Enzi Tries To Kill Minimum Wage, Weaken OSHA At The Same Time

Those of you who follow these issues may have noticed that a minimum wage increase was again defeated last week, thanks to our compassionately conservative Republican friends in the Senate.

Part of the reason the bill went down was that "helpful" Republicans added "poison pill" language to the bill, ensuring that no Democrat would vote for it. Senatory Mike Enzi of Wyoming added the main killer amendment, the Small Business Fair Labor Standards Act Exemption, which read in part:

In the case of a first-time violation by a small business concern of a requirement regarding the collection of information by an agency, the head of such agency shall provide that no civil fine shall be imposed on the small business concern

As Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute explains:

The Enzi amendment excuses millions of employers from paying fines for violations of federal safety and health, pension, and labor regulations. First violations of "information collection requirements" - even if knowing and willful - will be excused for the more than 5 million businesses with revenues under $7 million a year. Information collection requirements include a broad class of notices and postings required in order to inform and protect employees, such as hazardous material warnings, training requirements, and information about pension and health benefit plans.

Gulf Worker Exploitation: The Plot Thickens

I've written a couple of times about the abysmal working conditions of immigrant laborers who have been hired to do Gulf Coast recovery work. Yesterday, I wrote a about a group of skilled construction workers who were terminated an replaced by lower paid, more exploitable immigrant workers.

Well, the plot thickens. Undocumented immigrant workers have been found working on hurricane recovery operations at a naval base near New Orleans where our old friends Kellogg Brown & Root -- a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. is leading hurricane reconstruction.

This isn't the only Halliburton subcontractor that's been up to no good. And for those of you who are just tuning in, the problem here is not just greedy corporations (greed is good), but the Bush administration's recent suspension of a federal law that was designed to suspend such shifty operations:

Work at the base has been a source of dispute in recent weeks because dozens of unionized electricians, many of them local residents who had their homes destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, claim they were let go by another Halliburton subcontractor, Alabama-based BE&K, in favor of lower wage workers. That came after the Bush administration suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, a law that guarantees the prevailing local wage for workers operating under federal contracts.

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who has been following the case closely, said the discovery of illegal immigrants at the naval base confirms that Gulf Coast workers looking for livable wages are getting left out of the federally funded reconstruction.

"I don't think there's any question that there's a pretty significant sucking sound there," he said. "If you were paying prevailing wages, you would be hiring skilled electricians."

Meanwhile, the issue is threatening to grow into a political storm in Washington DC. As I wrote yesterday, Congressman George Miller (D-CA) has found a way to force a vote to overturn the suspension of David Bacon and apparently has enough Republican support to do it.

Those who normally want the undocumented immigrants tarred, feathered and transported out of the country are suddently rising to the defense of the free enterprise right to hire anyone we damn well please, pay 'em whatever they'll take, and work 'em half to death -- just like the good old days.

An identical editorial defending the suspension of Davis Bacon is not mysteriously appearing in newspapers across the country, according to Facing South:

One of the smartest things President Bush did to reduce recovery costs in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was to suspend Davis-Bacon Act rules in the hardest hit states. But Congress is frantically trying to overrule the president, which would add billions of dollars to the already staggering recovery costs.

Amazing, Facing South observes, "that newspapers from California, Colorado, and North Carolina could be channeling, simultaneously and in complete harmony, the Bush administration line for cutting wages for workers rebuilding the Gulf Coast."

The interesting thing is that, Slingshot pointed out last month, suspending Davis Bacon doesn't even save the government money, which was the administration's professed aim in suspending the law.

The David-Bacon foes are quite open about their hopes that the temporary suspension can be made permanent. This is scary enough, but when coupled with a recent Mississippi editorial calling for the temporary suspension of OSHA enforcement, one whether there is any length they will not go to exploit the Gulf tragedy to further their ideological ends.

Gulf Recovery: Paying The Price For Lower Costs

In order to reduce reconstruction costs, President Bush suspended the Davis Bacon law for the Gulf region following Hurrican Katrina. Davis Bacon requires employers who receive federal funds to pay the prevailing wage.

Here's who's really paying the price for the Davis Bacon repeal:

An electrician and foreman with Knight Enterprises cried as he recounted how his team of workers were kicked out of government tents by an out-of-state firm and forced to sleep in their cars.

"Most of our workers, some of whom had lost their homes to the two hurricanes (Katrina and Rita), were sleeping in their personal vehicles and showering in a car wash located on base," Mike Moran said.

Moran's employer was given a 20-month contract to provide power to a camp for military personnel but the contract was cancelled after 17 days.

Knight Enterprises alleges the contract was terminated because the firm was paying the prevailing hourly wage and an outside contractor that was hired paid its workers a lower wage.

After Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, President George W. Bush to waived regulations that require contractors to pay the prevailing or average wage in a region.

For contractors, the benefits of the repeal of Davis Bacon go beyond the opportunity to pay lower wages:

Housing for workers often lacks running water and contractors have failed to provide food, training and wage rates as promised, James Hale, vice president with the Laborers' International Union of North America, told a policy conference of opposition Democrats in the US Senate.

In one case, workers had not been paid for three weeks and at another site there were allegations that security guards were mistreating laborers, said Hale, who supported his allegations with photographs.

Compassionate Conservatism strikes again.

But if Congressman George Miller (D-CA) has his way, the Republican thrill may soon be gone. Miller says that the 1976 National Emergencies Act enables him to force a vote within 15 calendar days of introducing a "Joint Resolution" - which he did at noon today. And there are more than enough Republicans on record (along with Dems) to overturn the wage cut. (via Josh Marshall)

Slow Bloggin'

Visiting daughter number one at college. Slow bloggin' for a while. Read the archives or sound off in the comments.

