Organizing Around Health and Safety

I've written a couple of times about UNITE's organizing campaign a Cintas (here and here), a Cincinnati-based laundry and uniform rental company, partly in response to health and safety problems.

Earlier this week, nearly 100 union members rallied at a Branford, CT plant, calling on Cintas Corp. to remedy health and safety violations. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D-CT), spoke at the rally, pledging to continue supporti of Cintas workers nationwide.

She joined union leaders in demanding that the uniform company address violations cited by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which fined the company $10,000 two weeks ago....OSHA cited Cintas for several "serious" violations, including fire exits blocked by 55-gallon drums, illegal use of extension cords to operate heavy machinery, failure to provide showers to workers handling sulfuric acid, and failure to provide hepatitis B vaccinations to employees exposed to blood or other harmful materials.

Three weeks ago, DeLauro and 90 other congressional leaders sent a letter to the chief executive officer of Cintas asking the company to remain neutral should workers decide to unionize. She said she has not received a response.

Many Cintas workers are immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries. Supporters held up balloons and signs in English and Spanish as a police officer controlled the flow of cars into the parking lot.

The union has accused the company of intimidation and unfair labor practices.

Stop that bleeding and pee in this bottle boy!

What's the first thing you think of when someone gets hurt on the job? Unsafe working conditions? Unguarded machinery? Violated OSHA citations?

Nah. The guy was probably on drugs.

Workers Comp? Nah, he deserved what he got.

At least that's the philosophy behind a proposed Ohio law where business groups are again pushing to deny injured workers benefits if the workers were drunk or on drugs at the time.

The Ohio Supreme Court overturned a similar law last year that forced injured workers to prove they weren't under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but it was found by the court to violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

The new bill is much better:

The proposed legislation offers specific examples of when a worker can be tested, such as when an employer suspects a worker is impaired or at the request of a doctor or police officer, Geiger said.

"You've got to specifically think there's a problem and specifically order a test when an injured worker shows up in the hospital," he said.

Oh, OK, I feel much better now.

But business groups are banking on more than just a a few different words to change the Court's mind. A new Republican justice has taken the seat of a retiring justice who voted against the last law.

Everything You Need To Know About Bush's Attempt to Cut Overtime

The Newspaper Guild-CWA held a news conference on this morning, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to discuss the radical and negative changes in overtime regulations, proposed by the Department of Labor (see below).

In addition to the playback of the conference, you can click here for a summary of the changes, an explanation of how the Department of Labor is actually encouraging employers to cheat workers out of OT, a brief history of the law, and more.

Overtime Out

I wrote the other day about Americans’ vanishing vacations. Well, the Bush administration obviously figures if you can’t go on vacation, you might as well be working more for less.

But it seems there are a few people out there who are upset about making less money next year in order to make life better 9and more profitable) for American business. The U.S. Labor Department has been flooded with over 80,000 letters from irate workers around the country whose living conditions depend on the overtime they earn.

One typical letter:

"Shame on you, President Bush," Patrick L. Crane, 47, a prison guard from Highland, Ill., wrote to the Labor Department in early June. ". . . I would not appreciate being mandated to work extra hours in a prison and become injured or killed for working exhausted."

And what is he wasting his overtime pay on?

Crane said he has used his time-and-a-half pay to replace his car's broken transmission; help care for his mother, who has dementia; and pay medical bills for his brain cancer treatments.

The AFL-CIO and the Economic Policy Institute estimate that over 8 million workers will lose overtime under the new regulations while the Labor Department claims that the number is only around 644,000. Democrats in Congress have been trying to stop the new regulations, so far unsuccessfully.

The Labor Department claims not to be surprised at the response.

Victoria A. Lipnic, assistant labor secretary for employment standards, said department officials were not taken aback by the heavy volume of comments, in part because Internet filing makes it easier for people to air their opinions. "It's not surprising when you propose a change to something that has been in place for 54 years," Lipnic said.”

Today overtime and the 40 hour work-week, tomorrow Social Security, Medicare and the right to organize unions. We clearly need to get rid of all of those old, tired laws. This is the 21st century, after all.

