement it. With global warming likely to make heat related deaths more common, public safety advocates say OSAH must act immediately.

“Some farm workers and construction workers work for hours on end and there are no accommodations for rest breaks. This is what commonly leads to heat deaths” says Dr. Sammy Almashat, a researcher with Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “We are asking for rest breaks in proportion to the temperature outside as well as employers being required to provide workers with a certain amount of water every hour. This does not require some sort of a technological breakthrough. It’s very easy and inexpensive.”

The failure of OSHA to adopt a heat standard has left many workers unprotected. According to Public Citizen, 563 workers have died from heat-related injuries and 46,000 have suffered serious injuries in the last 20 years.

“These deaths are completely preventable with just a few, inexpensive interventions, some of which have already been implemented in several states,” says Dr. Thomas Bernard, who reviewed a proposed NIOSH heat standard back in 1986. “The time is long overdue for a federal heat stress standard that will protect workers from dangerous heat exposure.”

In a response to a petition launched by Public Citizen, United Electrical Workers, and Farmworker Justice calling on OSHA to implement an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for extreme heat, Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA David Michaels wrote that “OSHA agrees exposure to extreme heat can lead to death; however workers with adverse health effects from heat exposure experience dehydration, cramps, and exhaustion, and other affects and are able to recover fairly quickly when the appropriate measures are taken.” Michaels then continued:

As you mentioned in your petition, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) stated that the annual rate of heat-related deaths among crop workers from 1992 to 2006 was 0.39 per 100,000 workers. While OSHA acknowledges that these deaths are most likely underreported, and therefore the true mortality rate is likely higher, the mortality rate reported in the MMWR does not exceed those of other hazards OSHA has deemed to be “significant” (e.g. benzene) and therefore, would likely not meet the legal requirement of “grave.”

Michaels then noted that “if OSHA were to determine that a grave danger was present, OSHA must have adequate evidence that an ETS is necessary because no existing OSHA requirements can substantially reduce the grave danger. Additionally, OSHA must show that the ETS would be technologically and economically feasible.”

Almashat says it is fairly easy to implement to prevent heat deaths, noting that the Pentagon has a heat standard in place to prevent heat deaths among soldiers. Almashat also points to a 2008 study by the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries, which showed a net economic benefit for companies in terms of eliminating lost productivity by implementing heat protection rules.

Michaels says that while OSHA is not issuing a rule to force employers to adopt a heat standard it has launched an education and outreach campaign to inform employers of the dangers of extreme heat. But Almashat argues that this isn’t nearly enough.

“Employers aren’t held for accountable for complying with the recommendations of this campaign. There needs to be a standard,” Almashat says. “The federal government isn’t dragging its feet because it’s not feasible or the science isn’t there. This is a case where they are deliberately dragging their feet on a standard in order to placate industry.”

This blog originally appeared in Working In These Times on July 11, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Elk is an In These Times Staff Writer and a regular contributor to the labor blog Working In These Times. He can be reached at mike@inthesetimes.com.

What’s the value of a worker’s life? According to the calculus of corporate efficiency, it’s often still cheaper to put workers at risk than to spend money to protect them. And the federal government generously rewards those who have perfected this cost-containment strategy in industries where workplace hazards are just part of business as usual.

For years, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has granted many companies a pass on government oversight with the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). Touting big-name members like Coca Cola and ExxonMobil, the program works like a sort of gold star for employers with good safety records, which OSHA believes are capable of regulating themselves. As In These Times has reported previously, many companies granted this status can basically enjoy years of relief from regular federal evaluation.

To ordinary citizens this may seem like a fox guarding a hen house packed with dynamite, but many employers champion the VPP as a way of “partnering” with government to avoid onerous state oversight. Congress recently reviewed the program at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, which examined the VPP in light of recent reports about horrid workplace accidents, along with criticisms that the initiative undermines both labor standards and the government’s role in protecting the public from industrial exploitation.

Rena Steinzor, a University of Maryland law professor with the think tank Center for Progressive Reform, told ITT, “What the voluntary program does, let’s make no mistake about it, is it allows people to self-regulate. Basically, if you have someone who can fill out the paperwork, you’re off the hook.”