Teacher Tenure: Who Needs It?

We've all heard the stories about how teacher tenure and comprehensive dismissal rules make it hard to get rid of bad teachers. But although they've been forgotten in the mists of time, there are actually good reasons for them.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 - As a fifth-grade teacher in Lancaster, Calif., Jeanne Marks feels an occasional need to march into her principal's office and request textbooks or other supplies. She has made the trip often enough, she says, that administrators now roll their eyes when she approaches. She calls herself "a squeaky teacher" for speaking out on behalf of her pupils.

For now, however, Ms. Marks has largely stopped squeaking. A ballot measure before California voters next month would not only extend the time that public school teachers wait to gain tenure, to five years from two, but also change the rules for dismissal, allowing administrators to fire any teacher after two unsatisfactory evaluations without what current rules provide: a 90-day period for improvement and a comprehensive appeals process.

Ms. Marks, who has been teaching for seven years, says that if the measure passes, she will be left more vulnerable to a bad evaluation by any administrator inclined to interpret her "squeaking" as troublemaking.

That is but one objection to the measure, Proposition 74, which has set off a political storm for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican running for re-election next year. He is promoting Prop 74 as crucial to reforming public schools by weeding out ineffective teachers.

Unions that represent the state's 300,000 teachers are leading the opposition, arguing that the initiative would do little to improve classroom achievement, would scare away new teachers and would encourage school districts to get rid of older teachers, who cost more in salary and benefits.

Get Out Your Violins: Small Business Victim of the Year

In this line of work, I come across a lot of very sad stories. Children growing up without their fathers or mothers, newlyweds losing their soul-mates, divorces and bankruptcies caused by disabling workplace injuries...

But this story from Business Week is definitely one of the saddest stories I've ever heard:

Last May, an inspector from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration arrived at Jancoa Janitorial Services in Cincinnati for a surprise inspection. Before the inspector left, owner Tony Miller had been cited for two extension cord violations and hit with a $9,000 fine. Miller was determined to fight -- until he learned that his legal fees would exceed the amount of the penalty. He settled for $5,000 and put the first blemish on his record after 33 years in business.

It's a common scenario. While large companies often hire OSHA consultants and attorneys to help them comply with labyrinthine regulations and fight fines, few small businesses have such resources. About 90% of small companies hit with OSHA fines settled or paid the fines without contest in 2004, according to the Labor Dept.

But doing so may have unwelcome consequences. Potential customers may ask to see your business record and be put off by citations, and your insurance premiums may go up. If OSHA finds a similar problem in the future, your next citation may carry stiffer fines and penalties, says Patrick Lyden, manager of legislative affairs for the National Federation of Independent Business.

Let me get myself together for a minute. OK.

Happily for all the small business owners of America, Congressman Charlie Norwood has come up with some solutions to this problem, as we've learned before. As Business Week reports it, "Briefly, the bills would allow companies with fewer than 100 employees and a net worth of less than $7 million to recoup attorneys' fees after a successful appeal. They would also grant leniency to businesses that can come up with a plausible reason for not meeting the 15-day deadline for filing an appeal."

Clearly OSHA made some sort of terrible mistake. Jancoa, after all, was the winner of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year award in 2003. How dare OSHA even cross their threshold.

But wait, let's turn over that rock. Turns out Jancoa is not exactly a paragon of virtue. In fact, it's one of the bad guys in the struggle of Cincinnati janitors to organize. Speaking at a Janitors for Justice rally last summer,

Wilberto Pacheco said Jancoa Janitorial Services Inc. fired him for his union activities. A complaint of unfair labor practice is pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

"They're not the company they portray themselves to be," Pacheco said. "They've been harassing us day, night. That's why we're here, and also for the new workers that come into Jancoa."

According to SEIU organizer Matt Ryan, Jancoa doesn't play very nicely. After organizing efforts began in 2004,

Jancoa responded by threatening employees, including telling some immigrant workers that they would run into trouble with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Ryan said.

***

Ryan said it's seeking an agreement with Jancoa so janitors in the area can achieve livable wages and health benefits while contractors can remain competitive. The SEIU works to develop basic labor standards that are accepted and applied by most contractors in the market, Ryan said.

Jancoa, like many other contractors, offers health benefits, but they are too expensive for workers to afford with the wages they earn, Ryan said. "They're there on paper, but very few people take them."

Not hard to see why they're the darling of Business Week and a shoe-in to win this year's Small Business Victim of the Year award.

And one more thing. Is it possible that the OSHA citations may have had something to do with unsafe conditions that could have caused workers to be injured or killed?

Nah.

UPDATE: A reader writes to inform me that Jancoa actually has 287 employees and therefore wouldn't be small enough to be covered under Norwood's bill.

So, if this is such a big problem, you'd think that Business Week might be able to find at least one company that would actually have been helped by Norwood's bill.

Or, as Emily Litella would say, "Nevermind."

OSHA: Failure to Communicate?

For those of use "old timers" who have toiled on workplace safety and health issues through the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush I, and now George Bush II, there have been two notable differences in this Republican administration -- virtually no new major health and safety standards, and a deliberate public effort to ignore labor unions as much as possible.

So it was no surprise to anyone who follows these issues when AFL-CIO Health and Safety Director Peg Seminario told Inside OSHA (subscription required) that the AFL-CIO

wants assurances that Edwin Foulke, if confirmed as the new head of OSHA, will reopen the agency’s doors to unions, which AFL-CIO says have been shut by OSHA under the Bush administration. The labor group’s trepidation is not Foulke’s history but what it says are Department of Labor chief Elaine Chao’s orders that OSHA not speak or deal with AFL-CIO.