Solution: Deep Breathing

As you may imagine, all of this overtime, in addition to downsizing, fear of layoffs, and rising unemployment levels are taking their toll on us poor humans. According to USA Today,

The rise in stress — driven by mounting unemployment, leaner workplaces and a jobless recovery — could pose a bottom-line threat to companies as workers suffer more mental and physical health problems related to job pressure, experts say.
Chicago-based employee assistance provider ComPsych experienced a 23% increase in crisis- and stress-counseling requests from client companies in the first quarter of 2003 compared with the first quarter of 2002. Nearly 30% were because of worker anxiety and terminations.

Nearly 35% of workers say they've seen an increase in anxiety and stress-related physical ailments in their workplace in the last year, according to a May survey by The Marlin Co., a North Haven, Conn.-based workplace communications firm. Twenty-seven percent report a rise in emotional problems such as insomnia and depression.

So how can employers deal with these problems: Maybe higher staffing levels or more job security? How about better working conditions and longer vacations? Nah!

At AstraZeneca, a Wilmington, Del.-based pharmaceutical company, a form of meditation called Qi Gong has been introduced. Classes take place at regular department meetings, including a pre-meeting meditation and — instead of a coffee break — there is an afternoon energy break with Qi Gong and tea.

Well that’s progressive of them. No? No.

One reason for the attention: Human-resources experts say employees exposed to stresses such as layoffs are more likely to engage in violent behavior.

Maybe they should just replace the meditation with medication. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Free Prozac.

What Did You Pay for the War, Daddy?

And now for something really depressing: HERE.

Asbestos Comp Feud: Round 20 and Still Rewriting History

The story of attempts to pass an asbestos compensation bill is old and getting older:

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of workers unknowingly exposed to cancer-causing asbestos were sick and dying. The courts were clogged with lawsuits. Asbestos manufacturers were going bankrupt. And Congress was debating whether to create a fund to compensate victims.

The year was 1982. Twenty-one years later, Congress is still debating the issue. The difference now is that the asbestos crisis has grown far worse. Hundreds of thousands of additional victims have stepped forward. The number of corporate defendants has jumped 28-fold. And their potential liabilities exceed $200 billion.

The Senate committee has passed a bill establishing a compensation fund and the unions, quite understandably, think the fund is too small. The insurance companies think it's too big and Orrin Hatch's Republicans and businesses think it's just right. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Heard it all before. Will continue to hear it. Who knows? Maybe they'll figure something out eventually.

But this is an interesting paragraph:

Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that was once used widely in many industrial processes because of its fire-retardant and insulating properties. When inhaled, though, asbestos fibers can cause lung disease and cancer. As a result, its use has been sharply curtailed in recent years though it is still found in vehicle braking systems, asphalt roof coatings and gaskets.

Let me repeat part of that: "When inhaled, though, asbestos fibers can cause lung disease and cancer. As a result, its use has been sharply curtailed in recent years."

If one didn't actually know the history of asbestos, one might think that the fact that "its use has been sharply curtailed" was somehow related to the fact that it "can cause lung disease and cancer."

Actually, the asbestos industry knew as early as the 1930's that asbestos caused serious lung disease. They hid it until courageous people like Dr. Irving Selikoff uncovered the health effects and the scandals in the 1960's. And then more decades would pass before decent regulations were issued to "curtail its use" and protect workers. Even today workers are still being exposed to the asbestos left over in buildings and still being used in pipes and automotive brakes.

Despite the impression given by this article, none of this progress happened by itself or because it 'was learned' that asbestos kills. It happened because of lawsuits and organizing by unions, sick workers and public health activists. And this is not just a tragic isolated story about asbestos. Look at any law or regulation that protects workers. No progress has ever been made in this country in the fields of occupational health or the environment because someone 'discovered' that harm was being done. Nothing happens without organizing, electing the politicians that will actually represent workers and communities, keeping the pressure on them once they are in office, and then more organizing.

