Democratic Rep. Makes Gut-Wrenching Case For Commonsense Labor Rule, GOP Repeals It Anyway Video

[CousinIT]

“Imagine climbing 150 feet above the water,” Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) declared from the House floor in February. He sought to defend the GOP’s assault on former President Barack Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces labor rule, but his callous colleagues in the House and Senate repealed it anyway.

The GOP-run House voted to repeal it last week 236-187. The U.S. Senate then followed Monday night with a narrow 49-48 vote.

Despite what the Republicans would have us believe, Obama’s Executive Order 13673 didn’t add any of the taxes, expenses, or red tape corporate paymasters love to whine about. All this executive order from Barack Obama did was require companies who apply for those fat federal contracts to disclose whether they’d been cited with any labor law violations. After all, it’s only fair that companies who get taxpayers’ dollars should show that they’re playing by the rules.

The controlled restraint with which Donald Norcross delivered his speech made it all the more heart-wrenching. You see, before he went into politics, he worked as an electrician and served as president of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO.

“Before entering public office, I was an electrician. I used to work on top of bridges doing very dangerous work. Imagine climbing 150 feet above water. But over the course of that career, three times there were gentlemen that I worked with who never went home, never clocked out, never went home to see their wife and their children.”

As it turns out, Donald Norcross’s three colleagues who died on the job are but a drop in the bucket. Yet Republicans are perfectly happy to reward companies that screw their workers.

“Every day 13 Americans are killed on the job. They never went home to see their wife, their children, or their husband. Sometimes accidents are unavoidable. But many, many times they are. And that’s what we’re talking about here. “

An average of 13 workers die on the job per day, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the GOP plans on gutting. 4,836 American workers died onsite in 2015 alone. In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports 2.9 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses took place in 2015, and those are just the ones employers bothered to report.

Donald Norcross went on to argue that this isn’t even about giving the business community a hard time, this is about the the kind of fiscal and personal accountability his GOP colleagues claim to be in favor of.

[Fred Sanders]

1. Republicans screaming and fearmongering about foreign terrorists seem to have no problem

when it comes to domestic corporations killing the same citizens by the tens of thousands per year via marginal workplace safety standards and of course by no or inadequate healthcare....the hypocrisy is stunning.