No surprise to anyone, that is, except apparently OSHA's Public Affairs office. In response to Seminario's statement, and OSHA spokesperson told Inside OSHA

"That’s ridiculous. We continue to work with every union that wants to work with us on health and safety issues, and have created more health and safety partnerships with unions than any other Administration. That includes affiliates from both the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition. We also recently announced over $5 million to partner with unions to provide critical health and safety training for workers who are engaged in disaster response, clean-up and rebuilding activities in the hurricane-impacted Gulf States region."

Well, not quite. There are far too many examples to name where this administration has gone out of its way to deal labor out of the card game, but just to name two: OSHA's National Advisory Committee on Ergonomics, established after the Bush administration repealed the ergonomics standard, was the first advisory committee in OSHA's history that did not mandate an equal number of labor and management representatives. Second, at its first opportunity, OSHA removed Seminario from its National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health, a bit like holding a business summit without inviting the Chamber of Commerce. And OSHA has frequently rebuffed the AFL-CIO's requests to confer on a number of subjects.

Regarding the recently awarded training grants, actuallya little over half of the $5 million went to unions (but who's counting?), and who else are they going to give money to? The construction unions are some of the few non-profit organizations in the country that can must an adequate number of skilled workers to address a problem as big as the Gulf hurricanes.

Oh, and this is the same worker training program that the Bush administration is trying to eliminate in next year's budget.

Ridiculous, indeed.

AIHA: Foulke Will Be Best OSHA Director -- Ever!

The American Industrial Hygiene Association ("the premier association of occupational and environmental health and safety professionals") has endorsed Edwin Foulke for Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA.

AIHA believes Mr. Foulke is committed to the proposition that OSHA can serve both the objectives of protecting the worker and helping businesses to be profitable – that these objectives are complementary.

The endorsement didn't go over well with all AIHA members. Social Concerns Committee member Buck Cameron wonders: "I must be getting forgetful. I can't seem to recall the section of the OSH Act that gives OSHA the responsibility for promoting employer profitability. Can anyone help me out here?"

Good question, Buck. Maybe the AIHA is confusing OSHA with the Department of Commerce?

The best place to check to help Buck out is Section 2 of the Act, Congressional Findings and Purpose which starts off:

(a) The Congress finds that personal injuries and illnesses arising out of work situations impose a substantial burden upon, and are a hindrance to, interstate commerce in terms of lost production, wage loss, medical expenses, and disability compensation payments.

(b) The Congress declares it to be its purpose and policy, through the exercise of its powers to regulate commerce among the several States and with foreign nations and to provide for the general welfare, to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources --

Unless you interpret "regulating commerce" or perhaps providing for the "general welfare" as somehow meaning "helping businesses to be profitable."

There's also a bunch of other garbage there about "providing for the development and promulgation of occupational safety and health standards," "providing for training programs," "exploring ways to discover latent diseases, establishing causal connections between diseases and work in environmental conditions," and bunch of other things that OSHA doesn't seem to have time, resources or will to do anymore -- what with all the time and energy the agency spends "helping businesses to be profitable."

The only reservation the AIHA has

would be the concern that Mr. Foulke does not bring any "front-line" health and safety experience to the position. As some have said, "the job of OSHA assistant secretary is different from being on the commission".

Some have also said that the job of OSHA assistant secretary is different from working for a law firm specializing in "union avoidance" while spending most of your career representing companies that are fighting OSHA citations.

Movie Review: Innocent Voices

I don't usually do movie reviews on this site, but I'll make an exception for Innocent Voices, a movie about a boy growing up in the middle of El Salvador's civil war. It was just released in theaters, but I saw it at the DC Film Festival last Apring.

With all the violence suffusing movies these days, I've rare seen one that more closely evokes what it must be like for a child to live through a civil war as brutal as El Salvador's. You also can't help but think about what children must be experiencing this moment in Iraq (not to mention other countries in the world where wars rage.

But this wouldn't be Confined Space if I didn't say something critical about the Washington Post's movie reviewer, Desson Thomson.

So if "Innocent Voices" lacks political objectivity -- it depicts a Salvadoran civil war of gimlet-eyed, American-funded soldiers against genial, guitar-strumming guerrillas -- that's just how one man remembers it. Luis Mandoki's movie is based on the reminiscences of Oscar Orlando Torres, who came of age during El Salvador's 12-year bitter conflict that, by its end in 1992, had left 75,000 dead and sent a million exiles to other parts of the world.

Maybe I missed something, but I remember the war in El Salvador as a pretty clear case of good vs. evil. It makes you wonder what Thompson would write about a World War II movie:

So if "Schindler's List" lacks political objectivity -- it depicts a World War II of gimlet-eyed, cruel Nazi soldiers against genial, fiddle-playing Jews -- that's just how one man remembers it.

Must be objective and all that.

Immigrant Workers Exploited in Gulf Coast, As Expected

Well, this is certainly a surprise.

As expected, the Gulf coast is being flooded with immigrant workers, many of whom are undocumented, and, as expected, they are being exploited and abused, and as expected, Bush Administration policies are making the situation worse by suspending Davis Bacon law which would have required employers paid by federal funds to pay contruction workers the prevailing wage:

GULFPORT, Miss., Oct. 14 - The acrid smell inside trailer No. 2 is tough to take for any length of time. The linoleum floor is filthy and bare, aside from a few soiled blankets jammed in the corners. Dishes caked with leftover food are piled high in the sink, attracting flies. Two portable fans are the only things stirring the air.