It can be done. It has been done. It will be done again. But for many it's way too late:

More than 625,000 people have filed claims for asbestos-related injuries over the years. By the end of 2000, businesses and insurers had paid out more than $54 billion in claims, according to a 2002 Rand Corp. study. More than half the money went to defense and plaintiff attorneys' fees and other administrative expenses, the study said.

Rand found that more than 300,000 cases were still pending and another 500,000 to 2.4 million claims could be filed in the years ahead, costing businesses upward of $210 billion. There are more than 3,000 asbestos lawsuits pending in the New Jersey court system.

Sixty-seven companies have filed for bankruptcy because of their asbestos liabilities, compared with three back in 1982, and additional companies are likely to seek Chapter 11 protection.

I can't help wondering, even with the pain that this situation is causing these companies and the economy, how much information about toxic chemical is being covered up and how many more asbestos tragedies thousands will have to endure before people wake up.

In Europe, good things seem to be happening. Here in the U.S., we seem to be heading in exactly the opposite direction.

More on the asbestos comp bill here and here.

Or maybe two or three.

NY Councilman "Will Be Missed"

Here is an article by NYCOSH Chair Bill Henning in the NY Daily News about NY City Councilman and worker advocate James Davis.

Here in New York State, violence is the No. 2 cause of workplace fatalities. This is an epidemic that Councilmember Davis was well aware of before becoming a victim of it himself.

Ironically, on the day he was murdered, Davis was scheduled to introduce a City Council resolution urging the New York State Labor Department to adopt a set of regulations to protect workers from violence in the workplace.

Vacation!? We don't need no stinkin vacations!

If you're reading this, you're probably not on vacation. And you aren't alone. That's because, according to an article in the Washington Post, "Americans manage to live with the stingiest vacation allotment in the industrialized world -- 8.1 days after a year on the job, 10.2 days after three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." And it's getting worse: "We're now logging more hours on the job than we have since the 1920s. Almost 40 percent of us work more than 50 hours a week."

Why is it getting worse?

Just a couple of weeks ago, before members of the House of Representatives took off on their month-plus vacations, they opted to pile more work onto American employees by approving the White House's rewrite of wage and hour regulations, which would turn anyone who holds a "position of responsibility" into a salaried employee who can be required to work unlimited overtime for no extra pay.

Vacations are being downsized by the same forces that brought us soaring work weeks: labor cutbacks, a sense of false urgency created by tech tools, fear and, most of all, guilt. Managers use the climate of job insecurity to stall, cancel and abbreviate paid leave, while piling on guilt. The message, overt or implied, is that it would be a burden on the company to take all your vacation days -- or any. Employees get the hint: One out of five employees say they feel guilty taking their vacation, reports Expedia's survey. In a new poll of 700 companies by ComPsych Corp., a Chicago-based employee assistance provider, 56 percent of workers would be postponing vacations until business improved.

But it doesn't have to be this way:

Europe chose the route of legal, protected vacations, while we went the other -- no statutory protection and voluntary paid leave. Now we are the only industrialized nation with no minimum paid-leave law. Europeans get four or five weeks by law and can get another couple of weeks by agreement with employers. The Japanese have two legally mandated weeks, and even the Chinese get three. Our vacations are solely at the discretion of employers. The lack of legal standing is what makes vacations here feel so illegitimate -- and us so guilty when we try to take one.

And not only have studies found that short vactions are bad for productivity, but they're also bad for your health:

Overwork doesn't just cost employees. The tab paid by business for job stress is $150 billion a year, according to one study. Yet vacations can cure even the worst form of stress -- burnout -- by re-gathering crashed emotional resources, say researchers. But it takes two weeks for this process to occur, says one study, which is why long weekends aren't vacations. An annual vacation can also cut the risk of heart attack by 30 percent in men and 50 percent in women.

(You also may have noticed that I'm not on vacation -- and won't be. That's because when you change jobs, you go back to go and start over again. I left 5 weeks a year of vacation at AFSCME and started over again with two at OSHA. Haven't come close to catching up.)

So what is to be done?