Evidently, not even the death of a worker is enough to persuade the government to revoke a company’s privileged status. According to a 2011 report by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News:

Workers at plants billed as the nation’s safest have died in preventable explosions, chemical releases and crane accidents. They have been pulled into machinery or asphyxiated. Investigators, called in because of deaths, have uncovered underlying safety problems — failure to follow recognized safety practices, inadequate inspections and training, lack of proper protective gear, unguarded machinery, improper handling of hazardous chemicals. Yet these companies have rarely faced heavy fines or expulsion from the program. In death cases in which OSHA found at least one violation, VPP companies ultimately paid an average of about $8,000 in fines. And at least 65 percent of sites where a worker has died since 2000 remain in VPP today.

The Reagan-Era program has ballooned in recent years, tripling the number of worksites covered between 2000 and 2008. The ideological foundation of the program reflects a general hostility to safety and environmental regulation under the Bush administration.

Although we’re several generations removed from the workplace atrocities of the early industrial age, workers becoming ill or dying from their jobs remains a routine aspect of working life in the U.S. Even outside of special deals with OSHA like the VPP, a lack of resources for inspections and enforcement means that many companies escape oversight by default.

Keith Wrightson, a Worker Safety and Health Advocate with Public Citizen, told ITT, “VPP takes the OSHA inspector out of the picture.” When protection is “voluntary” on the part of bosses, employees have little reason to volunteer to report a workplace violation if it might get them fired. In general, he said, “OSHA inspections are nil. Why do we want to further dissolve what authority it does have over the workplace?”

From the employer’s standpoint, Wrightson noted, “If there’s fewer injuries on the job then the workers’ comp rates don’t rise. Your health insurance costs do not rise and your liability insurance does not rise.” But in the political debate, he said, “we don’t see those facts at the forefront. … The idea of VPP is a free market, where nobody should regulate, nobody should look, it’s laissez faire, and it’s not good.”

But EHS Today reported that the House committee hearing did at least review new research showing that state workplace monitoring can protect workers and save companies money at the same time:

The study found that within high-hazard industries in California, inspected workplaces reduced their injury claims by 9.4 percent and saved 26 percent on workers’ compensation costs in the 4 years following the inspection, compared to a similar set of uninspected workplaces. On average, inspected firms saved an estimated $355,000 in injury claims and compensation for paid lost work over that period. What’s more, there was no discernible impact on the companies’ profits.

So if profits aren’t hurt by inspections, corporations appear to reject government oversight simply on principle.

Steinzor sees a blatant imbalance in the way the government weighs health and safety needs against the profits of its corporate partners. “I think this is a class issue,” she said. “And it’s shameful that the content and implementation of the nation’s laws on occupational safety and the environment show systematic neglect of working-class people’s lives in heavy industrial jobs, and far more concern for the well-being of yuppies in the exurbs.”

In a system that tends to make the law comply with corporations rather than the other way around, “voluntary protection” seems to do exactly what the phrase implies: to make workers’ rights optional.

This blog originally appeared in Working In These Times on July 10, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the author: Michelle Chen work has appeared in AirAmerica, Extra!, Colorlines and Alternet, along with her self-published zine, cain. She is a regular contributor to In These Times’ workers’ rights blog, Working In These Times, and is a member of the In These Times Board of Editors. She also blogs at Colorlines.com. She can be reached at michellechen @ inthesetimes.com.

I was recently with the Nurse Alliance of California for its annual Legislative Conference. It is always an honor for me to share information with nurses about online tools we can and should employ as activists. Although I think my breakouts at the conference went over well, one of the themes of the conference — which many of you know I’ve been somewhat absorbed with — is workplace violence and workplace violence prevention. My goal here is to tie in information about this important subject matter and couple it with the online tools in our educated union member tool box.

With the advent of workplace violence among the top issues we face every day, would you agree that it is incumbent on us to start up and/or maintain the drumbeat about this discussion?  When one of our sisters or brothers gets brutally beaten or killed on the job, our reaction is immediate and strong, but how can we get to talking up a storm on this every day of the week? In part, this is about getting us mobilized around a few entry points to the discussion; in part it is to help us focus on some online venues we can take advantage of to get the conversation off the ground. Are you in this with me?

