BASEBALL HALL OF FAME JOINS REPUBLICAN PARTY
(Take me out of the Ball Game--Please!)

Calling all baseball fans. This you have to see. Click here.

SARS At Home: Is Transmission to Health Care Workers Important (from a public health perspective)?

The New York Times reports that there have been over 150 cases of SARS in the United States, including three health care workers. No one has died. There seems to be some controversy emerging, however, about what the U.S. is reporting to the World Health Organization (WHO), and the importance U.S. health officials place on workplace transmission.

Although the World Health Organization has asked countries to send information about every case, the U.S. has apparently not reported "secondary transmission case" Patient to health care worker transmission are considered by the CDC as "secondary transmission," as opposed to "community transmission." The U.S. has only been reporting "community transmission" to the WHO.

Because the secondary spread to hospital workers and household members "represents close contact transmission of patient to health care worker or ill person to family contact in a household setting," the C.D.C. does not consider such secondary transmission as community transmission, Dr. [James] Hughes said

And as for health care workers...

"What is important from a public health perspective is are you having uncontrolled transmission in a community setting, and that clearly is not happening in the United States," Dr. Hughes said." .

I would wager that there are some health care workers would probably dispute the contention that transmission in a health care environment is not "important from a public health perspective." Once again, we are taken back to those days of yesteryear when the CDC overlooked the crucial role that health care workers play in any health crisis (then it was AIDS), and the priority that must be placed on caring for the caregivers if they expect the caregivers to be able to do their jobs.

FOR SOME GOOD LINKS TO SARS RESOURCES, CHECK OUT HAZARDS and LabourStart

More information about Pekka Aro who died last week from SARS

ICFTU Mourns Loss of Pekka Aro, Trade Unionist and ILO Official

Pekka Aro, an International Labour Organisation official and former national and international trade union representative passed away in Beijing on Sunday following a short illness diagnosed as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Aro, 52 years old, had a distinguished career in the international trade union movement prior to joining the ILO in 1992. After working for the Finnish Glass and Porcelain Workers' Union and the Paper Workers' Union, he became Deputy General Secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy and General Workers' Unions ICEF (now the Global Union Federation ICEM) from 1984 - 89. During this time he was Chairperson of the ICFTU Working Party on Occupational Health, Safety and the Environment, a body which he was instrumental in establishing, and carried out work of historic importance in this field. A prolific author of articles and books, he co-authored "The Trade Union Report on Bhopal" after leading an ICFTU-ICEF mission to study the causes and effects of the industrial disaster at the Union Carbide plant in that city. (ICFTU OnLine (Brussels 7 April 2003)) Forwarded by Vern Mogensen

Too Busy Writing Weak Ergonomics Guidelines and, uh, umm Homeland Security. And Stuff...

New OSHA Chemical Exposure Limits Ordered
04/03/2003

WASHINGTON (AP) A federal appeals court has ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue regulations to set a new limit on work exposure to the industrial chemical hexavalent chromium. The order by the U.S. Appeals Court for the 3rd Circuit gives the agency until January 2006 to issue a final rule with new exposure limits for the chemical, which has been shown to cause lung cancer if inhaled at certain levels. A proposed rule must be issued by Oct. 4. The court order was in response to a lawsuit filed last year by Public Citizen and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union. The lawsuit claimed that OSHA was aware that its current exposure limit posed a cancer risk to workers, but has continually delayed any action. The groups have urged OSHA to lower the limit for more than a decade.

SARS CRISIS AND THE UNIONS

By now you've all heard about SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

As of this morning, according to the WHO, 2,671 cases in 17 countries have been reported, with a total of 103 deaths.

Unions around the world have been reacting to the crisis in different ways. While health care unions are putting out information to their members on how to protect themselves, unions in the airline industry have taken strong positions -- in some cases calling for bans on flights to countries like China which are most affected by the illness.

Labourstart is now running more than 30 such news stories from trade unions in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the Netherlands on our brand new page devoted to trade unions and the SARS crisis, here: http://www.labourstart.org/sars/

It is extremely important that trade unionists, particularly those involved with health and safety issues, be informed. You need to know what other unions are doing and thinking.