This is why we need a law that will put an end to the bait and switch of vacation time, as well as leave that's being yanked completely. Legalized paid leave also would end the loss of accrued vacation time for downsized workers in their thirties, forties and fifties, who have to start their paid leave banks over again, as if they were at their very first job.

State of the States

Susan Madrak at Suburban Guerrilla was probably the kid you always wanted on your team in a treasure hunt because she always finds the good stuff. Like these...

Check out this hilarious rant by Bill Maher from the L.A. Times about the Grey Davis recall. My favorite parts:

What's going on here in California, if you're lucky enough to not have been following this, is that the economy turned, so we're getting rid of the governor. But what if we drive him out of office and the economy still doesn't get better? I guess we'll have to burn him. And if that doesn't work, we'll kill his dog.

Yes, in baseball when the team stinks, you fire the manager. But you don't fire him because it rains. And you don't let the opposing team choose a new manager for you.

And you don't fire him between innings. And replace him with a Viennese weightlifter.

The Viennese weighlifter, for those of who aren't Terminator fans, is, of course, Arnold Schwarznegger. Which brings me to my favorite line: "Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German."

And then she found this article about Bush's "Let Them Eat Cake" economics by Jonathan Alter:

When Al Gore exaggerated the details of his dog’s prescriptions, it helped cost him the presidency. The very same people who eviscerated him for it are now saying, hey, cut President Bush some slack—he wasn’t lying about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, only exaggerating. This flap won’t hurt Bush in 2004, except to undermine his credibility on other issues.

SO WHEN, FOR instance, he says “this nation has got a deficit because we have been through a war,” people might begin to wonder whether he is telling the truth. They might wonder if the 13 percent state-college tuition hike in Maryland or the $1 billion state-tax increase in Ohio or the state Medicaid crisis now raging from coast to coast might have something to do with priorities in Washington. If Bush loses, it won’t be on yellowcake uranium but on “let them eat cake” economics.

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article somewhere about the impact the states' budget problems are having on normal people, but how they haven't connected the dots back to Washington yet. So in case you're wondering why the states have fallen into such a deep whole and what this has to do with what's going on in D.C.,

It’s a hole that the states—required by law to balance their budgets—are now being forced to fill. The tobacco-settlement money is gone; the “rainy day” funds exhausted. Under intense pressure from the governors, Washington ponied up $20 billion in emergency aid, but added tax breaks for corporations that will cost the states billions. The House just passed a plan for health savings accounts that will set the states back another $33 billion if enacted. And that’s not even counting the monster haunting every governor, every night—”unfunded mandates.” To take just one example that is relevant in school districts across the country: special education. Congress pledged it would pay for 40 percent of the cost; it actually covers 17 percent. In California alone, where nearly half the budget goes to K-12 education, that’s more than a billion dollars the state has been stiffed on.

I’m no Gray Davis fan, but let’s be honest about the facts. While some states have been mismanaged, most are simply contending with rapidly growing numbers of hurting people who need their services. Those services are now being slashed almost everywhere. Nineteen states—all of them facing sharply increasing demand—will have smaller budgets than last year, not just smaller budget increases. But telling a laid-off mother with three kids that she can’t see a doctor will not be enough. Governors and state legislatures are taxing everything that moves. Even the most conservative states are doing so. Republican Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, a devout Christian, says raising taxes on the wealthy to help the poor is what the Bible compels. He’s had enough of so-called religious politicians who turn Christ’s commandments on their head.

NY Councilman, Workplace Violence Foe Shot Introducing Workplace Violence Resolution

Lee Clarke, Safety and Health Director of AFSCME District Council 37, went down to City Hall Wednesday intending to watch Councilmember James E. Davis introduce a City Council resolution urging the New York State Labor Department to adopt a set of regulations to protect public employees from violence in the workplace. "We were working with him on the anti-workplace violence resolution and I wanted to be there when he introduced it"

Instead, Clarke watched as Davis was shot and killed in the Council chambers, making him the latest victim in a epidemic of workplace violence affecting public-sector workers in New York State.

