Of course, this should come as no surprise. Republican legislators have longed heaped nothing but scorn upon the American worker, and the Unions they have developed to protect their rights. However, this group of corporate neo-con facists could not settle for merely destroying unions, wages and benefits along with the manufacturing industries in this country, they actually turned OSHA into an agency that protected employers from their own dangerous practices.
Take this charming story about the Bush Administration's scorn at dental technicians:
In early 2001, an epidemiologist at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration sought to publish a special bulletin warning dental technicians that they could be exposed to dangerous beryllium alloys while grinding fillings. Health studies showed that even a single day's exposure at the agency's permitted level could lead to incurable lung disease.
After the bulletin was drafted, political appointees at the agency gave a copy to a lobbying firm hired by the country's principal beryllium manufacturer, according to internal OSHA documents. The epidemiologist, Peter Infante, incorporated what he considered reasonable changes requested by the company and won approval from key directorates, but he bristled when the private firm complained again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Unfortunately, this idiocy did not end at dental technicians:
Among the regulations proposed by OSHA's staff but scuttled by political appointees was one meant to protect health workers from tuberculosis. Although OSHA concluded in 1997 that the regulation could avert as many as 32,700 infections and 190 deaths annually and save $115 million, it was blocked by opposition from large hospitals.
In the summer, the agency decided against moving further toward the regulation of crystalline silica, the tiny fibrous material in cement and stone dust that causes lung disease or cancer. OSHA promised a scientific peer review of the health risks by early 2005 and then by early 2007, but it never acted. Regulating silica exposures would have prevented an estimated 41 silicosis deaths and 20 to 40 lung cancers annually, according to OSHA.
In the spring, political appointees quietly scrapped work on another long-pending regulation of hazardous exposure to ionizing radiation in mailrooms, food warehouses, and hospitals and airports. It cited "resource constraints and other priorities" -- the same reason officials gave for withdrawing more than a dozen regulatory proposals in 2001.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Of course, none of this came about as an accident. Although OSHA was developed to protect workers from irresponsible business practices that put profits over everything, even the lives of workers it seems the Bush Administration sought to reverse those roles and instead protected along with the former Republican controlled Congress the greediest and least patriotic among us:
The agency's first director under Bush, John L. Henshaw, startled career officials by telling them in an early meeting that employers were OSHA's real customers, not the nation's workers. "Everybody was pretty amazed," one of those present recalled. "Our purpose is to ensure employee safety and health. . . . He just looked at things differently."
Within two years, Henshaw, an industrial hygienist who had worked for Monsanto and another chemical firm, withdrew 26 draft regulations on OSHA's public calendar, including rules meant to limit workplace exposure to air contaminants, highly hazardous chemicals, and shipyard and scaffolding hazards.
Henshaw, acting in concert with legislation passed by the Republican majority in Congress, quickly withdrew a proposed regulation -- drawn up during the Clinton administration -- meant to curtail ergonomic problems, which OSHA studies have said cause 60 percent of workplace injuries. He promised, instead, to issue nonmandatory guidelines and to cite violations under a general OSHA statute promoting safety.
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Henshaw's excuse for his actions was far past laughable:
But Henshaw said that "there wasn't a whole lot of political will for more rules and burdens on industry," either in the Bush administration or among congressional Republicans. Instead, there was "some interest in improving existing rules on the books," he said. "We focused on improving what we had."
Under Bush, the agency was reluctant even to issue health warnings that fall short of regulations, if doing so might make it easier for workers to collect damages for diseases. In the draft beryllium bulletin, for example, the key dispute concerned OSHA's endorsement of a blood test that detected sensitization to beryllium, a precursor to disease -- and to lawsuits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The typical Republican solution. Allow greedy, monied corporations to put American workers health and lives at risk, all while disallowing those made sick and their families recourse in the courts.
Worse yet, Henshaw was eventually replaced by this tireless bulldog for the safety of workers:
In 2006, Henshaw was replaced by Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a South Carolina lawyer and former Bush fundraiser who spent years defending companies cited by OSHA for safety and health violations.
Foulke quickly acquired a reputation inside the Labor Department as a man who literally fell asleep on the job: Eyewitnesses said they saw him suddenly doze off at staff meetings, during teleconferences, in one-on-one briefings, at retreats involving senior deputies, on the dais at a conference in Europe, at an award ceremony for a corporation and during an interview with a candidate for deputy regional administrator.
His top aides said they rustled papers, wore attention-getting garb, pounded the table for emphasis or gently kicked his leg, all to keep him awake. But, if these tactics failed, sometimes they just continued talking as if he were awake. "We'll be sitting there and things will fall out of his hands; people will go on talking like nothing ever happened," said a career official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to a reporter.
In an interview, Foulke denied falling asleep at work, although he said he was often tired and sometimes listened with his eyes closed. His goal, he said, was to create the best agency he could, partly by putting in place "performance metrics" not previously used at OSHA.
Foulke said his senior staff appeared "pretty enthusiastic," but he acknowledged that there were grounds for tension with others. Leadership, he said, is "taking people down a path they don't want to go, until you get them to a place where they realize this is where they need to be."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Ah, so that is what I did in High School when I wasn't looking at the girls in mini-skirts, listening with my eyes closed!! I was really good at that too!!!
But of course, for those that seek to lecture us about the wasteful spending practices of our government, they had to hire a "consultant" to make sure OSHA did not do its job:
The gap caused some inspectors to complain that they lacked adequate gear to monitor workplace chemicals and other hazards. Efficiency became a key agency buzzword and, to help improve it, Foulke arranged for OSHA to hire Randy Kimlin, an acquaintance from South Carolina, as a $112-an-hour consultant beginning in 2006.
The work was lucrative for Kimlin, a former employee of Union Carbide -- a firm that frequently clashed with OSHA -- and a former president of a Greenville-based chemical firm. For his part-time advice over a 22-month period beginning in May 2006, OSHA paid Kimlin $513,403, a salary higher than that received by Vice President Cheney, any member of Congress and Foulke himself during that period.
Kimlin was paid an additional $97,730 in reimbursements for nearly weekly flights back to South Carolina and for a hotel room on Capitol Hill, all granted under a subcontract with Washington-based TATC Consulting that was awarded without competition.
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Ultimately, Foulke unwittingly summed the Bush Administration's OSHA practices up perfectly:
"This is critical," Foulke said, "to the company." He paused briefly before clarifying, "to the country." Foulke resigned Nov. 9 and the next day began work at an Atlanta law firm that represents companies accused of workplace safety violations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
As always it is company before country to the greediest and least patriotic among us.
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