On March 23, 2005, a huge explosion ripped through the giant BP Amoco refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 contract workers. Twelve of the workers were in an office trailer located in the middle of the blast zone. As with most workplace fatalities, illnesses and injuries, these deaths were preventable. While a full investigation won’t be completed for many months, it is clear that refinery officials were aware that the process was outdated and hazardous. Refinery officials and the contractor were also aware of the trailer’s hazardous location.

Today, April 28, is Workers Memorial Day. Across the country, workers and labor unions will pause to remember the 15 Texas City employees and the more than 5,500 other workers killed in workplace incidents over the past year. Between 50 and 60 thousand workers perished from work-related illnesses caused by toxic materials like asbestos close to five million suffered injuries and illnesses. The toll is enormous: according to Liberty Mutual, the nation’s largest workers’ compensation insurance company, the direct cost of occupational injury and illness is $1 billion per week, with indirect costs many times higher.

Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act 35 years ago to assure “every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions.” Among the tools given to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were the authorization “to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards” and the ability to penalize those who break the laws. But instead of making progress in workplace safety over the past several years, the Bush administration has taken the country backwards.

In the workplace safety field, the Bush administration’s aim to make workplace safety issues less “confrontational” is transforming this country from a nation of laws to a nation of fact sheets and web pages.

One of the first actions of the Bush administration was to repeal an OSHA standard that addressed the biggest source of injury facing American workers -- ergonomic hazards. Year after year back, shoulder and wrist disorders make up one-third of all workplace injuries and illnesses. Instead of a standard that would have forced employers to address this workplace epidemic, OSHA substituted voluntary guidelines, along with a new innovation of the Bush administration: the Alliance – a voluntary information sharing partnership between industry associations and OSHA.

Setting up voluntary alliances as a replacement for mandatory standards has become a pattern for the agency and a means to accomplish the long-term goal of President Bush’s corporate supporters – making OSHA irrelevant.

For example, when the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent government agency, recommended in 2002 that OSHA revise a standard to prevent explosions that have killed over 100 workers between 1980 and 2001, OSHA’s only response was a voluntary alliance with the chemical industry.

When a butter flavoring chemical destroyed the lungs of thirty workers at one popcorn plant in Missouri, OSHA formed an alliance with the Popcorn Council instead issuing an emergency standard. The alliance has yet to produce even a fact sheet. This is not an isolated example. OSHA regulates only around 600 out of the thousands of chemicals used in industry, and the vast majority of those standards are based on information more than 40 years old. The only chemical standard close to completion, however, is being done under a court order.

There is nothing wrong with promoting outreach and information sharing. In fact, government agencies should do more of it. But outreach should accompany enforcement, not replace it. Educating drivers about the dangers of drunk driving is important. But education should not replace strict laws that punish drivers found guilty of drunk driving.

OSHA’s penalty structure is another problem. Even when an employer knowingly puts a worker into a dangerous environment that causes his death, the maximum penalty, which OSHA rarely pursues, is 6 months in jail. The penalty for harassing a burro on federal land is one year in jail. In fact, killing fish and crabs draw larger penalties than killing workers. After a chemical tank at a Delaware Motiva refinery exploded in 2001, dissolving a worker in sulfuric acid, OSHA issued a $170,000 fine. But because the acid was released into the atmosphere and the nearby river where it killed thousands of fish and crabs, the Environmental Protection Agency levied a $10 million fine on the company.

Earlier this week, a Brooklyn contractor pleaded guilty to the death of a worker and to cheating workers out of the wages the contractor was supposed to be paying its employees. For killing one worker and injuring others, the employer potentially faces six months in jail, OSHA's maximum penalty. But for committing mail fraud while underpaying its workers (the building was under contract with the Postal Service), the employer faces a possible 20 year jail term.

The purpose of Workers Memorial Day is to “mourn for the dead and fight for the living.” Worthy goals indeed. But forgotten in this motto are the millions injured on the job every year, many of whom are (were) dedicated workers that have been tossed into the garbage by their employers and our country’s disintegrating workers compensation system. Like the families of those killed in the workplace, most of those injured are left to their own devices without anyone to put their plight into a political context, without anyone out there organizing them for change. Confined Space has fallen into the same trap – focusing on the dead (who are easier to find and count than the injured and ill, and who make far sexier stories) – and forgetting about the millions who have lost their livelihoods, lost the useful lives they once lived, and too often have lost their homes and means of support.

