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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCharles P. Pierce: If You Die on the Job, Your Boss Can Now Skip the Paperwork
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53695/worker-safety-republicans/If You Die on the Job, Your Boss Can Now Skip the Paperwork
The many joys of Republican governance.
By Charles P. Pierce
Mar 7, 2017
The folks at Camp Runamuck, and their auxiliary down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, have yet another present for those economically insecure folks who didn't want the lady to replace the black guy because Mexicans and ISIS and telling-it-like-it-is. And economic insecurity. You can die on the job now and not burden your boss with unnecessary paperwork. From The Washington Post:
In a narrow result that divided along party lines, the Senate voted 49 to 48 to eliminate the regulation, dubbed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Finalized in August and blocked by a court order in October, the rule would limit the ability of companies with recent safety problems to complete for government contracts unless they agreed to remedies. The measure to abolish it had already cleared the House. The next step after the Senate vote will be the White House, where Trump is expected to sign it. A half-dozen other worker safety regulations are in Republican crosshairs, with one headed to the Senate floor as soon as this week. Many are directed at companies with federal contracts. Such companies employ 1 in 5 American workers meaning the effort could have wide-ranging effects.
As you can imagine, there's a truly horrible real-life adventure involved here.
That concern prompted the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation. Among the strongest data points: Rodney Bridgett, 37, a worker at a Tysons Foods beef processing plant in Nebraska, was crushed by a piece of heavy equipment when a chain snapped on the plant's "kill floor" in 2012. Tyson spokesman Worth Sparkman called Bridgett's death "a tragic accident" and said the company aspires to "have zero work-related injuries and illnesses, and continue to improve our culture related to safety every day." OSHA investigators found that Tysons supervisors had repeatedly failed to inspect the faulty chain. While OSHA sought to fine the company, the Obama administration moved separately to target a major source of Tysons's revenue: nearly $300 million a year in federal contracts.
As this account from CorpWatch shows us, Rodney Bridgett probably would have been the perfect archetype of the Forgotten American, if only Tyson's negligence hadn't killed him five years ago. He was a high school graduate who never wanted to go too far from home. He worked a number of jobs in and around Sioux Falls.
They had a child, and then a second child, and eventually bought a drafty, 100-year-old house in the city's Morningside district. The house had only two bedrooms, but the Bridgetts found a way to convert the basement into a third bedroom. Rodney spent his off time banging around on motorcycles, camping, and fixing engine blocks. "He couldn't sit still," Jaime says. Jaime, meanwhile, started taking a string of part-time jobs to pay the bills. She worked the electronics aisle at WalMart and collected change out of the vending machines for the Sioux City Journal, the local newspaper. By late 2011, Rodney had decided that his job at the fertilizer plant would take him only so far, and it was time to move on. He took a maintenance job at Tyson. He had only been on the job for five months when he was asked to work on a scissor liftone of the big ones, the kind that can elevate a man on the kill floor. The lift was hanging from a safety chain, and Rodney stepped beneath it to get to work. But the chain snapped, and the lift fell to the floor, crushing Rodney beneath it.
Again, as we pointed out in our earlier post about the new healthcare charade, this isn't Trump. I don't think he could find Nebraska on a map. This is the Republican Partyand the conservative movement that provides its only real energygetting done everything it and its donors want to get done now that they have majorities in both houses of Congress and a clueless (alleged) Russian sublet in the White House. This is the way to the dystopia of their dreams, in which people like Rodney Bridgett are the only people who truly are free.
This is where you can find his grave. If you look closely, you'll probably be able to see where the Congress of the United States just spit on it.
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Charles P. Pierce: If You Die on the Job, Your Boss Can Now Skip the Paperwork (Original Post)
babylonsister
Mar 2017
OP
They are greedy monsters and their actions are unacceptable to decent humans.
Eliot Rosewater
Mar 2017
#1
Eliot Rosewater
(31,121 posts)1. They are greedy monsters and their actions are unacceptable to decent humans.
Doreen
(11,686 posts)2. BOSS: Oh, huh, Joe got crushed. Call a herse and hire john and get back to work.
I have a golf game to go to.
Solly Mack
(90,787 posts)3. K&R
dalton99a
(81,590 posts)4. How else are you going to make America great again?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)5. Hey, this is what the working-class whites in the rust belt wanted...
so they can have it....
Doreen
(11,686 posts)6. I think we should make dicator and his goons
work in a steel mill with all of the safety regulations taken away and the unpaid overtime. See if they like it that the boss not only can make them work overtime despite the fact they are very tired but not give them overtime pay. Tired and no regulations, hmm, sounds like an accident waiting to happen real quick. I'm sure any of you have worked in a steel mill or something equally as dangerous know what I am talking about. I have never been in one but I can see it in my mind.
procon
(15,805 posts)7. The Soylent Green collection trucks can't be far behind. nt
kentuck
(111,110 posts)8. Charlie is on his game today.
Initech
(100,103 posts)9. Got to love Ayn Rand's America.
PuppyBismark
(595 posts)10. What happened to the filibuster?
Did the GOP get rid it? is it gone?
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)11. the GOP makes me sick... sick to my stomach, sick to my soul
how can such people exist in this modern world with so much knowledge at our fingertips??
LuckyLib
(6,820 posts)12. "I don't think he could find Nebraska on a map." So true.
Trump is truly, profoundly ignorant.