Of Blow Jobs and Lung Disease: Welders "Flu" Sends Ex Clinton/Gore/Kerry Operative Over To The Dark Side

As the latest Star Wars prequel heads into its third record-breaking week, it seems that the Dark Side has captured yet another victim.

California Bay Bridge welders, victims of the KFM flu, have sued "a joint venture led by Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., alleging that they developed serious illnesses from exposure to toxins while working on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco."

The welders, as you will remember, were overexposed to manganese and other welding fumes and then many were fired for complaining about health and safety conditions on the bridge.

While this is a story in itself, a small paragraph in the article caused me to do a double-take:

Kiewit spokesman Chris Lehane said the company does not comment on ongoing litigation. He said the company is committed to the safety of the public and its workers.

Chris Lehane? Could this be the same Chris Lehane, well known to us political junkies?

Sure enough:

Bridge builder's new flack a true PR virtuoso

KFM hires ex-Clinton spinmeister, Gray Davis energy crisis adviser

Chris Lehane, 37, helped the Clinton White House spin the Whitewater investigation, spoke for Vice President Al Gore on the 2000 presidential campaign trail and advised former Gov. Gray Davis during the 2001 energy crisis and 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Now he's working for KFM Joint Venture, the contractor building the Bay Bridge's new eastern span. The Oakland Tribune has reported welders' accusations that many of the project's welds are defective and that unsafe working conditions existed on the job site. An FBI investigation is under way, and lawmakers are calling for probes of their own.

"Chris is the best in the business. If you have damage that needs to be controlled, he's the guy to bring in," said veteran Republican campaign and public affairs consultant Dan Schnur. "And if any damage-control challenge is tougher than what he faced with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it might be this one."

Yeah, I'd say it's tougher than Monica Lewinsky. On one hand you have a blow job, on the other hand you've got workers who have been knowingly exposed to welding fumes, including manganese, in violation of OSHA standards. On one hand you have a company covering up injuries and punishing workers who are hurt on the job, and on the other hand you have someone covering up....a blow job.

Now, I'm the first to admit that everyone's got to make a living, and from personal experience, I'll admit that it's not easy for former political operatives and appointees to find challenging jobs (that pay decently) in a Republican world. I'll also admit to being a bit judgmental on occasion, but after decades in the health and safety business, to me there is almost no creature lower than the pond scum corporate P.R. flacks who cover up the fact that their clients are hurting or killing workers, and then insisting over it all that the company is "committed to safety."

Democratic consultant Roger Salazar worked with Lehane in Gore's office and on the 2000 presidential campaign. He called Lehane and his partner, Mark Fabiani, also formerly of the White House, "the masters of crisis communications — they know how to manage an issue and look at it from every conceivable angle, find all of the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities."

All well and fine. But it makes me sick to think that this talent is now being used to stomp abused and poisoned workers further into the ground for a company that is rapidly rising to the top of the corporate outlaws list.

What's next Chris, Bill Frist's communications director?

Yech!



Related Articles

• More KFM Flu: Neglected Workers and a Suffering Safety Agency, April 19, 2005
• Behavioral Safety Out of Control and The KFM Flu, April 12, 2005
  
  
  

Post & Times (Finally) Figure It Out: Bush Making OSHA, EPA, MSHA, DOT, DOE, Interior, etc. More Business Friendly

One of the "benefits" and frustrations of being a workplace safety activist living in Washington D.C. is that I am constantly able to witness the subtle and not-so-subtle attacks that this administration has made on workplace safety, the environment and consumer well-being. Everyone (one hopes) remembers that the first significant piece of legislation that George W. Bush signed was the repeal of the ergonomics standard. But it's the more subtle attacks -- generally through regulatory changes unseen by most Americans or the major media -- that led me to launch this blog almost 18 months ago. One service that I thought I could provide was making workers and safety activist across the country aware of the havoc that this administration is wreaking on the promise of a safe workplace for all American workers.

So it is with some satisfaction that I returned to Washington today after the first phase of my summer vacation to find three articles (the first of a major series) in the Washington Post and one in the New York Times that address the major, yet almost unseen changes that the Bush administration has made through the regulatory process, with the effect of making more business friendly OSHA, MSHA and the agencies in charge of policing the health of our environment. On one hand, I'm glad to see these articles. On the other hand I'm thinking, "What the hell took you so long?" If you had been doing this kind of reporting all along, I could have gotten a lot more sleep.