The political issues raging in this country – over court appointments, social security, terrorism and the war in Iraq – are important, but they tend to overshadow many of the concerns of the vast majority of people who are not politically engaged. But ask people if they think that workers injured on the job should suffer economically for the rest of their lives, ask people whether the jobs and chemicals should be considered safe until we manage to count the bodies or lungs of people who prove otherwise, ask people whether they think they have the power to make their workplaces safer or whether they think there is a role for laws and government enforcement – and you’ll probably get answers that don’t line up with those who are in power in Washington (or in most state capitals) today. The challenge is to organize them into a potent political force – not just in New York city and Boston, but in Wichita, Kansas, Houston Texas, Boise, Idaho and Atlanta, Georgia.

This is the challenge we face if we are ever again to move forward on workplace safety issues – in Republican or Democratic administrations. And we’re not going to be able to depend excusively on labor unions to get there. They’re too small, they’re too consumed with fighting for survival, and health and safety has not (yet) risen to the level where enough labor leaders see it as one way to build the labor movement. This doesn’t mean that we give up on labor; they’re still the most potent progressive force out there, but it does mean that we can’t depend on them exclusively. Some states have COSH groups, some have injured workers associations and some states have strong, active and aware unions. But they aren’t enough. Unless and until those concerned about workplace safety make strong common cause with other progressive groups – environmentalists, womens rights groups, progressive churches, immigrant organizations and others, ours will be a difficult and ultimately futile struggle.

The American people are ready to listen. A recent poll showed that out of a variety of issues that Americans think Congress should be involved in (endangered species, gun control, gay marriage, steroids in baseball, "Schiavo" type family health cases), "Rules in the workplace that deal with health and safety issues" came out on top.

And I believe you'd get similar answers if you asked a few more questions:

* Do you think that the health effects of chemicals should be understood and the chemicals regulated before or after workers get sick and die from being exposed on the job?

* Do you think that 6 months in jail is an appropriate punishment for an employer who knowingly violates the law, putting a worker into a job where he is killed?

* Do you think that OSHA standards that protect employees from exposure to dangerous chemicals should be based on the most recent scientific information, or information that was gathered forty years ago?

* Do you think that public employees who fix your roads, work in your sewage treatment plants, care for the mentally ill, put out our fires and guard our most dangerous criminals should have the same guarantee of a safe workplace that private sector employees doing the same work have?

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Finally, with more than 50,000 workers dying each year from work-related accidents and illnesses, with millions suffering injuries, with workers in the U.S. now working more hours than workers in most of Western Europe and Japan more than one quarter of workers in the mining, manufacturing and wholesale trade industries working more than 40 hours per week, and with mounting evidence that these conditions cause elevated levels of psychological stress, increased exposure to physical hazards and more repetitive stress problems, as well as other serious health problems like heart attacks -- with all of these problems increasing in American workplaces, with the labor movement spiraling into oblivion, why are we, on this Workers Memorial Day, worrying about whether the AFL-CIO is going to abolish its health and safety department? Why can't we seem to understand that the conditions people work under are among the strongest issues on which to build a labor movement that actually shows that it cares about what people actually do at work -- between 9:00 and 5:00 or between 5:00 and 1:00, or between 1:00 and 9:00.

These are the thoughts I'm having this Workers Memorial Day -- and they aren't happy ones.

Posted by Jordan Barab at April 28, 2005 08:20 AM

If they could, topic one would be the war in Iraq. Consider this finding: Among Democrats, the top two things they would say to Bush are "get out of Iraq" and "you're doing a bad job." The top two things independents would say are "get out of Iraq" and "leave Social Security alone." The top two things Republicans would say are "you're doing a good job" -- and "get out of Iraq."