But six men are living here. They sleep on that floor. They swat away those flies and dodge the roaches at night. They traveled all the way from Guatemala for this.

"It's O.K. for us," said one of them, Francisco Velazquez. "We need money."

***

Mr. Velazquez, 45, is one of 32 immigrants housed in three mobile homes who are being paid $8 an hour to tear Sheetrock for 10 hours a day. The men are among hundreds of illegal immigrants who entered the United States hoping to find work in the aftermath of the hurricane.

They are promised good pay, three meals a day and a place to stay, and some contractors make good on this. But the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, an advocacy group, says many do not.

"These workers are superexploited by contractors in horrible living conditions," said Bill Chandler, the president of the alliance. "People are working without any kind of inoculation - tetanus or anti-hepatitis - they don't have goggles, they don't have gloves, they don't have any safety protection at all."

Last month, President Bush made it easier for employers to use a less-expensive hand, suspending the Davis-Bacon Act in the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The act is a Depression-era law that prohibits federally financed construction jobs from paying wages less than a local average.

Not only are the living and working conditions abominable, but many of the workers aren't even getting paid:

Arnoldo Antonio Lopez, 36, another worker in the group, said he paid $70 a month to live in trailer No. 10. He said he would have put up with the poor conditions, but the contractor who hired him did not pay him. "He promised me $7 an hour wages and good food," Mr. Lopez said.

He and the other men went to work for another contractor. But that employer also did not pay, they said. The alliance refused to name any of the employers because it is considering legal action.

"They hadn't eaten for three days when we got to them," said Vicki Cintra, the Gulf Coast outreach organizer for the alliance. "They had no blankets, nothing. They were sleeping on the floor. They had no money to buy food."

Despite the exploitation, there are fears in Florida that the lure of work on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast will draw needed immigrant labor away from Florida's fruit harvest and construction boom:

For many years, Mexican immigrants have been streaming into Southern states along a land route from the Southwest border. Smugglers and labor recruiters carry them by truck, bus and van to farms and worksites all the way down to the bustling service industries of South Florida.

"This is the dream work force for employers," observed Greg Schell, managing attorney for the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project. "Go to any construction site and you'll find a high percentage of undocumented workers. What is driving the South Florida construction boom is very cheap labor."

Florida growers and many businesses have come to depend on this undocumented work force. Now, some employers are becoming concerned that much of this labor pool will get diverted to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"If we have a shortage in our work force, particularly during the critical harvest season, that could be economically disastrous," said Walter Kates, director of labor relations for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. "All of our crops down here are highly perishable. It would definitely have a ripple effect."

The immigrant influx is also causing resentment among higher paid native construction workers:

In one recent instance, 75 union electricians held a news conference to show off their termination letters from a job site at the Louisiana National Guard's Naval Air Station in Belle Chasse, south of downtown New Orleans. They said a contractor had replaced them with 120 immigrant workers from Houston. A spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, Neal Martin, said he hadn't heard of any such incident.

Gary Warren, the political director for the Louisiana Regional Carpenters Council, said his group is regularly getting complaints from union members laid off by contractors and replaced with immigrant workers.

"Nobody wants me to say this because it's not politically correct, but they are calling them 'Texans.' What they are really using is a lot of illegal labor," Warren said. "It's an issue of people who lost everything being laid off in favor of people from out of state."

Public vs. Private Sector Employees: Not Created Equal

Roger LeBlanc was electrocuted on Aug. 3, 2004, while trying to restore power at the Hilton Hotel at Logan International Airport.

Paul R. King was electrocuted on July 27, 2005, when he came in contact with an energized 480-volt electrical box while working at Logan International Airport in Boston, on the roof of Terminal C.

Two weeks ago, OSHA proposed a total of $54,000 in fines against King's employer, Main Tech, a facilities support services contractor for Jet Blue.

OSHA's investigation found that the electrical box had not been deenergized and its power source locked out prior to starting the work. Procedures to do so had not been developed and no qualified person had tested to verify that electrical circuits and parts had been deenergized.

In addition, the deceased and a second worker had not been trained in safe electrical work practices or supplied protective gloves and face protection. A workplace hazard assessment to determine what protective equipment the workers needed was not conducted. Finally, the workers were exposed to fall hazards from the terminal roof and a trailer due to lack of guardrails.

No penalty was ever proposed for Le Blanc's death even though OSHA regulations were violatedby his employer as well.

So why a penalty for King's employer and not for Le Blanc's? Because Le Blanc was an employee of Massport, a government agency, and government employees in Massachusetts (and 26 other states) are not covered by OSHA -- they have no right to a safe workplace.

Massachusetts House Bill 3753 and Senate Bill 1773 would provide OSHA coverage for public employees. According to a MassCOSH brochure:

They pick up our trash, put out our fires, care for our disabled and provide needed services for the state, in cities and towns or counties. They are highway workers exposed daily to lead dust. They are MWRA workers, exposed to raw sewage often in small, enclosed spaces. And they are maintenance workers who work with heavy machinery. But the health and well being of the more than 400,000 city, state and county employees who labor in Massachusetts are less valued than those who work in the private sector.

Each year 10 – 15% of workers in Massachusetts killed on the job are public sector workers. Thousands more are injured or become ill - but only private sector workers are covered under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

What are the chances of these getting passed? You might think pretty good as the Democrats dominate both houses of the legislature.

Yet year, after year, public employees continue to be treated like second class citizens whose lives aren't even worth the same protections that private sector employees have. Something wrong with this.

