Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Charles 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 lift—one 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 Party—and the conservative movement that provides its only real energy—getting 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.
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