What I Know…

If you have been a nurse for a couple of weeks or a nurse for the last 30 years, violence on the job is never very far from you. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of legal protections in place. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recognizes workplace violence as a hazard, but has no federal regulations in place requiring employers to deal with the problem. While some states, like New York, have some laws in place (thanks to the Public Employees Federation (PEF) and other unions) if there is no accountability, the laws are just bundles of paper in a drawer somewhere.

Various papers, studies, scholars, union leaders, and other folks reiterate this point: Workplace violence is an epidemic that many outside our facilities or day-to-day life have no clue even happens, much less how often it happens. More healthcare professionals are either assaulted or killed on the job than any other profession or trade.

For many of us, it is tremendously difficult to talk about something if we don’t have a concrete definition of what “it” is. What does that mean? We can all talk about what we think and feel after a co-worker is beaten on the job. We can all attend rallies, services, light candles, shake our heads … but what is “it”?  What is the definition of workplace violence?

Jonathan Rosen, MS CIH, Director of the Occupational Safety & Health Department for the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), facilitated an amazing breakout session on workplace violence at the California legislative conference. One slide in his presentation defined workplace violence very succinctly:  ”Workplace violence is any physical assault, threatening behavior, or verbal abuse occurring in the work setting.”

Maybe as you read that, you thought about the countless times you felt threatened, were threatened, or were verbally abused at work. It’s likely that more than half of you have had first-hand experience with violence on the job.

This is probably not breaking news, but there are papers and studies out there that reveal that healthcare providers often do not report violence that occurs on the job. Another of Jonathan’s slides cited a National Crime Victimization Survey: “58% of harassed employees do not report incidents. Fewer than than half of workers report assault to the police. Only 25% of rapes at work are reported.”

Having the Discussion and Reporting the Problem(s)

Government statistics underestimate the true extent of violence at the workplace because:

* Data is collected on “battery” or incidents resulting in physical injury or death. Threats, verbal threats, and harassment are not reported to government agencies.

* In some jobs, assaults are so common that they are dismissed as “part of the job.”

* Other possible sources of information about violence — like hospital records or police reports — often fail to provide information about whether the injury was or was not work-related.

* Employers discourage employees from filing workers’ compensation claims for assault. In addition, many injuries do not meet the criteria for receiving workers’ compensation.

The reasons why our workplaces at times explode into violence add up to a growing list. According to the Safe Work, Safe Care Project, patients can become violent as a result of mental disorders, substance abuse, a past history of violence, head injuries, and confusion. The Project’s list includes about twenty issues — these are just the top five.

But why are we hesitant to report instances of violence on the job?  Many of us may have heard about the OSHA General Duty Clause — but, what is it?  It’s important!

OSHA’s General Duty Clause and EVERY Employer’s RESPONSIBILITY!

Every employer in the United States is responsible for creating and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for its employees. The good news for us is this:  THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.  That, sisters and brothers, that is the law.  It is your right as a worker.

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires that an employer:  “shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which is free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.”

This is what we refer to as the OSHA General Duty Clause.

In September 2011, OSHA issued procedures for its field staff to use when responding to incidents and complaints of workplace violence. We believe that this directive will help inspectors use the General Duty Clause when they can.

Start the Conversation with Thousands and Thousands of Nurses

Here are our talking points:

1) Workplace violence defined: “Workplace violence is any physical assault, threatening behavior, or verbal abuse occurring in the work setting.”

2) The Department of Justice says that fewer than half of all non-fatal violent workplace crimes are reported to the police.

3) Some known causes for under-reporting workplace assaults include:

“Part of the job” syndrome

Fear of blame or reprisal

Lack of management/peer support

Feeling it’s not worth the effort

4) OSHA and the OSHA General Duty Clause:

There are no OSHA standards regarding workplace violence (ain’t that something?) — however…as mentioned, in September 2011 OSHA issued directives for field staff when investigating incidents of workplace violence.