One of the sad things you'll learn upon visiting our page is that the first reported Western victim of SARS to die in China last week was Pekka Aro. Pekka was an outstanding trade union figure and a pioneer of use of information technology by the international trade union movement. There are several links to the story of Pekka's life (and tragic death) on LabourStart's SARS page.
From Rory O'Neil, Hazards Magazine

Paul Wellstone Dead is a 99% Better Lawmaker than Norm Coleman Alive

A Comment on Wellstone Creates Furor for Successor
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, April 8 — Senator Norm Coleman, a freshman Republican from Minnesota known for his brash style, is caught up in controversy over remarks he made suggesting that he is a far better lawmaker than his Democratic predecessor, Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash just 11 days before the November election. Read the rest of this disgusting article.

I told Minnesota not to vote for him, but would they listen to me?

Shouldn't These Guys Be in Jail?

Now, many of you know that I have a "thing" about trenching deaths because everyone who runs a business that involves digging trenches should know that workers shouldn't be working in any unshored/unsloped trench over 5 feet deep. What's particularly criminal about the case described in the article below, however, is that this firm was supposedly an "expert" in underground construction. So they don't even get the benefit of playing dumb; they don't get to say they "should" have known about trenching safety. They DID know.

And then the workers were forced to sign a statement (written in a language they didn't understand) saying they had been trained. Now, what good does training do when you're down in an unprotected 10 foot deep trench?

I once taught a workshop for municipal public works employees who regularly went down into deep trenches without any shoring and they were trained -- to dig out their co-workers as fast as possible when the trench caved in on them. (But that was perfectly legal because they were public employees in a small New England state whose biggest city hasn't won a World Series since they sold a certain baseball player.)

On second thought, maybe jail is too good for them.

OSHA Fine for Trenching Death

Associated Press

SANTA YNEZ, Calif. - A Lompoc construction company building the 90,000-square-foot Chumash Casino faces up to $91,000 in fines for violations of federal safety standards that allegedly led to the trench collapse death of a worker.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the violations were particularly egregious because R. Williams Construction represented itself as an expert in underground construction and was hired because of that alleged expertise.

Federal investigators said workers were allegedly asked by R. Williams officials to sign a statement that they had received training in trench work when they hadn't. Some workers said the statement identifying them as trench experts was in English though some could not speak, read or write English, including the Lompoc man injured in the accident, OSHA said.

Jose Aguiniga, 42, of Buellton was killed and his co-worker Adam Palamar suffered a shattered pelvis when the 70-long, 10-foot deep trench they were working in collapsed while they were digging a new sewer line Sept. 19, 2002.

"OSHA excavation and trenching standards clearly state what standards must be in place to protect workers in this type of construction," OSHA deputy regional administrator Christopher Lee said in a statement. "This employer knowingly placed workers at significant risk by failing to take the most basic precautions against trench collapse."
more

Re*!&$m Change at Home

This is from Max Sawicky's excellent Blog, MaxSpeak. I, of course, would never be so coarse, but in the interest of freedom of the press, etc, etc, I thought you might be interested:

MORE SYNONYMS. Assorted right-wing f**wads have objected to the use of the term "regime" in reference to the Bush Administration. To faciliate learned dialogue, MaxSpeak herewith provides alternative terminology for use in referring to the President and his associates:

junta, mob, cabal, putschists, confederacy, gang, crew, the boyz, the outfit, this thing of ours, the entity, dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, ring, clan, klan, syndicate, riffraff, horde, canaille, gangland, gangdom, children of darkness, house of prostitution, the undead, the living dead, unindicted felonry, rustlers, cut-throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nit-wits, half-wits, dim-wits, vipers, snipers, con-men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bush-whackers, horn-swagglers, horse-thieves, bull-dykes, train-robbers, bank-robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists!

Health Benefits? Nah! She Was Just a Contractor. Yeah, a Contractor. That's the Ticket.

