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THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES ITS ASSAULT ON WORKER SAFETY
Posted by: William Gentile
December 01, 2008

AFL-CIO blog has been following President Bush's last minute administrative orders.  It quotes a The New York Times report that one of the top items on Bush's move-out checklist is the "secret rule" that could lead to increased exposure of workers to dangerous chemicals and toxins by changing the way worker exposure is measured.

The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job. The rule...has strong support from business groups.

AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario told the Times:

This rule is being pushed through by an administration that, for the last seven and a half years, has failed to set any new OSHA health rules to protect workers, except for one issued pursuant to a court order...the administration is rushing to lock in place requirements that would make it more difficult for the next administration to protect workers.

Union officials and public health advocates oppose the change as it would create an extra hurdle in creating safety guidelines.  This continues what has been a shameless assault on worker protection by the President's administration.  Workers around the country are exposed to numerous chemical hazards.  There are minimum requirements for numerous toxins that workers can be exposed to, but these requirements are often thought to be lax due to intense industry lobbying. 

Even before President Bush started his assault on workplace safety, the standards applied by OSHA and other government organizations were considered too low to adequately protect workers.  Companies often use epidemiological studies, that they fund, to show that suspected toxins are not dangerous.  Unfortunately, the field of epidemiology has been known to miss many dangerous toxins that cause symptoms in the general population.  This is particularly true where bias enters these studies.  We experience this problem in many products liability cases where the facts say there is a clear connection between a toxin and the physical problems it causes, but the defendants hide behind studies saying there is no proven cause.

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