And …you have the right to a place of employment that is free from recognized occupational hazards which cause or are likely to cause serious harm, illness, or death.

5) Violence is recognized occupational hazard!

This blog originally appeared in Union Review on May 14, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the author: Richard Negri is the founder of UnionReview.com and is the Online Manager for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has told Hyatt Hotels what the hotel chain’s housekeepers have been telling it for years—“Hyatt Hurts.”

OSHA issued a formal Hazard Alert letter telling Hyatt that its housekeepers face ergonomic risks every day on the job. The letter outlines steps Hyatt can take to reduce housekeeper injuries.

Pamela Vossenas, UNITEHERE!’s health and safety director, says by issuing the Hazard Alert at a corporate level:

“OSHA is telling Hyatt that the dangers of housekeeping work are real, that there are reasonable solutions and it’s time for Hyatt to put them into practice across the country.”

The letter follows a yearlong OSHA investigation into injury complaints workers filed in 2010. Hyatt once told federal investigators that the workers’ injuries could have been the result of dancing, not lifting heavy mattresses and cleaning as many as 30 rooms a day, as some Hyatt housekeepers do. In one filing, Hyatt wrote:

“The close association of housekeeping with routine life also raises difficult questions about causation. One’s injury is at least as likely to have occurred during non-work activities like sports, dancing or performing routine chores in one’s home.”

OSHA also says Hyatt must keep records on injuries suffered by sub-contracted workers at its hotels.

Maria Soto, a housekeeper at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio who has been injured cleaning rooms, says:

“For years, we have asked Hyatt to make simple changes that would ease the toll on our bodies. Now our voices are being heard, and the federal government is joining us in calling on Hyatt to make our jobs safer.”

Read the full Hazard letter here and find out more from Hyatt Hurts here.

This blog originally appeared in AFL-CIO on May 8, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL-CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—When the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) cites a company for workplace safety violations, it usually tells it to fix the problems at the specific location where the violation was discovered. But in an unusual—and for safety advocates, promising—move, the Department of Labor (DOL) agency is pushing for “enterprise-wide” changes as part of a violation settlement.

Last week, for the second time in OSHA history, the Labor Department told the agency to force more than 60 locations of a New England-based grocery chain to comply with federal standards protecting workers from falls and lacerations.

On Wednesday, DOL’s regional solicitor in Boston filed a complaint against the Demoulas Super Markets grocery chain, also known as Market Basket. OSHA inspections of a handful of the company’s facilities revealed company-wide “fall hazards from unguarded, open-sided work and storage areas.” Inspections of a number of facilities also found that the company “allegedly failed to protect employees in produce, deli, and bakery department against laceration hazards from knives and cutting instruments,” according to this report. Employees at two Market Basket locations sustained at least 40 hand lacerations between 2008 and 2011.

The only other time DOL and OSHA have attempted to settle safety citations through an “enterprise-wide” solution was last year, when the government told the USPS to fix persistent electrical safety problems found at hundreds of postal locations. The Obama administration is the first administration to seek enterprise-relief for safety violations, according to OSHA Spokesman Ted Fitzgerald.

“Worker safety is not optional, and it cannot be addressed in a piecemeal fashion. It must be addressed across the board,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA David Michaels, in a statement on the Demoulas grocery chain case. “This employer has the responsibility to safeguard all its employees at all its locations, something it has failed to do.”

It’s unclear how often OSHA will seek “enterprise-wide” fixes to problems in the future.

“Determination was made that this would be the appropriate course of action … to address a hazard that is corporate-wide,” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t know if we are going to be doing it in more approaches to case. The Department will utilize legal tools in the appropriate circumstances when we feel there is a situation where enterprise-wide relief is required.”

This blog originally appeared in Working in These Times on January 23, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Elk is an In These Times Staff Writer and a regular contributor to the labor blog Working In These Times. He can be reached atmike@inthesetimes.com.

