A Real Pain

Payday came early in the George W. Bush dayspayoff to the big employers who contributed to his campaign and payback to working people and their unions for voting overwhelmingly for Al Gore.

The President started with his partisan Executive Order banning Project Labor Agreements on construction projects using federal money (and what big public works project doesnt have federal funding?). Then Congress struck, revoking the new OSHA standard on job-related repetitive motion injuries. The President happily signed the revocation into law.

Perhaps no other issue in Congress could make it quite as clear that this Administration intends to serve every desire of the business community. Not even the quality of life of millions of Americans was important enough to give Congress pause. What better target than an OSHA standard that was one of the proudest achievements of workers and their unions?

The contrast between how it was enacted and how it was killed is startling. Before it went into effect January 16, the ergonomics standard was 10 years in the making, with nine weeks of public hearings, more than 1,000 witnesses and 7,000 written comments.

It was repealed in two daysSenate action March 6, House action March 7 and signed by the President with ceremonies appropriate to letting employers know what he did for them. Congress acted under the seldom-used Congressional Review Act, which removes the need for hearings and forbids any future standard unless approved by Congress.

It was mostly a party line vote. All 50 Republican senators voted to kill the standard, and they were joined by six Democrats for a 5644 majority. The House vote was 223-206, with 16 Democrats joining with the Republican majority. Thirteen Republicans defied their leadership and voted to retain the standard.

Virtually every worker in every joband certainly everyone doing the jobs IBEW members doknows the feel of tired muscles used over and over, and most of us have seen the damage when co-workers are afflicted by repetitive motion injuries. Our Brotherhood has always stressed individual safety, and the danger in our jobs dictates that we, more than most, need the help of continuous review of job design by occupational safety and health experts.

The 10 years of study found that these painful injuries afflict more than 600,000 American workers and drain more than $9 billion out of the economy in lost time and productivity. But employers obsessed with the bottom line simply will not look at the fact that the new ergonomics standard would save $9 billion at a cost of $5.4 billion. The $9 billion we are wasting now doesnt show up as a single item on the ledger. But installing safeguards and modifying work practices is a new expense.

In fact, when job safety is pronounced OSHA, it brings out the beast in employers and right-wing zealots alike. No one in government is going to tell me what I can and cant do at my company, is the macho boast of the country club locker room. That attitude is why we have to have Workers Memorial Day every April 28 to sound the toll, not just on injuries, but on deaths on the job.

We need now to tell our elected officials thanks or no thanks for their vote. Our web site www.ibew.org has information on how your senators and representative voted. Accountability through grass roots action is the only thing that will prevent future outrages like this.

Weve been getting better and better at that kind of unified, grass roots campaign. We have to, because the first 60 days of the George W. Bush era makes it clear whats ahead.

Jerry O'Connor,
International Secretary-Treasurer