Labor and allies mark Workers Memorial Day with worker safety bills

WASHINGTON—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Teachers and progressive congressional Democrats marked Workers Memorial Day, April 28, by pushing legislation to strengthen and expand the reach of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

One measure, which AFSCME advocates, would close a large loophole in the original 55-year-old Occupational Safety and Health Act by expanding OSHA to cover all federal, state and local government workers.

The other, which the Teachers (AFT), National Nurses United and their allies advocate, would order OSHA to tackle the problem of workplace violence, which particularly hurts women in the workplaces.

But in an indication that both measures may go nowhere in the Republican-run Congress, the highly partisan GOP-run House Education and the Workforce Committee planned to work on legislation to cut OSHA spending and programs. The GOP-sponsored congressional budget resolution approved several weeks earlier mandates those massive slashes.

And one of the most-radical members of the so-called House “Freedom Caucus,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., reintroduced his two-sentence “NOSHA Act”: “The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is abolished.”

The uphill battles don’t faze AFSCME President Lee Saunders, Teachers President Randi Weingarten or Reps. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Saunders pushes the OSHA expansion, the Protect American Workers Act, and the others push protecting working women against violence on the job.

“Every person should be able to earn a living in a workplace that’s free of violence, health hazards and other threats, so they can safely return home to their families each day. This is a fundamental freedom that the world’s largest economy is more than capable of guaranteeing,” Saunders said. “We should never be satisfied with a status quo that prioritizes profits over workers’ health and safety.

“The sad truth is that even as workplace injuries rise across the country, we have a White House hell-bent on dismantling the very institutions meant to safeguard workers—all to hand tax breaks to billionaires who want to trample their rights. They are shuttering OSHA field offices, firing federal employees who investigate workplace incidents, and making it easier for employers to silence those who speak out about feeling unsafe.

“We won’t allow this billionaire-run administration to put our lives in jeopardy just to enrich themselves,” Saunders said. “We are working with our congressional allies” on a bill  to “expand OSHA protections to public service workers nationwide. We’re also getting organized on the ground, calling members of Congress, joining town halls–or forming our own when elected officials refuse to show up–and demanding they defend our communities from those who see our lives as expendable. We won’t back down.”

Organized labor, led by the late Tony Mazzocchi of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers—now a Steelworkers sector—pushed the original 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act through Congress and Republican President Richard Nixon signed it.

But a legal analysis notes “state and local government entities, including local schools, are not considered employers under the OSH Act and thus are not subject to OSHA’s federal regulation, inspection, or enforcement (their emphasis).

“They may be covered by OSHA-approved state plans” and those plans “must be at least as effective and enforced as OSHA’s.” OSHA and the states now cover private schools and charter schools, in most cases.

Of course, OSHA’s long-standing problem is that it is understaffed and its inspectors are overworked. And for decades its fines were too low to deter law-breakers. They’re higher now, but still not high enough to really matter to corporate crooks.

And unless a company CEO willfully hides problems from OSHA in the case of a fatal accident—as West Virginia’s Don Blankenship hid problems from the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion—there are no perp walks, either.

Puerto Rico and, 21 states “have OSHA-approved state plans that cover all employers in the state, including state and local government entities,” the analysis continues. “Five states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have state plans that cover only state and local government employers,” including public schools. OSHA estimates state plans cover approximately 40% of workers in the United States.

Labor-backed legislation

Labor also strongly supports the legislation mandating OSHA write a rule forcing firms to institute measures to curb violence on the job. The AFL-CIO’s Deaths on the Job reports violence at workplaces is among the leading killers of workers.

When Democrats controlled the House, the Education and Labor Committee passed the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Services Act, but it went nowhere after that. Courtney and Bacon have rounded up 43 cosponsors for their workplace violence prevention bill, HR2531, while 20 senators back Baldwin’s identical bill, S1232.

AFT calls workplace violence “a health care crisis that has gone on far too long.” Courtney notes home health care workers, social workers, nurses and techs comprise 75% of workplace violence victims, counting deaths and injuries.

One reason is short staffing, according to Banita Herndon, RN, an AFT member and president of its New Jersey Health Professionals and Allied Employees local, who spoke at a recent zoom session where Courtney, Bacon, Baldwin and Weingarten re-introduced the bill.

That’s another key cause for HPAE, National Nurses United and other health care unions, including the Service Employees and the Steelworkers. But mandating minimum staffing in health care facilities also draws huge opposition from corporate bean counters.

Those health care insurers and hospital administrators prefer profits, and lining their own pockets with multimillion-dollar paychecks over treating patients.

“Our nurses, health techs, social service workers and other professionals deserve much better than their current reality,” says AFT President Randi Weingarten. “They take care of us when we need them, and devote their careers to looking after the aging, the sick and the injured.

“Yet they’re still, after all these years, fighting for basic, enforceable safety standards. That’s why the AFT launched our Code Red campaign to tackle violence, secure safe patient limits, and improve the quality of care patients receive, and it’s why this bill is so crucial.”

“In 2023, eastern Connecticut experienced the tragic loss of visiting nurse Joyce Grayson,” Courtney tweeted on April 1. “She was murdered during a solo home-health visit to an extremely high risk patient. Joyce Grayson was an angel. Her preventable death must drive Congress to act. We must put proven safety standards in place nationwide for health care and social service workers.”

Those workers endure more violence than any other workforce. No worker, especially those we rely on for care, should be injured or killed in the job. Our legislation would put proven tactics into practice in hospitals and healthcare settings across the country to prevent violence before it happens.”

“We rely on our healthcare workers every day to protect our communities and, in turn, we need to protect them from senseless acts of violence,” Baldwin added.

“Healthcare workers are five times more likely to be assaulted than those in other professions,” HPAE’s Herndon, who works at a top hospital in Newark, N.J., says. “This new law can’t come soon enough. Along with training hospital staff on effective strategies to de-escalate violent situations, a law like the one being proposed could be a great tool for us to keep hospital staff as well as our patients safe.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.