Exxon/Mobile: Up 44%
BP: Up 35%
Shell: Up 42%
Unocal: Up 69%
Marathon: Up 26%

As various judges and experts in bankruptcy law had warned in testimony before Congress, the new law will impose hardships on families afflicted by catastrophic financial crisis resulting from illness, layoffs, and other unexpected loss of income. These are, in fact, the chief reasons for most personal-bankruptcy filings, and the new law strips away the meager protections that had previously offered middle- and low-income Americans some shelter.

About 300 Mexican women taking part in a worldwide relay march were stopped by U.S. border officials when they tried to cross to the U.S. side of an international bridge to meet their American counterparts Wednesday.

Participants in the World March of Women were stopped by U.S. border and customs officials at the Lerdo international bridge linking El Paso with Ciudad Juarez.

Some pushing and shoving ensued after the women approached the U.S. side and agents told them they could not cross because the bridge was not designed for foot traffic.

Oil and gas interests' campaign contributions to state leaders jumped from $345,000 in the 1999 elections to $620,000 in the 2004 elections. Gov. Haley Barbour received more than $320,000 in donations from oil and gas; Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, $93,000.

Oil and gas contributed relatively large sums to many state lawmakers' campaigns, including many in the South Mississippi delegation, the vast majority of whom voted in favor of last year's changes in state law on oil and gas leases.

From 1999 to 2004, oil and gas businesses donated more than $44,000 to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., making the industry his eighth top contributor; and $85,000 to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., his sixth top. U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., from '03-'04, received $7,500 from oil and gas, his 14th largest industry contributor.

"For disenfranchised populations, particularly minority populations, who have experienced problems in the past, this is another obstacle," said Charlie Mitchell, a [GA] state legislative counsel for the ACLU. "It may not keep a lot of people from the polls. But that's not the point. Even if it keeps some people from the polls, there must be a compelling state interest to restrict anyone's right to vote, and there is no example of this."

"I have been registering voters for over 30 years," said [Warren] Butler [of the GA NAACP], who has driven church members from his parish to the polls. "And when you put something extra out there to cause a person to go another step in order to register or vote, it impedes them and cuts down on the number of people that do vote."

[T]he commission would enable the Bush administration to achieve what Ronald Reagan only dreamed of: the end of government regulation as we know it. With a simple vote of five commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight -- the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission.

Telecom providers did not want to compete against municipal broadband initiatives. Said Rep. King, “No business should have to compete with public tax dollars.” The provision generated an outcry among cyber-lobby citizens’ groups and advocates for cities, who argued that the market chases only dollars and therefore cares little about providing services for small or impoverished communities. The digital divide, they were concerned, would grow larger, leaving unwired communities economically vulnerable.

Exxon's "soon-to-retire CEO suddenly has a new anxiety: how to spend the windfall wrought by $55-a-barrel oil. By the end of April, Exxon will have a cash hoard of more than $ 25 billion. And if crude prices stay where they are, this geometrically growing bonanza could soon give Exxon more cash on hand than any other U.S. company...the cash is building at a remarkable rate. Each dollar jump in the price of a barrel of oil adds another half billion in earnings. Based on current prices, Exxon is accumulating more than $1 billion a month - even after allocating for dividends, share repurchases, and capital spending. If oil simply stays where it is now, Exxon's cash could approach $40 billion in 12 months. By then [Exxon's CEO] is expected to have handed off the top job--and the headache of what to do with all that cash."

“There ought not to be a second offense. The woman ought to not be around the man. I mean you women want it one way and not another. Women want to punish the men, and I do not understand why women continue to go back around men who abuse them. And I’ve asked women that and they all tell me the same answer, John Graham you don’t understand. And I say you're right, I don't understand.”

“John Graham Altman is the best thing that has ever happened to us,” said Laura Hudson, spokeswoman for the S.C. Victim Assistance Network. “I guess there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. I do believe in redemption.”

***

Some sentences in the revised bill are even tougher than the proposed penalty increases in the original bill, said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, who again will be the bill’s lead sponsor.

“Without a doubt, this is meaningful,” she said Monday. “I hope the bill will pass as presented. It’s reasonable and more than fair.”

“This amendment is blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry,” said Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston.

Thompson, 66, an African-American who grew up with segregation, said the legislation reminded her of the time when interracial marriages were illegal.

