UE Convention Resolutions
For a Safe and Healthy
Workplace, Fix OSHA Now!
Most days UE members go home after the completion of our shift or workday. But far too often we go home by way of the emergency room, doctor’s office, or tragically, not at all. The loss of a fellow worker on the job gives all of us pause to consider the constant struggle to ensure that our workplaces are as safe and healthy as they can possibly be.
One of the most striking and tragic of these incidents is the story of UE Local 329 member Frank Wagner. Brother Wagner was killed on the job at the McWane Industries / Kennedy Valve foundry in Elmira, New York, on January 13, 1995. In the aftermath of this horrible tragedy, UE Local 329 officers and members worked hard to win some justice for Wagner’s widow and family, and to reverse Kennedy Valve’s terrible safety record. Tough new health and safety contract provisions and vigilant policing of the foundry by UE stewards and members forced management to spend several million dollars to clean up the plant and install safeguards throughout the facility.
It is the union’s obligation to work as diligently as possible to encourage – and if need be force – the boss into correcting dangerous situations. It’s also our obligation to see to it that safety is engineered into all machinery, equipment, and plant processes. Our elected lawmakers must shoulder a large measure of the burden of policing our workplaces. OSHA is broken and underfunded, and needs to be fixed immediately. But instead of fixing OSHA, anti-worker administrations have cut funding and offered employers the option of "voluntary compliance" to avoid OSHA inspection altogether. The "Voluntary Protection Program" (VPP) is no substitute for a vigorous, union-led safety program.
OSHA has abandoned regular inspections of all workplaces. When violations are discovered, the agency’s fines are far too low, particularly given the lengthy appeals process. Since 1970, the fines have been increased just once, in 1990, when the maximum sanction for a single safety violation was increased to $70,000 from $10,000.
OSHA staffing levels remain abysmally low. At the current rate, the average workplace will see an inspection about once every 150 years. A small amount might be visited regularly, but the vast majority are never toured by OSHA inspectors until after a tragedy like Frank Wagner’s death. Emergency inspections of workplaces must be replaced by regular, active, unannounced inspections by certified OSHA staff committed to cleaning up our workplaces. For the price of several weeks of the Iraq occupation, thousands of additional workplace inspectors could be hired.
Politicians must also investigate and address the increasing numbers of repetitive motion injuries occurring in many workplaces. Speed-up and new work technologies cause millions of workers to suffer repetitive stress injuries, like carpel tunnel syndrome. It has been estimated that 62 percent of all workplace injuries are the result of repetitive motion stress. The Bush administration has actively aided management in evading legal responsibility for these injuries and has successfully stopped OSHA and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) from launching any meaningful campaign to stem the epidemic of repetitive stress injuries that is literally crippling American workers.
The corporate news media portray sick and injured working people as cranks, wimps, and money-hungry lawsuit con-artists, when in fact they are the victims of corporate abuse and willful neglect. Using the excuse of getting government off of our backs, anti-union politicians are attempting to gut worker compensation on the state level. Health and safety protections are being destroyed by lawmakers who not only attack the laws through words and regressive legislation, but deliberately underfund the enforcement of these statutes. Employers benefit from this corrupt practice, as they escape responsibility for their increasingly unwatched violations. Workers are victimized twice: first when injured or poisoned, and then when the government refuses to enforce the law and bring their employer to justice. All too often workers discover this situation only after they are sick or injured.
Anti-union politicians have also assaulted the right of working people to seek justice through our legal process, under the banner of "tort reform." Politicians cynically portrays sick workers as the willing accomplices of greedy trial lawyers. Sadly, the facts are that only a tiny minority of working people ever seek legal redress of their workplace injury or illness. Few working people have the energy or resources to hire costly legal talent once their health is adversely impacted. Too many also have too little time left to wait for the many years that it takes to navigate our legal labyrinth.
Every day when we report for work, we must remember that many of the jobs we perform, or the environments we work in, are dangerous. We could be exposed to substances that are toxic, and our jobs could turn deadly in an instant. We must recognize the obligation that we have to look after the health and well-being of ourselves and our fellow workers through the collective action of our union. We must continually challenge unsafe working conditions.
Ultimately, we must be willing to confront our lawmakers with this national disgrace of occupational injuries, illnesses, and all too often, death. We must force Congress and our state legislatures to once again take up the defense of working people through a strengthening of our nation’s health and safety laws. We must confront the Bush administration and its assault on even our currently inadequate workplace protections, and go on the offensive to protect our lives and our health.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 70th UE CONVENTION:
- Calls on UE locals to make health and safety issues a top priority, both during and outside of contract negotiations;
- Calls on UE locals to set up strong independent health and safety committees in each workplace and contact the National Office before becoming involved with Voluntary Protection Programs;
- Calls on UE locals and regions to educate our members to deal with hazardous situations in the workplace by taking aggressive action to force the boss to correct them;
- Urges UE members to mobilize and contact their federal and state lawmakers to demand that they dramatically expand the number of OSHA inspectors and authorize them to carry out unannounced inspections, and to have no restrictions on the scope of any inspections at any time, under any circumstances;
- Encourages UE locals to support local labor-initiated Committees on Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) groups wherever practical;
- Demands that bosses be criminally prosecuted for creating or tolerating conditions that lead to severe injury or death on the job, and that OSHA dramatically increase the fines paid by employers who violate the law. Fines should be tripled for repeat OSHA violators and the worst violators should be barred from receiving government contracts;
- Demands that the U.S. Congress and state legislatures reject efforts to limit working people from seeking justice through our legal system by opposing the many schemes to promote "tort reform" at our expense.