Miers and Roberts: "CEO's Dream Team"

The night John Roberts was nominated for the Supreme Court, I wrote a piece highlighting is corporate-centered anti-labor credentials. Earlier that month, I posted an article entitled Supreme Court Abolishes OSHA, EPA where I quoted political analyst David Sirota saying that in its Supreme Court coverage the press is missing "the real storyline of "Big Money" vs. "Ordinary Americans."

Well, the story is still the same with Harriet Miers and the main-stream-media (in this case, Business Week reporter Lorraine Woellert in the Washington Post) is picking up on the story.

But while Bush dodges the brickbats, another critical element of the Republican political base is applauding from the wings.

That would be big business. For the first time in more than three decades, corporate America could find itself with not one, but two, Supreme Court allies with in-the-trenches industry experience -- Miers and newly minted Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Don't be fooled by the low-key personas they have projected thus far; both are legal wonks who have packed a powerful punch in the corporate world. Together, they could be a CEO's dream team.

Why is this?

Miers has a blue-chip résumé that would wow Wall Street....Her decades as a high-powered corporate litigator are just the beginning. She also has served on the corporate boards of a securities fund and a mortgage company. She's tackled the entire spectrum of commercial issues firsthand, defending Texas car dealers against price-fixing charges, challenging claims that Microsoft sold defective software, protecting Walt Disney's trademarks, and taking on consumers who sued mortgage companies for violating debt collection laws.

But, for the boardroom set, it's her work outside the courtroom that sets her apart. For years, Miers was a driving force in Texas for reforms that would protect industry from lawsuits. She helped elect reform-minded judges to the state bench, including longtime friend Nathan Hecht, a Texas supreme court justice who is derided by trial lawyers as the father of Texas tort reform. Until 2001, Miers was a director of the Committee for a Qualified Judiciary, a Texas political action committee devoted to electing conservative judges. In 1995, the pro-business Texas Civil Justice League hired her to press for caps on punitive damage awards and curbs on medical malpractice claims. It was a short-lived gig; Miers felt uneasy lobbying her former client, George W. Bush, who had just been elected governor. So she withdrew.

Still, that same year she urged Bush to veto legislation that would ban the state Supreme Court from limiting attorneys' fees, calling the bill "an assault" on a court that was in Republican hands for the first time. Bush took her advice. "She'll be a very strong judge for business interests," says Texas trial lawyer Fred Baron.

David Sirota actually beat the Post to the punch with a couple of pieces likening Miers' nomination to putting Ken Lay on the court.

With Miers serving as managing partner of the law firm Locke Liddell & Sapp, the firm "helped accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP sell a sham tax shelter" by advising investors that they "'should' be able to beat the Internal Revenue Service in court." Miers' firm "appears to have made $3.5 million on 70 such deals" which a Senate report called called "potentially abusive or illegal."

This is the latest detail in an ever-sharpening picture of Miers as an ethically challenged individual, willing to ignore the law in pursuit of Corporate America's agenda.

The Post also focuses on the different interests between the corporate community and Bush's right-wing religious base which is extremely unhappy about Miers' lack of judicial philosophy:

Corporations worship pragmatism and don't give a whit about judicial philosophy. But it's rank heresy to many on the right, who have had it up to here with jurists who weigh social and cultural mores when crafting opinions. Religious and other social conservatives want justices who will apply a very narrow "strict constructionist" interpretation to the Constitution and not read new rights -- such as the right to privacy found in Roe v. Wade -- into the framers' text.

It will be interesting to see if the business associations venture into the battle between Bush and the religious wing. The National Association of Manufacturers has announces that it will "consider" Miers' nomination, the same way it considered, and eventually endorsed Roberts. The US Chamber of Commerce, which also endorsed Roberts, has called Miers a "good pick" and said that the Chamber would "participate in the process as appropriate."

From this perspective, the choice of Harriet Miers is still a poltical problem, but seems less of a mistake. I have often said that George Bush was just using the religious right to get himself elected so that he could push his real agenda, the business agenda. The religious wing of the party is feeling betrayed, and rightly so. In What's The Matter With Kansas, author Tom Franks describes how the Republican party has succeeded in seducing "values based" Christians with pro-life, anti-gay promises while actually pushing a corporate agenda that not only has no interest in their "values" issues, but actually works against their economic interests.

Hopefully, these so-called "values voters" are starting to figure out that they've been hoodwinked, and who they've been sold out to.

No Stinkin' OSHA Needed In Mississippi. Getting Injured Just Goes With The Job

Reading this editorial from the Clarion Ledger in Mississippi brings me back to the good old days when newspapers could write about how African Americans had no place in school with our pure white daughters and how women really aren't made to do anything but raise children.

OK, now we could just call him an ignorant, small minded, anti-government S.O.B., but I would imagine that there are more than a few people out there who would say "Hmm, this guy makes sense." So maybe a more thoughtful response is in order.

Don't let OSHA delay work crews from hurricane clean-up

OSHA has rolled into town and will halt the clean-up process to the best of its ability.

Sure, OSHA serves its purpose, making sure disreputable employers provide safe working conditions for their employees. But there is no place for OSHA in such an unprecedented catastrophe as Katrina.

With luck, we may have a couple of more weeks of dry weather before the rains set inand the mud will make it impossible to work on the roadside and in yards, removing debris.

Our crew was working near Bogalusa, La., loading tree trucks and limbs from the roadside, when a self-important, short-spoken OSHA official stopped to issue ultimatums such as sawyers must wear chaps, protective glasses and hard hats; and truck drivers must wear hard hats and reflective vests. She said this was the only warning; next time she would write us up and we would pay fines.

To start with, we might find some sort of vests but there are no chaps and few hardhats to be found in south Louisiana or Mississippi.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has also issued regulations for flagmen regarding orange flags and orange vests, and I will admit it has more substance to its requirements, though this is no time for DOT to go around shutting down work crews.

