A KICK IN THE TEETH

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ): "There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who have their arms, who have their eyesight, who have their lives, because OSHA has teeth." Right now in the House, the Republicans are pushing four bills to further weaken OSHA by making it easier for employers to put off responding to complaints, making it easier for the President to stack the commission, and limiting OSHA's ability to aggressively interpret its laws. All this, of course, in the name of protecting small business. "Mom and Pop" companies, we're asked to believe are wrongly aggrieved by the requirement that they notify OSHA within fifteen days should they wish to contest responsibility for conditions which cause serious injury or death for their employees. And we're asked to believe, further, that the current law is unfair to all those small business owners who are injured simultaneously with their workers. Employers, of course, already have the opportunity to seek extensions in extraordinary circumstances; what Republicans want is to shift the responsibility to OSHA to prove why the deadline, which saves lives by facilitating rapid redress of unsafe conditions, should ever apply. Rep. Major Owens (D-NY): "There is a class problem developing in America...What we've found in this war in Iraq, is that people on the top aren't providing the kind of protection needed for people on the frontlines from working families." Truth is, there's been a class problem developing in America, sadly, for a long time. It's one we should be hearing about more often on the floor of the Congress and outside of it. And we'd be well served by more media attention to dangerous legislation like the bills under debate right now. But for all their claims to be looking out for regular Americans, you'll notice that the Republicans aren't hoping to see their handiwork on this issue in the news: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): "Let me remind my colleagues what this small, inocuous bill does..." If a line like that doesn't set off alarms, you haven't been paying attention.