Like buildings, governments are easy to demolish but slow and difficult to build. The Obama administration has been carefully reconstructing departments and agencies that the Bush adminstration took the axe to, repeatedly, over eight years. The Department of Labour is a case in point.
First, let’s consider how much damage a hostile administration can inflict on the civil service. In his book, The Wrecking Crew, historian Thomas Frank described (as the subtitle said) "How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation”.
Discussing this theme on the Bill Moyers Journal recently, Frank said, “What conservatism in this country is about is government failure. Conservatives talk about government failure all the time, constantly. And conservatives, when they're in power deliver government failure....there's a whole conservative literature on why you want second-rate people in government, or third-rate...”
Workers have taken the brunt of conservative efforts to undermine government. Not only does the US federal government outsource as much as 90 percent of its work – thus weakening the public service unions that negotiate higher wages and benefits – but all the evidence shows that the Bush government very deliberately stripped away personnel, resources and regulatory authority from the Department of Labor and OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
As Rep. George Miller wrote in an article for the Huffington Post in September 2008, “From day one, Bush's Department of Labor has actively worked to undermine workers' rights to organize, to fair pay and decent benefits, and to safe working conditions -- rights that are essential to growing and sustaining a strong middle class. US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and other high-level appointees came to their posts determined to weaken the agency.
“Under Chao's leadership, the department has repeatedly torpedoed rules designed to help workers. One of her first actions was supporting the repeal of a rule that would have protected workers against repetitive motion injuries, the leading cause of workplace injuries.
“Chao went on to severely weaken the department's Wage and Hour Division -- which enforces overtime, minimum wage, and child labor laws. Wage theft has skyrocketed at the hands of this administration: An ongoing US Government Accountability Office investigation has uncovered repeated cases where the agency refused to go after scofflaw employers who admittedly owed their workers back wages....”
Last March, the GAO (Government Accountability Office, the equivalent of the Auditor-General) reported that the Department of Labor mishandled nine out of ten complaints brought by investigators posing as aggrieved workers. Most complaints involved wage theft – employers refusing to pay overtime or even basic wages due – but the DOL didn’t even respond when GAO investigators called in a complaint about school-aged children working in a meatpacking plant during school hours, which on the face of it involves violation of several federal laws.
Wage theft was less awful than the health and safety violations that went unchecked. In February 2009, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka wrote: “In 2007 alone, 5,488 [US] workers were killed on the job and an estimated 50,000 more lost their lives to occupational diseases — almost as many deaths in just one year as the entire number of Americans who lost their lives over 16 years in the Vietnam war. In that same single year of 2007, there were more than 4 million job-related injuries and illnesses...”
What a difference a year makes! As Ronald Reagan once said, “Personnel is policy.” Labour advocates sensed that the situation was turning around when Hilda Solis was sworn in as Secretary of Labor. “There’s a new sheriff in town,” she announced. “OSHA is back in the business of enforcement.” The DOL set about hiring 250 new enforcement officers.
Health and safety advocates practically did cartwheels at the news that the Obama administration would appoint Jordan Barab as the acting head of OSHA. (Rumour said that Obama might have appointed Peggy Seminario, who was head of the AFL-CIO’s OSH section, except that she was registered as a lobbyist.)
Here’s the official bumpf: “Jordan Barab joined OSHA as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health on April 13, 2009.... He previously served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA from 1998 to 2001, when he helped the Agency to promulgate the ergonomics workplace safety and health standard that was repealed by Congress in March 2001.... he was a Health and Safety Specialist for the AFL-CIO from 2001 to 2002; and he directed the safety and health program for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees from 1982 to 1998. He also created and wrote the award-winning weblog, Confined Space, from 2003 to 2007.”
In short, Barab is a highly knowledgeable advocate who has been a gadfly for most of the last administration. Likewise with Deborah Berkowitz ,who was named chief of staff at OSHA. Berkowitz is the former health and safety director at the United Food and Commercial Workers’ union, and a veritable champion of ergonomics regulations.
Lawyer James A. Lastowka summarized the changes for the readers of Ready Plant magazine: “The top priority of the New OSHA can be summarized in two words: strong enforcement.” He warned readers to clean up their operations.
The anti-union lobbyists who call themselves “Right-To-Work” advocates are beside themselves, and their rage mounts with every new Obama administration appointment. Their fury is kind of comforting to labour activists. Here is the introduction to their most recent video, The Obama White House -- Where Everybody Knows the Union Bosses' Names:
“Although surprisingly NOT registered as a lobbyist, SEIU Top Boss Andy Stern is The White House's most frequent visitor. Union bosses get top billing at high-profile administration events. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis's last job was at Big Labor-front group American Rights at Work. To commemorate the union bosses' newfound friendliness with top White House politicos, we decided to put together a short video on the Obama Administration relationship with Big Labor.”
Appointments are well and good, some readers are muttering, but have all these new people actually achieved anything? Well, take a look at some of the 14 Department of Labour news releases for December 2009:
* OSHA cites Walt Disney World following monorail collision and issues recommendation letter following actor’s death;
* Employment and Training Administration [ETA] announces $3.8 million grant to assist workers in Massachusetts affected by financial industry layoffs;
* Wages and Hours Department [WHD] recovers nearly $1 million in back wages for 206 Seattle security company workers;
* WHD recovers more than $1.7 million in fringe benefits for 483 employees of VMT Long Term Care Management Inc;
* Members of Interagency Council on Veterans Employment agree to publish plan to increase hiring of veterans by federal agencies;
* DOL announces grant exceeding $461,000 to assist workers in Oregon affected by lumber industry layoffs;
* WHD News Release: US Labor Department recovers more than $1.7 million in back wages for about 4,000 health care workers of SSM Health Care in St. Louis, Mo;
* ETA announces more than $800,000 to assist workers in Oregon affected by lumber industry layoffs; and
* Mine Safety and Health launches comprehensive action plan to tackle black lung.
After President Obama’s first State of the Union address – so soon after the disastrous Massachusetts by-election – many observers said it was good speech but that actions speak louder than words. Obama has not been able to achieve some of his goals, in his first year, and some think he has paid too high a price for the goals he has almost reached, such as health care. However, if the Department of Labor is an example, this administration has had to rebuild from the bottom up. The results might not be obvious for a while.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01152010/transcript4.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25wage.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-george-miller/the-department-of-labor-a_b_122543.html
http://masscosh.org/files/Protecting_Workers_on_the_Job_Jan_2009_0.pdf
http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog/new-right-work-video-obama-white-house-where-01272109
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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