Those who want their street and town cleared of debris should make a call to their local or state authorities and tell them they want their town's crews left alone.

Sure somebody will be injured, as it goes with the job and no arrogant OSHA official can stop it from happening. All they can do is stop many hard-working crews from trying to make two once-beautiful states beautiful again.

Mike Reese
Columbus
(emphasis added)

OK, let's do a bit of myth busting.

OSHA has rolled into town and will halt the clean-up process to the best of its ability.

OSHA (unfortunately) has virtually no power to shut down a workplace. The only exception is when there's an imminent danger (e.g. someone is about to get killed) and they get a court order (which sort of contradicts the imminent danger of the situation). And it gets worse. It's generally months after the inspection that OSHA cites an employer, and if the employer appeals, he doesn't have to fix the problem until the appeal is resolve -- often months or years later.

Sure, OSHA serves its purpose, making sure disreputable employers provide safe working conditions for their employees. But there is no place for OSHA in such an unprecedented catastrophe as Katrina.

Here we have two myths in one sentence. First, the myth that the only justification for OSHA enforcement is a few "disreputable" employers out there and second, that safe working conditions are a luxury only affordable when we have the time and money to afford them.

It's not just those few really really bad, evil unscrupulous employers who fail to fix unsafe working conditions allowing workers to be injured or killed anymore than it's raging sociopathic alcoholics who cause fatal automobile accidents. People have a tendency to cut corners and hope for good luck if they're in a hurry or have a chance to earn more money. That's why "good" people as well as very bad people sometimes run afoul of the law and need a gentle reminder that society works best when we all obey the law -- but sometimes we need a cop or an OSHA inspector to "remind us."

In addition, just because we're legitimately in a hurry or doing really important work doesn't mean we can suspend all laws and safe working conditions. Sure, in a mass catastrophe, people are going to do what they need to do to save as many lives as possible -- OSHA regs be damned. But, first we're long past that point on the Gulf Coast, and second, even emergency situations are no excuse for flinging safety aside. OSHA standard require that workers be trained in safe rescue; rushing in without proper training and equipment often just results in increasing the numbers of victims, which is why statistics show that as many rescuers as original victims are killed in confined space and trench rescues.

Sure somebody will be injured, as it goes with the job and no arrogant OSHA official can stop it from happening.

Getting injured does not just go with the job. Injuries are not inevitable, acts of nature or God's will. They are simply the result of unsafe working conditions, lack of training, lack of proper personal protective equipment, etc. He's right that OSHA officials can't stop every injury, any more than cops can stop every traffic accident, robbery or mugging. But OSHA inspectors and cops can enforce the law to the best of their ability and, hopefully, establish enough of a deterrent so that all but the truly criminal will think twice about breaking the law and endangering other people.

So sure, "Those who want their street and town cleared of debris should make a call to their local or state authorities and tell them they want their town's crews left alone." And those of you who want to be able to sleep a few more minutes in the morning should call their local and state authorities and tell the police to lay off the speeding fines. And those of you who want to get your houses built faster should call their local and state authorities and tell them to stop enforcing building and fire codes. And those of you who don't like your brothers-in-law.....

Who knew that the Clarion Ledger had anarchists working for them.
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Health and Safety Train-the-Trainer Course

The George Meany National Labor College and the (former) AFL-CIO Department of Occupational Safety and Health is offering another workplace safety and health Train-the-Trainer course January 29 - February 3, 2006. Participants in the six-day program will learn how to teach union members and other workers about safety and health from a union perspective, learn how to involve members in safety and health and how to make union more effective in tackling safety and health problems.

This program is for union activists, staff, and local union health and safety representatives who would like to teach their membership about workplace health and safety issues. The program will have approximately 20 participants who must be sponsored by their union or organization and must agree to facilitate safety and health training in their union or organization. It will be held at National Labor College at the George Meany Campus in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Specific topics to be covered include:

• Worker and Union Roles in Workplace Safety and Health
• Identifying Hazards in the Workplace
• Legal Health and Safety Rights of Workers and Union
• Record keeping (OSHA 300 Log) Requirements
• Introduction to Ergonomics
• Effective Health and Safety Committees

More information here.

On The Shop Floor At Delphi

I wrote a piece a few days ago about the bankruptcy at Delphi. Corp. This is an excerpt from Delphi employee Todd Jordan about what it was like on shop floor the day after the bankruptcy announcement was made:

By the end of his [the supervior's] rambling and distribution of company propaganda and how he is concerned with my future. He finishes by encouraging us to work hard as if nothing is going on. He offers up the one piece of information even worth a shit. He tells us our department has jumped from 3,600 parts a day to 5,000. Back in June before Miller came into the picture and before talk of bankruptcy we had been doing 3,000 parts a day. Soon as the word bankruptcy started getting thrown around and Miller was in place that number went to 3,600 the next day. Now, the day after bankruptcy it is 5,000. He assures us upon being asked that the parts will go directly into GM vehicles, but we know better. They have been building an inventory buffer for months not just in Kokomo, but all Delphi plants. These parts are not going into vehicles; they will be used to counter a possible strike.

The most ironic part of all of this is we haven’t been able to build even the original 3,000 parts. We are so short on people due to retirees not getting replaced we barely have enough to run. Half the machines are not even ran on second shift and only ¼ of them are run on midnights. Just in September alone we had nearly 120 people retire from Delphi Kokomo. Nobody has been replaced in our plant since shortly after the 1999 spin-off. That’s 6 years of people retiring who have not been replaced. What we have seen is dozens of departments shutdown and sent overseas. We have thousands of empty square feet in our facility. Football field sized areas with crated up machines or just empty space.