Family looks for answers in relative's death
By KATRICE HARDY, The Virginian-Pilot
© April 4, 2003

Cinthia Murillo plans to leave Chesapeake on Saturday to bring her sister back to their hometown of Mexicali, Mexico, for burial.

Family members have been in Hampton Roads for two weeks trying to learn more about how Dahlia Burr Murillo died in a construction accident and whether she had health benefits with the Norfolk company she worked for.

If she did, the family believes, then most of her hospital medical expenses, and maybe some of the burial costs, would be covered.
.......
Porter-Blaine officials, who declined to comment, have told OSHA that Murillo did not have benefits because she was an independent contractor.

Cinthia Murillo believes that her sister did have benefits. Porter-Blaine took 12 percent out of Dahlia's checks, she said recently.

Read the rest here.

McGOVERN IN 'O4!

THE REASON WHY

by George McGovern

[from the April 21, 2003 issue of The Nation]

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"The Charge of the Light Brigade"
(in the Crimean War)

Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy, George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.

Read the Rest

The Great Debate I: Union Health and Safety Programs vs. Organizing

On March 9, 2003, John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that "the A.F.L.-C.I.O. was spread too thin and should devote more of its money and energy to organizing. Mr. Wilhelm said he would even consider ideas like eliminating the federation's respected health and safety department to channel more money into organizing. 'My view is that if we don't devote the largest possible amount of money to organizing and to political action that relates to organizing, we will go out of business," he said. "And if we go out of business, we can't help anybody's health and safety.'"

This statement has caused quite a bit of discussion and some concern among union health and safety staff, as well as rank and file activists about the role of health and safety programs in unions, especially in the context of the obvious need to increase resources dedicated to organizing. Is there, or should there be a conflict between health and safety programs and organizing? Is it a zero-sum game? It may be true that if unions go out of existence, they can't help anyone's health and safety. On the other hand, don't many workers join unions because they see the labor movement in general, and their local union in particular, as their only ally in the fight for safe working conditions?

I'd like to make this the beginning of a continuing on-line discussion. I would be happy to reprint anyone's thoughts (attributed or anonymously) or excerpts of relevant articles.

To kick off the discussion, I'm reprinting below excerpts from a speech by Diane Stein, Executive Board Member, Local 1-149, Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) and Outreach Coordinator, World Trade Center Worker & Volunteer Medical Screening Program, on receiving the Karen Silkwood award from NYCOSH.

In 1974, Karen Silkwood led a fight in her nuclear plant to expose safety hazards that could potential cause a great deal of harm both to the plant workers and to the environment. Later that year she was killed while on her way to bring documents about the plant to a New York Times reporter.

Most people in this room know that story, but what you may not know is that Karen was doing this work not just for the safety issues involved, but because there was a union decertification drive going on in her plant. She understood that in order to achieve any measure of safety and respect on the job, her job was to make sure that it stayed unionized.

I know that there is debate in the labor movement right now about whether we can afford to continue working on safety and health when we need so many resources devoted to organizing. While none of us would argue against organizing, I would argue that we can't afford to do away with what some may consider to be "special projects" and that includes safety and health.

People join unions because they need better work lives. Safety and health is a huge part of that struggle.

The TWU knows this. They are actively engaged in a struggle to make work safer for track workers, following the four tragic deaths of track workers over the past several months.

People concerned about ergonomics know this. The only sector that has gotten any significant measure of protection from OSHA on ergonomic issues are the unionized sectors (meat packing and nursing homes).

Chemical workers know this. The original process safety management standard, which is designed to reduce the risk of explosions and fires, is a direct result of union action. And the expansion that we currently seek to make these rules stronger is a multi-union effort, with support from our friends in the environmental community.

Without unions actively working on these issues, we would be failing the people we represent.

People join unions because they know that unions are the only institution who really put forward their agenda. We cannot abandon that agenda because we need resources for organizing. It simply doesn't make sense.

Unions have a huge task. We need to do our share to ensure that workplaces are safe, that our communities have clean air and water, that adequate health care is available to all.