Davis's resolution read:

Public-sector workers of the City of New York continue to be the victims of crime in the workplace, including murder, rape, assault, verbal abuse and harassment,” the resolution said. “Because of hazardous working conditions and the absence of any systematic method for removing these dangers, workers and their families continue to suffer as a result of unnecessary and preventable incidents of violence at work.”

According to a statement released by NYCOSH, the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health,

“Yesterday’s shooting is a tragic example of what we are working to end,” said William F. Henning, Jr., the chair of NYCOSH’s Board of Directors. “Public-sector workers and unions are calling for a regulation that would require state and local government employers to establish and adhere to policies, procedures and practices for preventing, reporting, and responding to violence in the workplace.”

Clarke observed that

When the shooting started, the Council chamber was filled with people who were at work, all of whom were in danger of being hurt or killed. I can’t imagine a clearer example of exactly the kind of thing we are trying to prevent. The councilman grasped the right of people to a safe workplace and he was willing to spearhead the City Council’s effort to ask the state for a standard to protect workers. He will be sorely missed.

The resolution was supported by an ad hoc anti-workplace violence coalition of public-sector unions in New York City, including the New York State AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 37, Public Employees Federation, Civil Service Employees Association, United Federation of Teachers, Transport Workers Union Local 100, Communications Workers of American District 1, Professional Staff Congress, New York State United Teachers, and New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH).

According to the New York Times,

investigators said the killing appeared to stem from a simmering political dispute between Councilman Davis of Brooklyn, and the gunman, Othniel Askew who had planned to challenge Mr. Davis this fall for his seat representing central Brooklyn in the Council.

Mr. Askew was apparently able to slip his gun into City Hall by accompanying the councilman, who did not have to pass through metal detectors, officials said.

Most of this article was taken from a NYCOSH Press Statement.

Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made

No more than a minute after finishing the posting immediately below this, I come across the following headline:

OSHA investigating Tyler Pipe after worker critically injured

7/24/03 7:36 PM

DALLAS (AP) -- Federal labor officials are investigating an incident at Tyler Pipe earlier this week that left a maintenance worker in critical condition, agency officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration is looking into whether proper safety equipment was provided during the incident at the steel foundry early Tuesday that injured David Willis, 46, agency officials in Dallas said.

Willis remained in critical condition late Thursday afternoon at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, said a nursing supervisor.

Ruffner Page, president of Birmingham, Ala.-based McWane Inc., Tyler Pipe's parent company, said Willis suffered a collapsed lung and broken ribs.....The incident comes as Tyler Pipe, which employs about 1,700 workers, is trying to repair its reputation for safety violations that have been linked to worker injuries and deaths, many of which were documented by The New York Times and Public Broadcasting Service's "Frontline" earlier this year.

According to Page, the accident occurred

as Willis was doing routine maintenance work on a machine that makes cast iron fittings. The company is still investigating the cause of the accident, but Page said it appears that Willis accidentally flipped a switch that turned the machine on, causing him to become pinned between the machine and an elevated deck.

McWane is, as usual, taking full responsibility for the incident. Noting that the company had just purchased new, supposedly safety equipment, Page said

"I think the message it sends is that, as hard as you work, and as much money as you spend and as much time as you devote to training, sometimes mistakes are made," he said.

Yeah, mistakes are made. Just nothing you can do about it.

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Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press

G. Ruffner Page Jr., the President of Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. and the corporate parent he heads, McWane Inc, stated to the New Jersey Express-Times that "are a 'changed company now' in terms of workplace safety and environmental issues. "

McWane was made (in)famous by the New York Times/Frontline series detailing the high numbers of injuries and deaths at McWane Facilities.

Page was quote talkative about the safety improvements McWane has made, and even talked for the first time about

for the first time identified Hector Velarde Lazo of Allentown as the employee who lost three fingers on his right hand during a Dec. 7 industrial accident at Atlantic States. They did not give Lazo's age.

The company did not have to report the accident to government regulators. Officials with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration learned about the accident after receiving an "informal complaint" from an unidentified source.