The New York Times argues that:

Some analysts argue that the Bush administration has introduced rules favoring industry with a dedication unmatched in modern times.

"My thoughts go back to Herbert Hoover," said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. "No president could have been more friendly to business than Hoover" until the Bush administration.

This may be true; this administration has certainly been the most effective in rolling back regulations. I'd argue, however, that part of the "credit" goes to Congress. While the Reagan and first Bush administrations had similar goals, their efforts were somewhat stymied by Democratic control of one or both houses of Congress. Democrats were able to publicly reveal Republican efforts to weaken regulations, and use hearings and the legislative process to push OSHA to issue needed regulations.

The Times reports that the war in Iraq has shifted the attention of the media and the public away from substantial regulatory initiatives designed to please business:

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

The Washington Post starts off with a subject near and dear to my heart: the Bush administration's withdrawal of the proposed tuberculosis standard which was close to being issued as a final standard at the end of the Clinton administration.

"Near and dear," because while at AFSCME I typed up the original petition urging OSHA to issue the standard, and one of my last activities at AFSCME before heading off to work at OSHA was to testify at regulatory hearings in favor of the standard.

Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths.

By the time President Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years.

Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary.

The demise of the decade-old plan of defense against tuberculosis reflects the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan .

The changes within OSHA since George W. Bush took office illustrate the way that this administration has used the regulatory process to redirect the course of government.

In addition to tuberculosis (which I have written about many times here, here and here), the Post uses several other examples, including:

• an OSHA witness testifying that disposable respirators are as effective as more sophisticated respirators (without disclosing that he had worked previously as a consultant for the 3M, which makes the disposable respirators.
  
  
• OSHA's refusal to issue a standard requiring employers to pay for personal protective equipment such as gloves, boots, hard hats and goggles.

While OSHA has not completely given up on regulations, the Post's analysis found that:

the rules the agency has proposed are narrower than most of those it has eliminated. Thirteen of the 24 proposals it has canceled since Bush took office fall into a category the government classifies as "economically significant," meaning they would cost or save the economy at least $100 million. None of the 16 standards OSHA has proposed during that time falls in that group.

The Times focuses mostly on three examples:

• Department of Transportation raising the number of hours that truckers can drive after the NTSB recommended that hours be reduced to address the raising number of fatigue-related accidents."
  
  
• The administration's relaxation of clean air rules, allowing corporations to upgrade their plants without installing pollution control equipment
  
  
• Air conditioning manufacturers' successful efforts to lobby against raising energy efficiency standards.

Also available on the web only, is a Washington Post story of how the Bush administration has ignored a petition by Public Citizen Health Research Group and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union petitioned OSHA to issue a tougher standard on beryllium, and even refused to meet with the groups, while maintaining a tight relationship with beryllium manufacturer Brush Wellman.


Update: The second article in the Wasington Post series has hit the newstands (or at least the web): 'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation.

But I'm on vacation. Read it yourself.

Thinking About Ergonomics? We Will Bury Sue You!

In a letter that gives new meaning to the words hyperbole and hissy-fit, the Building Industry Association of Washington has sent a letter to Paul Trause, Director of the Department of Labor & Industry, objecting to the Department's development of a new Regional Directive that would explain to directors how to handle ergonomics issues.

You may remember that the Washington State ergonomics standard was repealed last year after a scurrilous million dollar campaign based on lies that would have made Joe McCarthy blush. (See here and here.) I can't accurately describe the absurdity of this letter, so it's probably best if I just reprint it in whole:

July 22, 2004

Director Paul Trause
Department of Labor & Industries
PO Box 44001
Olympia, WA 98504-4001

It has come to my attention that L&I is developing an ergonomic WISHA Regional Directive that would serve as a substitute fo the ergonomics standards repealed by the voters in Initiative 841. This is a blatant violation of the law and subversion of the will of the voters. By approving Initiative 841 in 2003, the voters expressly repealed your ergonomics regulations and prohibited future rule making on ergonomics. Any attempt to enforce the repealed ergonomics standard by means of a newly adopted ergonomics policy is illegal. We will sue you.