We can not separate these issues and we cannot choose among them. We must be an advocate for social justice wherever and whenever we can if unions are to have a meaningful place in people's lives.

But we can't do this alone. The only way to achieve these goals is by working in coalition with others who share our vision of social justice. Environmentalists, public health advocates, women's and civil rights organizations must all be our partners in the struggle for a better world.

Poster Source: WhiteHouse.com and Cafehouse.com.


Yet Another Reason that Union Members are National Security Risks

As you know, the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Departments have declared that certain federal employees are not allowed to join unions for national security and "flexibility" reasons. Apparently taking his cue from the Administration (as if he needed a cue), Congressman Tom Delay (R-TX), in a letter he accidentally signed for the National Right-to-Work Foundation, declared that labor unions present “a clear and present danger to the security of the United States at home and the safety of our armed forces overseas.”

None of these clowns could come up with any good reasons why unions might be national security threats, so as a patriotic service to ensure the security of my homeland, I'm helping them out from time to time by contributing reasons that unions and union members are most likely national security risks.

Reason 1: The AFL-CIO reports that "In New York, Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000 was the choice for 100 food service workers employed by Sodexho at the State University of New York-New Paltz, with a card-check on March 25." Sodexho, as you may remember (see April 1 entry below) is owned by those dasterdly, traitorous, cowardly snail-eating French.

Reason 2: U.S. Labor Against the War. (Need I say more?)

Peril on disease front lines

This growth in SARS and the message in this article brings back not-very-fond reminders of the early days of AIDS before we know what caused it or how it was spread. That was well before the blood-borne pathogens standards, when it was assumed that health care workers would unthinkingly dedicate themselves to care for the sick without a (selfish) thought for their own safety.

Peril on disease front lines

Heroism: Public-health practitioners often go in harm's way to help the sick and solve mysteries of deadly infectious illnesses, making the world a safer place.

They died of the very diseases they were trying to conquer: one in Cuba of yellow fever, another in Africa of the Ebola virus, the most recent in Thailand of the mysterious flulike illness that has spread around the globe.

The death late last month of the World Health Organization's Carlo Urbani - one of the first doctors to identify the disease known as SARS, before contracting it himself - brings a sobering reminder: Those on the front lines of the effort to make the world a healthier place often put themselves in harm's way.

In truth, health care workers are a dedicated bunch of people who are often only too willing to put themselves at risk to care for their patients -- and often pay the price in career or even life-threatening diseases like HIV, Hepatitis, TB, or in disabling back injuries. But the bottom line is that every worker -- even a health care worker -- has a right to a safe workplace, and an expectation that their employer will do everything possible to make the work environment safe.

Health care workers are not the only ones to possibly face SARS as part of their job. The AFL-CIO's "Work in Progress" reports that:

Concern about the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) aboard aircraft prompted the Flight Attendants to ask the Federal Aviation Administration for an emergency order requiring airlines to provide flight attendants with masks and gloves. Minimal contact is enough to spread the disease, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. The union also wants appropriate instructions to flight attendants on dealing with passengers exhibiting symptoms of the disease.

In the words of the song: "We just came to work here, we didn't come to die."

China: The New Capitalist Paradise

Another in a series of very disturbing articles about horrific working conditions in China.

China's Workers Risk Limbs in Export Drive
By JOSEPH KAHN


YONGKANG, China — In his 17 days of molding tool boxes, Wang Chenghua learned to work like a metronome. He slipped strips of metal under a mechanical hammer with his right hand, then swept molded parts into a pile with his left. He did this once a second for a 10-hour shift, minus a half-hour lunch.

Just before lunch on the 18th day, he lost the beat. The hammer, backed by 4,000 pounds of pressure, ripped through the middle and ring fingers of his right hand, reducing them to pulp.

Click here.

NAM Watch

The note below sent me scurrying to find NAM's mission statement, proudly displayed on their Web site:

The NAM's mission is to enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers and to improve American living standards by shaping a legislative and regulatory environment conducive to U.S. economic growth, and to increase understanding among policymakers, the media and the general public about the importance of manufacturing to America's economic strength.