OSHA fined Atlantic States $130,000 for 12 workplace infractions during a general inspection and after investigating Lazo's accident.

He was apparently less talkative about Senator John Corzine's (D-NJ) bill that would toughen federal criminal penalties for workplace negligence.

"Sen. Corzine has his reasons for putting forth that legislation, but I couldn't comment on what is the legitimacy of it or not, Page said.

Probably a good idea.

The Daily Toll

OSHA investigating death of man at Copperweld Shelby

SHELBY -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating what caused a Missouri man to fall to his death Tuesday morning at Copperweld Shelby Division.

Clayton Guhr, 59, of Versailles, Mo., was standing on tubing on a tractor-trailer truck about 11:15 a.m. when it appears he slipped and fell to his death, striking his head on the concrete.

Cause sought in deadly Ocean City explosion

OCEAN CITY - Investigators could not say Wednesday what caused a boiler explosion that killed a custodian at the Intermediate School this week.

Jean Siegfried, 52, of Upper Township, was killed Tuesday afternoon when a pipe filled with scalding water ruptured in a boiler room.

Scaffolding Collapse Kills Worker

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - A bridge construction project claimed a second life and four other workers fell or jumped 50 feet into St. Andrew Bay when a scaffolding collapsed Wednesday.

Alan Stockton, 44, of Laguna Beach was killed. Richard Martin James, 33, of Fountain, was killed Dec. 14 when he fell 90 feet into the water while working on the bridge.

Contractor electrocuted on top of light tower

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A contractor who was replacing lights on top of a 90-foot baseball stadium light tower died of electrocution, authorities determined Thursday.

John H. Lill, 72, died Wednesday at the historic Point Stadium in Johnstown, said Jim Zangaglia, Cambria County chief deputy coroner. The light standard carried 4,100 volts of electricity.

Because Lill worked for himself, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration won't be participating in the investigation, Zangaglia said

Well isn't that just too damn convenient!


Industrial accident claims Rock Springs man

GREEN RIVER -- A Rock Springs man died early Tuesday morning from neck and head injuries after the lift vehicle he was driving fell off a loading ramp, according to Sweetwater County authorities.

Douglas Ray Bernard, 35, was found by coworkers at around 6:45 a.m. at Wyoming Rents on Sunset Drive in Rock Springs, said County Coroner Dale Majhanovich. He estimated the accident occurred around 4:30 a.m.

Bernard was operating a manlift from a semi-tractor trailer to an unsecured upholding ramp when accident occurred, Majhanovich said. A manlift is a four-wheel vehicle about the size of an SUV automobile can that lift workers in a cage 30 or 40 feet in the air.

Bush Administration to Study Global Climate Change

What do politicians do when they don't want to act on something? Study it some more.

The Bush administration will announce today final details of a 10-year plan to study global climate change to determine whether greenhouse gases and other human-generated pollutants have contributed to an unnatural warming of Earth's atmosphere.

Yeah, and next on the national research agenda: Is the really Earth round?

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Workplace Safety, But Were Afraid Was True: Interview with Peg Seminario.

We complain a lot (and rightfully so) about the health and safety conditions faced by workers in this country. But we've also made an enormous amount of progress over the past decades and a huge amount of credit goes to Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO Health and Safety Director since any of us can remember (and yet she's still so young!)

Linked here is an excellent interview with Peg from the Multinational Monitor about the state of workplace safety and health in this country today and the Republican war against workers. Print it out and keep it handy. It will be useful for the upcoming elections.

Some of the biggest problems: Not enough inspectors

We've got 2,000 job safety inspectors in the country responsible for overseeing and enforcing the safety and health laws in more than 6 million workplaces.

OSHA actually has fewer staff today than it did in 1980. The workforce and the number of workplaces has grown, but the agency's resources have not grown.

And no political will to enforce the law effectively:

For fiscal year 2002, the federal OSHA only issued 392 willful violations, down from 600 in fiscal year 1999. The average penalty for a willful violation was $27,000, where the maximum would be $70,000.