“When people of my color used to marry someone of Mr. Chisum’s color (white), you’d often find people of my color hanging from a tree. That’s what white people back then did to protect marriage,” Thompson said.

"Don't you fear that the Shi'ites inevitably being in the majority, that you will be overrun? And he says, 'oh no, we have a secret weapon.' Mr. President, this is a Kurdish leader, in the middle of Iraq in the 21st century who said he had a secret weapon. And when asked what it was, he said one word, 'filibuster'" [...]

"It is one of their minority leaders, proudly stating one of the pillars and principles of our government, as the way they would ensure that the majority never overran the minority."

Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday.

While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison.

Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.

TALLAHASSEE - From his seat on a key education committee, Rep. Dennis Baxley helps shape the budget of every public university in Florida.

But when he appeared Thursday before the state's university presidents, Baxley portrayed himself as a victim.

"I have not come with a set of demands," he said in a soft voice. "I have come with a burden."

The Ocala Republican told the presidents he has been humiliated for his conservative views. He showed them a cartoon published in the University of Florida student newspaper that depicted a naked Baxley crawling behind a monkey in the evolutionary chain.

Baxley's request: Protect conservatives like him from ridicule by the "liberal elite" on Florida campuses.

Baxley's bill has become a part of a national debate over whether university faculties are hotbeds of radicalism. Before filing his bill, Baxley consulted conservative activist David Horowitz, who is pushing similar legislation in other states.

Today, on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the first Earth Day, the House of Representatives is voting on, and widely expected to pass, a grossly porkified energy bill that would dole out billions in subsidies to fossil-fuel industries, shortchange alternative-energy and efficiency initiatives, and indemnify makers of the gasoline additive MTBE against liability for groundwater contamination. And this time the bill may actually have a chance of passing in the Senate, perhaps as early as next month, after years of stalemate.

This and other dismal news rolling off Capitol Hill of late would seem good reason to make Earth Day 2005 a revolt, not a celebration. Yet when Muckraker searched high and low for organizers of big, spirited, on-the-ground protests, we found little resembling the kind of mutiny the current political moment would seem to demand.

Acid deposition: The Smokies suffer from some of the worst acid-deposition problems in North America. Clouds blanketing the sensitive spruce-fir forests found on Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Smokies, are often as acidic as vinegar. On average, rainfall in the park is five to ten times more acidic than normal rainwater.

Degraded scenic vistas: The spectacular overlooks for which this park is known are severely impaired by human-generated polluted haze. Under natural conditions, views extended for more than 100 miles. Because of air pollution, however, park visitors can expect to see only 25 miles on average.

Ozone pollution: Great Smoky has the highest ozone exposure at levels harmful to plants of any national park in America. Thirty plant species in the park show signs of damage from ozone pollution, including black cherry and yellow poplar. In addition, on more than 175 days since 1998 ozone levels at the park were hazardous to human health.

Mercury pollution: Scientists are concerned about possible levels of mercury deposition, and recently began monitoring this toxic pollutant in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Look out, y’all! Within three decades, nearly four in every 10 Americans will be Southerners, the Census Bureau estimates in a report to be released today.

It's a demographic shift already well under way that has seen Southern symbols such as Cajun food and NASCAR go nationwide — and brought to the South scores of newcomers who are establishing their own cultural touchstones.

Growing like kudzu, the South is expected to have a population of about 143.3 million in 2030. In percentage terms, that means 39.4 percent of the U.S. population will live in the South. With another quarter in the West, that leaves just over a third in the once dominant Midwest and Northeast.

“This is probably good news for Republicans,” said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

For more than a century after Reconstruction, the term “Solid South” referred to the region's Democratic loyalties. But entering the 21st century, the South is solidly in the GOP camp, and its growing clout has been vital in establishing the current GOP dominance in Washington.

“That's the big historical switch,” said Black. “It has changed American politics.”

Adding population faster than other regions, the South is picking up congressional seats and presidential electoral votes, explained Black. “It means that the Democrats can't afford to position themselves in ways that alienate themselves from Southerners.”

The State House took up two pieces of legislation this week aimed at protecting two different groups. Up for debate was cracking down on gamecock fighting and protecting victims of domestic violence .