How in the name of John D. Rockefeller does weakening workplace health and safety protections "enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers" or "improve American living standards?"

Is NAM an "attachment" to the conservative wing of the Republican Party. (Actually, the Republican Party has no conservative "wing" It's more like a moderate wingtip.

Or, more accurately, is the Republican party "attached" to NAM?. Enquiring minds want to know....

Labor and Iraq: In the Name of Sam Gompers

The National Association of Manufacturers’ March 2003 Workplace Watch:

While they [the AFL-CIO Executive Council] were off being their usual bi-partisan selves, they also managed to pass a resolution condemning the potential war with Iraq. This sent us scurrying to find the AFL-CIO mission statement, proudly displayed on their Web site: “The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families — to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation.” Simple enough. So how in the name of Sam Gompers does this stretch to a resolution opposing the war in Iraq? White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that this move by the AFL indicated that some of its members are becoming “attachments to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.” We would never make such a bold statement, but we gotta admit, Ari Fleischer’s got a point. Every day, these guys (and gals) seem to drift further and further away from their roots, their members.

And AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy at an April 1 labor anti-war rally:

This is the new millennium, not the Old Frontier," AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Bill Lucy told hundreds of cheering activists at last night's labor peace rally in Farragut Square. "America is a leader of the free world, not the sheriff of Dodge City. Relationships between nations cannot be solved by stepping into the dusty streets," Lucy said at the rally, which was organized by the DC Labor Committee for Peace and Justice. "Is Saddam Hussein a dictator? Lucy asked. "Yes, and so are most of the leaders we've done business with over the last fifty years." Dictators, Lucy said, "are not a stranger to us: what we're unfamiliar with is undisciplined dictators." Lucy challenged Bush's preemptive strike policy as a 'Shoot first and I will tell you why later' policy and wondered what the response will be "When China declares Taiwan a threat? When India declares Pakistan a threat? When North Korea declares California a threat?" Calling the war "a weapon of mass distraction," Lucy called for an end to the war in Iraq "so this nation can turn its attention to the needs of its people: jobs with livable wages and benefits, healthcare for every person, including our veterans from past wars. " Dubbing the Bush Administration economic policy "socialism for the rich and free enterprise for American workers," Lucy pointed to 2.4 million jobs lost in just the last 27 months, the stalled economy and rising unemployment. "We have squandered the goodwill of the world with our arrogance and our belligerence," thundered Lucy as dusk began to fall over the park. "We must regain our stature in the world by bringing our troops home from the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq as quickly as possible.

The activists then took to the streets with banners and American flags rippling in the warm spring breeze, winding up a block from the White House where the chants of "Money for jobs, not for war" gave way to "Whose streets? Our streets!" when police blocked the way to Lafayette Park. - reported by Chris Garlock, Washington Metropolitan AFL-CIO

Neither Traffic, Nor Anthrax, Nor Ice....

"The occupational hazards of being a mail carrier are frequently overlooked," states the North Jersey Times in an article about the hazards of being a mail carrier. Traffic accidents, antrax, slips and falls, impatient drivers are all in a day's work.

Georgia on OSHA's Mind

The Atlanta Business Chronicle, of all publications, has been running a series called "Risky Business," profiling large companies with serious health and safety problems. Georgia Pacific ("Georgia-Pacific: 13 Dead in 3 Years"),UPS ("UPS facilities cited for injuries, illness") and Home Depot ("Home Depot's OSHA Violations Soar") are the first three companies profiled. (The U.S. Chemical Safety Board recently investigated the deaths of two Georgia Pacific contractors in Alabama).

While I wouldn't call the articles "indepth" or "hard-hitting" reporting (unlike the NY Times-Frontline McWane Series), the problems, injuries and fatalities are discussed in a surprisingly candid way for a business journal. Nor is there any OSHA bashing. The UPS article even includes statements from Teamsters Health and Safety Director Lamont Byrd. The problems and union statements (e.g. that injury stats are coming down due to intimidation) are countered by statements from the companies explaining how they've cleaned up their acts are now model places to work.