What we've seen is that while the inspection levels have been maintained by the Bush administration, the level of enforcement and the aggressiveness of enforcement has decreased. The number of willful violations, the number of repeat citations, and then the penalties that are associated with OSHA violations are all down.

Read the rest.

Go Away Ralph

This one is for your friends and relatives who still think voting for Nader is a good idea (Come on, we all have a few of those too.)

Michael Tomasky in the American Prospect gives three good reasons that Nader would be a politco-cidal maniac to run again and advice to Democratic candidates. The second reason for not running is probably to most important:

Second, some voted for Nader because they just weren't inspired by Gore personally. Fine. But it should be obvious today that a candidate's personality is one of the last things serious people ought to be thinking about. No one can survey the past 30 months and conclude, whatever the Democrats' shortcomings, that there's no difference between the parties. We would not have John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Gale Norton, the USA PATRIOT Act, this Trotskyist war in Iraq, two major class-war tax cuts -- the list goes on and on (and on). And that's only the stuff you hear about. In every agency of government, at every level, there are political appointees who are interpreting federal rules and regulations and deciding how much effort will really be put into pursuing federal discrimination cases, for instance, or illegal toxic dumping. These are the people who are, in fact, the federal government. The kinds of people who fill those slots in a Democratic administration are of a very different stripe than the kinds who fill them during a Republican term, and the appointments of these people have a bigger effect on real life than whether Al Gore sighs too heavily or speaks too slowly.

And then Tomasky goes on to give some not-too-subtle, but completely necessary advice to Democratic candidates:

Attack Nader right now, and with lupine ferocity. Say he's a madman for thinking of running again. Blast him especially hard on foreign policy, saying that if it were up to the Greens, America would give no aid to Israel and it would cease to exist, and if it were up to the Greens, America would not have even defended itself against a barbarous attack by going into Afghanistan. Have at him, and hard, from the right. Then nail him from the left on certain social issues, on abortion rights and other things that he's often pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant. Cause an uproar. Be dramatic. Don't balance it with praise about what he's done for consumers. To the contrary, talk about how much he's damaging consumers today by not caring who's in charge of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission.

Don't go away mad Ralph, just go away.

16 Words And What Do You Get?

Another war over (not) and deeper in death....

Need a way to respond to those Republican and Independent relatives and friends (come on, we've all got a few) this summer when they try to dismiss George the W's lies as "just" sixteen little words in a great big speech?

Check out this gem from Buzzflash: 24 "Deceptions" In 704 words: Bush's 2003 State Of The Union. A couple of samples:


4. "92 million Americans will keep, this year, an average of almost $1,000 more of their own money." Bill Gates goes into a bar where nine unemployed workers are nursing their beers. "Whoopee we're rich!" shouts one of them. "The average net worth of every one in this room is 3 billion dollars."

23. "And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies -- and freedom." Not enough food, medicine, supplies or freedom to go around in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

The continuing plight of undocumented immigrant workers. As if life wasn't hard enough, they also have to risk their lives:

A 29-year-old man from Ecuador showed a few weeks ago that the undocumented toil not only underground but sometimes high above it. His work conditions also showed that some employers have little concern about safety.

With two other young men from his homeland, he stood near a subway entrance on 33rd Street in Manhattan and looked up at the 20-story building that he and the others were about to fit with new windows.

For four years, he has been in New York and for that time all his employers have known he has no work documents, he said. He is not in a union. No benefits are offered. The hazards of his job are monitored only by a building inspector who may or may not know of his undocumented status, he said.

And if he is injured, he will have no compensation to cover the medical costs.

"We get paid $10 an hour, in cash," he said just before his foreman came and barked, "Let's do this bit," and darted a finger upward.

Soon the men were on a scaffold that dangled from the roof to the 11th floor, at times sitting on the top bar of its safety railing. A tether was tied to each man's waist to prevent a fall, but it can't stop them from slamming into the scaffold or the building itself.

The foreman would not comment on the workers' safety and immigration status. His superior did not return calls for comment.