Sunday Funnies (At Wal-Mart's Expense) From The Folks At JibJab

Life got you down? Bush is crashing and burning, but still around for three more years. The labor movement is splitting up. The polar ice cap is disappearing along with the Amazon rain forest. And

Wal- Mart is taking over the world.

Well, not if the folks at JibJab can help it.

Here's something to get you laughing a bit again. The famous JibJab webcartoon has created a hilarious satire about Wal-Mart.

Check out Big Box Mart here.

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Deciding To Die

I'm confused.

Two men have fallen from the same roof of a WalMart under construction. On died, and the other, a cousin of the first, is in good condition.

What happened is as clear as mud. The police say equipment failure, the employer (surprise, surprise) says the worker was careless .

"The preliminary investigation is that his harness apparatus failed and he fell and suffered some serious injuries,” said Arkansas City Police Capt. Sean Wallace.

"It was an unfortunate situation," said Ron Reynolds with Key Construction. “It was a situation where an individual made a bad decision. He was very well equipped with safety devices and stepped off a secure platform and took that one step that led to a fall."

Reynolds says sometimes decisions are made and one second makes the difference in life and death.

"That particular device was taken out of service that day and was not used after that,” said Wallace.

So, faulty equipment or "bad decision?"

And while we're at it, what is this crap about a "bad decision?" It sounds like me talking to my daughter about sex and drugs. It's just psychobable for the same old theory that all workplace accidents can be blamed on lazy, careless workers.

Faulty equipment or "bad decision?" Check back in about six months and we'll see what OSHA decides.

The Bankrupt Oracle of Delphi

The lament that if [Delphi Chairman Steve] Miller gets his way, auto-parts workers won't be able to buy the cars that they help build. Guess what? Boeing workers can't buy airplanes, either.

The blogosphere has been remarkably quiet about one of the most momentous events of the past weeks: the bankruptcy of Delphi Corp. For those of you who aren't perusing the business page regularly, Delphi Corp., a giant auto parts manufacturer that spun off from GM a number of years ago, has declared bankruptcy and announced its intention to cut its employees' salaries by one third: from $27 an hour to $10 an hour.

Why so momentous? What we're seeing before our very eyes are the final nails being driven into the coffin of the American blue-collar middle class. Delphi's actions will soon spread to GM and the entire American auto industry. As Harold Meyerson wrote in the Washington Post earlier this week:

And in the United States, auto isn't just any old industry. For much of the 20th century, it was, by many measures, our premier industry, the pride of the nation. Its Big Three manufacturers employed the most workers, produced the most output, made the largest profits, and paid their workers enough to transform the economic profile of the entire nation. In 1914, one year after he opened his first assembly line, Henry Ford doubled the daily pay of his workers, saying he wanted them to make enough to buy the cars they produced. The Fordist compact was greatly enhanced by the rise in the 1930s of the United Auto Workers, whose contracts (along with those of the United Steelworkers) created the first employment-based health insurance benefits in the land and soon became the model for our mid-century economy. In the post World War II decades, America became home to the first decently paid working class in the history of the world. This was no mean distinction.

But that was oh, so then. If Delphi gets its way, its employees will clearly not be able to buy new GM cars. (At the rate things are going, they'll have to save up to buy gas.) In the face of the combined onslaught of globalization, de-unionization and deregulation, the bottom may not be falling out of the American economy, but the middle certainly is. The very notion of a decently paid working-class job has become a defining oxymoron of our time.

Corporate America, on the other hand, can barely contain its glee and approval of the toughness and realism of Delphi Chairman Steve Miller. Dow Jones Newswires President Paul Ingrassi, writing in today's Wall St. Journal (subscription required)said --presumably with a straight face:

Another piece of sophistry: the lament that if Miller gets his way, auto-parts workers won't be able to buy the cars that they help build. Guess what? Boeing workers can't buy airplanes, either. The real issue is what pay-and-benefits levels will let Delphi effectively compete for business. That's about $20-to-$25 an hour, says Mr. Miller, instead of the current $65 per hour.

And who are we "effectively competing with?" Workers in China. In that case, we can't compete paying $10 an hour either.

Other business columnists, like the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein, resort to classical economics to justify these attacks on workers high wages and benefits. Referring to Henry Ford's commitment to pay his workers enough so that they could afford to buy one of the cars they produce, Pearlstein explains:

If every company was unionized and paid higher wages, all it would create in the end is inflation, and nobody would be better off. There are only two ways to get richer in a market economy. One, is to distort labor and product markets in a way that makes you richer at the expense of someone else. The other is to figure out how to work more productively. And in the golden years of the unionized industrial unions, alot of the gains were of the first sort rather than the second.

Now, I'm no economist, but I still find these explanations perplexing, to say the least. On one hand, workers need to take major cuts because it's the only way we can compete with foreign workers. On the other hand, the only legitimate criteria on which to base workers' salaries is productivity. But last I looked, American workers are among the most productive in the world, yet with the wages paid to Chinese workers, high productivity and a buck twenty five only gets you a ride on the Metro.

Miller's not winning any friends among the company's workers either. First, his tone resembles the kidnapper who threatens to cut a finger off your child every hour you're late with the ransom:

He said the number of factories to be closed will be determined partly by how quickly Delphi's unions get to the negotiating table. Miller suggested that some factories could be saved if negotiations pick up quickly and can be handled outside court. "In the end [the union] will do it and they will do it in the right way," he said.

And then there's little contradiction between thr incentives given managers to stay with the company, versus the "incentives" given to workers so they won't be laid off.