A fourth article "2,578 OSHA violations in Ga. in 2002" uses OSHA citations to show that "as OSHA records show, safety is a widespread concern among many Georgia companies."

First the NY Times, then the Atlantic Business Journal. Maybe someday the Washington Post will discover that workers exist.

Union Drive at Montefiore Could Be Labor Landmark

Check out the article about interns trying to unionize at Montefiore hospital in New York.

Significance: "The hospital has taken several steps to delay or defeat a possible unionization vote and, more important, it is asking a federal government agency to rule that residents and interns do not have the standard rights of an employee group to unionize....Montefiore, already a trend-setter, is seen by both sides in this dispute as setting precedents — perhaps national ones — in labor relations."

Acts of God, Acts of Man, and Faith-based Health and Safety

Here we clarify a little recent history. This story, like much of our most important history, contains lessons that should never be forgotten. Unfortunately, most people will never know about it in the first place, much less remember it or do something about it.

The Nation ran an excellent article in its March 17 edition about the real story behind last year's "miraculous" Somerset County, Pennsylvania mine rescue.

Written by Charles McCollester, director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Labor Relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the article describes how "The flooding of the nonunion Quecreek mine reveals much about government inadequacy stemming from chronic underfunding; government incompetence and/or complicity with powerful vested interests; corporate irresponsibility and greed; and coordinated anti-union activity."

Prior to the flooding of the mine there had been multiple warnings about the inadequacy of the 1957 map that showed the adjoining Saxman mine that was flooded with water and was the source of the flood in the Quecreek mine. After the disaster, several elderly former Saxman miners claimed on local television that they had gone to the owner of the mine, Black Wolf, in the months just preceding the breach to warn the company that its map was inadequate and that Black Wolf was nearing the Saxman Coal Harrison #2 mine workings.

Despite these warnings, Black Wolf owner-operator David Rebuck called the flooding an "act of God" in one local TV interview. As McCollester wrote, "The flood of testimonials to the mercy of God threatens to obscure the very human factors that led to the near-disaster. God may well have had a hand in the rescue, but human avarice and more than a century of fierce corporate manipulation and struggle for profit and control were behind the wall of water that swept into the Quecreek mine."

(Note from JB: The "Act of God" excuse was often used, in my experience, to explain such "unfathomable" processes as the collapse of a 12 foot deep trench on top of construction workers or the asphyxiation of sewer workers in an unmonitored confined space. "Who could have predicted it?" "Brave men, dangerous job, tsk, tsk." A related scapegoat was Mother Nature, as in "Yup, that trench just gave way. Who could have known? Just one of those terrible unpredictable things when you're dealing with Mother nature.")

These "excuses" often worked -- at least for public consumption -- because they were generally quoted in the typical one-day article in the local newspaper. By the time experts are found (if anyone bothers) or the OSHA report comes out (assuming they weren't public employees who had no OSHA coverage), the local media had lost interest. But I digress...)

The article notes "The ultimate act of political cynicism was reserved for President Bush, who made a choreographed whistle-stop visit to the rescued miners on his way to a million-dollar campaign fundraiser in Pittsburgh."

The UMWA had attempted to organize the mine, but "Repeated attempts to organize Quecreek had broken down because the majority of the miners were intimidated. [According to] UMWA organizer Nick Molnar (now retired): "The company gets wind of our presence and first you get threats to fire individuals who support the union; that's followed by veiled threats about closing the mine. In a depressed area, such actions are extremely effective."

"If Quecreek had been union, workers might have been more candid about company responsibility immediately after the rescue, when some of them supported management's claim of normal mining conditions. If the union had been recognized, the workers could have refused to continue advancing--without fear for their jobs--as they saw conditions worsening."


Union health and safety activists understand that the best guarantor of a safe workplace is not OSHA and not (for God's sake) Workers Compensation, but a strong, knowledgeable and active union. (Some think it's even possible that health and safety problems would make a good organizing issue.)