A bill protecting cocks passed through the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. John Graham Altman (R-Dist. 119-Charleston) was in favor of the gamecock bill, "I was all for that. Cockfighting reminds me of the Roman circus [sic], coliseum."

A bill advocates say would protect victims against batterers was tabled, killing it for the year. Rep. Altman is on the committee that looked at the domestic violence bill, "I think this bill is probably drafted out of an abundance of ignorance."

Both cockfighting and domestic violence are currently misdemeanor crimes, punishable by 30 days in jail. If the bill passes, cockfighting will become a felony, punishable by five years in jail. Domestic violence crimes will remain a misdemeanor.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Dist. 66-Orangeburg) says of the two bills, "What we have said by the actions of the Judiciary Committee is we aren't going to create a felony if you beat your wife, partner. But now, if you've got some cockfighting going on, whoa! Wait a minute."

The warning against the serious deviations of some "theologies of liberation" must not be taken as some kind of approval, even indirect, of those who keep the poor in misery, who profit from that misery, who notice it while doing nothing about it, or who remain indifferent to it. The Church, guided by the Gospel of mercy and by the love for mankind, hears the cry for justice and intends to respond to it with all her might.

The Texas State House "tentatively approved legislation that would prohibit homosexuals and bisexuals from becoming foster parents." The measure, which passed by a vote of 81-58, was added on to a fuller bill intended to "revamp the state's Child Protective Services agency." The amendment was introduced by conservative Rep. Robert Talton, who claimed, "It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect our most vulnerable children and I don't think we are doing that if we allow a foster parent that is homosexual or bisexual."

Though the bill that passed through the state Senate "does not include the ban on gay foster parents," final approval for the bill comes on Wednesday. The executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas responded to the prejudiced amendment by stating, "Mr. Talton has taken aim at the (gay and lesbian) community of Texas and thousands of children are now caught in the cross hairs."

The family sued under a theory that a coupler manufactured and distributed by Midcap Bearing Corporation and Lovejoy, Inc. was defective and caused the trolley to lose control. This is exactly the legal theory that DeLay has sought to prohibit communities from using to clean up drinking water contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE, manufactured by major oil and chemical companies in his district.

"We don’t resent Rep. DeLay or Sen. Santorum for seeking justice in the courts. Any fellow human being has compassion for a family that loses a father too young, or a woman facing a life of pain and disability. DeLay and Santorum were both represented by trial lawyers.

For them to now demagogue against victims and the trial lawyers who helped their families in order to further the radical agenda of their corporate contributors is insulting to the pain and suffering of victims, including their own family members."

As I have been traveling across the country looking at ways to help families escape poverty and join the middle class, I have seen time and time again that joining a union is one of the best ways to lift people out of poverty. Americans in unions earn 27% more than Americans not in unions.

Today, Congress is introducing bipartisan legislation to restore a worker's right to organize. The Employee Free Choice Act would make it harder for employers to prevent workers from joining a union.

All too often, America's workers face harassment and intimidation when they try to join a union. They work hard for our country, but our laws aren't working for them. This important legislation would change our laws so that workers - not employers - can decide whether to start a union.

Please help America's workers by contacting your Senators and U.S. Representative and asking them to cosponsor this critical legislation immediately.

“Termination of parental rights has nothing to do with what language you speak at home,” [Nashville civil rights attorney Jerry] Gonzalez said. “You can be a deaf mute and speak nothing but sign language. That doesn't mean you lose your child.”

Tatum, who hears child abuse and neglect cases, also has been in trouble with Tennessee immigrant and civil rights advocacy groups about similar learn-English-or-else orders to immigrant women in Lebanon, a Nashville suburb that has seen its foreign-born population grow significantly in the last several years.

The sponsors claim the rules are needed to improve safety, but there is no indication safety is a problem. More than 91,000 abortions took place last year in Florida, yet over the last 10 years there have been fewer than 75 complaints logged with the state against clinics. Only four of those were deemed valid.

As Rep. Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican, charged, if the Legislature really wanted to protect women's health it would address plastic surgery centers, not abortion clinics. “We actually have people dying from plastic surgery breast augmentation with the wrong anesthetics,” Detert said during a floor debate. “Your bill targets one particular industry.”