The warehouses in California’s Inland Empire are important distribution points for many of the stores you shop at and goods you buy. They’re also terrible, terrible places to work, and in recent months, California has been taking action against some of their worst abuses. This week:

The California Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) issued citations to warehouse owner National Distribution Centers and its temporary staffing contractor, Tri State Staffing, for more than 60 violations at four warehouses in San Bernardino County. The violations include lack of fall protection for high-rise pickers, unstable storage stacking and unguarded machinery.

National Distribution Centers and Tri State Staffing were fined $256,445. In November, the California labor commissioner fined Premier Warehousing Ventures more than $600,000 for failing to provide proper wage statements (a great way to clear the way for rampant wage theft) and Impact Logistics was fined $499,000 for similar violations. Both of those firms employed workers at Schneider Logistics.

If you’re already losing track of the “logistics” this and “staffing” that, it’s because workers in Inland Empire warehouses tend to have multiple employers, starting with the temp staffing firms that hire them, then the companies that actually run the warehouses. Down the road, of course, those companies are contracted to distribute goods by businesses you’ve actually heard of, like—in the case of Schneider Logistics—Walmart.

The fines to staffing agencies employing workers at Schneider Logistics aren’t Schneider’s only labor problem right now, either. Workers sued Schneider and Rogers-Premier Unloading Services (same as Premier Warehousing Ventures mentioned above, but, for an extra layer of confusion, referred to by different names in different accounts), last year because they weren’t being paid the minimum wage or overtime. Now, in a total coincidence that is in no way retaliatory, the workers are losing their jobs as Rogers-Premier pulls out of its contract with Schneider more than a year before the contract was set to expire, putting 100 workers out of work. And when I say this wasn’t retaliatory, I mean that:

At an Oct. 18 meeting, Schneider managers informed workers that if they supported the lawsuit, they would be “destroyed” and “thrown away,” and two workers were suspended for taking these stands, according to court records.

Two days, later, Rogers-Premier told Schneider it was canceling its labor services contract 18 months early, citing increased costs, unless Schneider renegotiated. Schneider declined to do that.

In addition to filing a complaint in court, workers rallied Wednesday to protest the firings.

This blog originally appeared in Daily Kos Labor on January 19, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Laura Clawson is labor editor at Daily Kos. She has a PhD in sociology from Princeton University and has taught at Dartmouth College. From 2008 to 2011, she was senior writer at Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

Ha ha ha. Remember the joke the Republicans like to tell about how the Obama administration is passing an intolerable number of regulations and the economy just can’t take that kind of regulation-passing?

Granted, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration isn’t the only government agency responsible for regulation, but a new report from Public Citizen (PDF) demonstrates the barriers to workplace health and safety regulation that have been increasing for decades, driving OSHA’s ability to pass new regulations down into the basement. How bad is the situation? “While OSHA has only regulated two chemicals since 1997, industry develops two new chemicals every day.”

The delays, which are created by a combination of legislative, executive, and judicial pressures, have real consequences:

Five pending OSHA standards have been subject to delays ranging from 4 to 31 years. Analyzing OSHA’s risk assessment data, we found that eliminating the delays would have prevented more than 100,000 serious injuries, more than 10,000 cases of occupational illness and hundreds of worker fatalities.

For instance, remember diacetyl? That’s the butter flavoring chemical found in microwave popcorn. It was identified by the CDC as a hazard in 2002. It made headlines in 2007,ConAgra stopped using it, and that September, the House even passed a bill calling for OSHA to declare it a hazard. But, the Public Citizen report says, “OSHA took no further action on diacetyl during the remainder of the Bush administration.” In early 2009, OSHA started moving forward on a regulation. But between requirements that “small business” (where small = up to 500 employees) be consulted and requirements for intense cost-benefit analysis, they still may be “years away” from regulating diacetyl.

That’s how oppressive the burden of safety and health regulation is on business—businesses have to worry that someday, after they’ve had extensive input, their use of a butter-flavored chemical that kills people may be regulated.

This post originally appeared in Daily Kos Labor on October 5, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Laura Clawson is labor editor at Daily Kos. She has a PhD in sociology from Princeton University and has taught at Dartmouth College. From 2008 to 2011, she was senior writer at Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.