Miller said Delphi increased severance packages for some top executives just before the bankruptcy filing because he had to act to keep his management team. Miller, whose own pay includes a $3 million signing bonus and a $1.5 million annual salary, said executives had to sign agreements to stay with the company to be eligible for the packages. "They can't quit. We blocked the exit doors," Miller said.

Workers, on the other hand, can only stay if they take major pay cuts.

Finally, the aftershocks of Delphi's bankruptcy will not be limited to the auto industry, or even just to blue collar workers: As Meyerson points out, we already have a preview of what Delphi's oracle is predicting:

Those middle-income jobs that still come with benefits attached are increasingly clustered in the public sector, where they are becoming more vulnerable politically. In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, teachers, nurses and cops struggled to win contracts comparable to the auto and steelworkers' deals. Today, they are among the last workers in America -- along with chief executive officers, we should note -- to still have defined-benefit pensions. How long they can go on before their standards, too, are ratcheted down is anybody's guess. In California, whacking public employees has become the primary purpose of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; it is the goal that underpins his initiatives in the special election he has called for next month.

And why stop there? While we're cutting wages and benefits back to 19th century levels to stay competitive, why not dismantle workplace and environmental protections as well? Eight hour days and all those damn holidays may also be luxuries we'll just have to learn to do without if we want to continue to eat and have a roof over our heads.

Miller says that Delphi's experience "has brought into sharp relief the different value the global market places on knowledge workers versus basic manufacturing workers… If you want your kids to enjoy the great American dream, get them a good education." How this is suppose to happen in an economy of McDonalds' wages, I'm not sure.

So what is to be done? Delphi's losing money? Globalization is a fact. And this is clearly a problem much bigger than Delphi. Again, I'm no economist. But there's an obvious place, as pointed out by labor blogger Jonathan Tasini:

Last point: can we scream any louder that part of the problem facing industry is the lack of a single-payer national health insurance program? Delphi, and the rest of the auto industry, are teetering because of hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs (and a good dose of mismanagement, too)--health insurance that workers deserve and should not give up. But, it's over, done, finished: private employer health insurance is a complete failure. Forget morality: national health insurance is an issue of economic competitiveness.

Finally, let's not forget that these wages and benefits (as well as health & safety rights) were not bestowed upon workers by benevolent managers. The rights and benefits that American workers enjoy (and take for granted) were were won after hard-fought, often bloody battles against those who wanted to keep as much as possible for themselves. Among the lessons that American workers are supposed to be learning in these difficult times, that is one they dare not forget.

Popcorn Lung Cases Settled

Nineteen victims of bronchiolitis obliterans or "popcorn lung," a disease that destroys the lungs, have reached a settlement with the manufacturer of diacetyl, the butter-flavoring chemical that caused the disease among the workers. The amount of the settlement was undisclosed, but does not affect the $53 million in damages to employees who won previous lawsuits against International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. and its subsidiary, Bush Boake Allen Inc.

I wrote quite a bit about this tragedy last year (see here) and how it illustrated the bankruptcy of the American regulatory system that assumes chemical to be innocent until proven guilty -- usually by the death or illness of exposed workers. Diacetyl had been found to cause serious lung damage years before these workers were exposed, yet the Material Safety Data Sheets did not contain appropriate warnings about the possible health effects or the need to wear respirators. Many of the workers exposed at the popcorn factory will need lung transplants. One of the scientists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health who studied the chemical after the effects became known used the words "astonishingly grotesque" to describe the toxic effect of diacetyl, a key ingredient in the flavoring. Another said that the effect of breathing butter flavoring vapors could be likened to inhaling acid.

OSHA has no permissible exposure limit covering diacetyl, the Toxic Substances Control Act doesn't cover diacetyl because it's a food additive, and the Food and Drug Administration doesn't regulate diacetyl because it's authority does not extend to the toxic effects of food additives on workers.

Four workers won $53 million from juries in cases that were tried earlier, and six other workers reached settlements with the company. (More here)

Formosa Plastics: A Neighbor From Hell

Author Diane Wilson doesn't think much of Formosa Plastics, a chemical company whose Port Comfort, Texas plant blew up last week injuring 11 workers:

Formosa Plastics Texas, the shiny new chemical plant on the block and the pride of Texas politicians, businessmen, and economic development types, was heralded as the county's savior (never mind the tax abatements) when construction got under way on the mammoth $1.3-billion-plus PVC plant. But by the mid '90s it had already earned the rank of worst among a dozen Texas PVC-related facilities. In 1991, Formosa was fined a record $3.7 million by the EPA for hazardous waste violations related to the discovery of massively contaminated groundwater under the facility. Violations included failures to comply with the most rudimentary hazardous-waste regulation -- storing waste in leaking containers, lack of adequate employee training, and illegal discharges of wastes.

In 1990, the company was fined $244,00 for 54 water-quality violations, then again in 1992, after a ten thousand pound release of hydrochloride gas that sent neighbors and cows bawling into the night, Formosa was fined $330,000 for worker-safety violations. OSHA inspection found that vinyl chloride levels were not monitored, flammable liquids were not handled properly, and general procedure for maintenance and repair were not followed.

In July '97, two workers were found asphyxiated and floating in a barge of EDC (ethylene dichloride) at the Formosa loading docks. In December '98, an explosion containing EDC injured 26 workers, rattled windows 35 miles away, and contaminated a back waterway into the bay with levels up to 400 ppm of EDC. In April 2004, Formosa's plant in Illinois exploded, killing 6 workers and injuring many more.

Wilson is the author of An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift , Texas, "a barnstorming tale of her battle with Formosa, one of the nation's worst polluters."