Moreover, BIAW will file another initiave if necessary to repeal future ergonomic policies adopted by L&I. Initiative 841 was very successful in uniting the press (sic), the public,(sic-er) the workers (sic-est) and the business community against the pseudo-science and overregulation of the L&I bureaucrats. L&I spent million of tax dollars attempting to justify bad science and ignored public comments against the ergonomic rule. Washington state is now a better place to live and work because the ergonomics rule was repealed. Washington State citizens will not tolerate an out of control agency that disregards the will of the voters and its laws.

Sincerely,

Tom McCabe
Executive Vice President

P.S. Why didn't you fire the staff that promulged the ergonomics rule? I warned you they would create mischief which is exactly what they're doing with the WRD. [Oh hell, why don't you just shoot them and get it over with.] (Emphasis and comments added)

cc:
Initiative 841 supporters

Sounds like maybe it's time to raise another million dollars for a referendum that makes it a crime for any state official to even think about ergonomics. The only explanation I can come up with is that McCabe is off his meds and must be getting bored with no ergo bogey-man to fight, having killed the goose that laid his golden egg, and is trying to recreate a reason to exist.

Now I admit that I haven't seen a draft of the new directive. And while it's entirely possible (knowing the subversive scoundrels that drafted the ergonomics standard) that it defies the law, reinstates the standard, declares a workers' state and seizes the means of production, I doubt that it's likely to be much more than a revision and clarification of the original post-referendum directive issued last December which was written to provide "guidance to WISHA enforcement and consultation staff whenever they must address issues involving WMSD hazards and potential ergonomics solutions."

If ergonomic issues come to the attention of WISHA inspectors,

they must not initiate (or expand) inspection activity. The allegations or other information must be referred to Senior Program Manager of WISHA Policy & Technical Services, who will provide appropriate direction based on the specifics of the situation.

If an employer asks for guidance, the repealed standard can be

used as a guide to identifying potential hazards and areas of concern, but consultants must make it clear that the rule has been repealed and that none of its specific provisions are required.

Yup, sounds pretty subversive to me. Time to go out and raise more money.

Oh and Tom, if the men in the little white suits show up at your door, they're there to help you.

Miners' Lives for Sale?

The New York Times, in a long investigative article, covers an all-too-familiar story: While two or three coal miners are killed every month in mining accidents and hundreds still die each year of Black Lung disease, workplace health & safety and environmental regulations are weakened by government officials who are former executives and lobbyists of mining companies that are major contributors of campaign funds to the Republican party.

In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official - Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.

The reintroduction of the coal dust measure came after the federal agency had abandoned a series of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by coal miners while embracing others favored by mine owners.

Bush's promise to relax environmental restrictions on coal mining in 2000 may have been a factor leading to the Democratic loss in West Virginia. Bush has made good on those promises.

Among the Bush initiatives:

• Increasing by four-fold the amount of coal dust levels in mines, despite the fact that Black Lung disease remains a serious hazard and that NIOSH has recommended that dust levels be cut in half. The Bush administration argues that miners can wear respirators which even the respirator manufacturer, 3M, has problems with.
  
  
• New rules that would make it easier for companies to use diesel generators underground, which miners say could increase the risk of fire.
  
  
• Withdrawal of a Clinton administration proposal that would have updated technology to better protect workers from the two-story-high trucks that haul coal.
  
  
• Easing of regulations on mountain-top removal which destroys streams and forests.

So what's going on? Again, it's a sadly familiar story:

"This is a results-oriented administration," said Joseph M. Lovett, a lawyer for environmental groups that have sued to block the mountaintop mining rules. "It knows who it wants to reward."

Over the last six years, coal companies have donated $9 million to federal political candidates and party organizations, and 90 percent has gone to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Coal production has expanded in the West, but in most Appalachian states, where mining jobs are highly coveted, employment has stagnated or slipped since 2000. As a result, the battle over coal in crucial swing states is a wild card in this fall's election.

As I reported last week, mine safety has become an election issue when John Kerry condemned the Bush administration for putting the proverbial fox in charge of guarding the chicken coup.

The Times quotes one miner, however, who notes that in job-hungry West Virginia, "some miners were sticking with Mr. Bush because they were "kind of afraid that Mr. Kerry could be too big of an environmentalist" and restrict mountaintop mining. "They see it as doom and gloom," he said."