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[Tovarisc]

Nearly four decades in the making, a new rule under the Obama administration was set to lower workplace exposure to beryllium, an industrial mineral linked to a lung disease that is to estimated to kill about 100 people annually. And the nation’s largest beryllium producer had agreed to back the new restrictions.

“Once we finish, these workers will be protected and we will end the epidemic of beryllium exposure in the United States,” David Michaels, the OSHA chief, said at the time in 2015.

But several weeks ago, just as the rule was going into effect, the safety agency suddenly proposed changes that experts expect may exempt major industries from the tougher standard. It was one of several instances in which workplace safety decisions have been revisited in the early months of the Trump administration.

OSHA has also put off enforcement of an Obama-era standard for another respiratory hazard — silica, a mineral linked to a disabling lung disease as well as cancer — and it has delayed action on a rule that would require employers to electronically report workplace injuries so that they can be posted for the public.

The moves come as the Trump administration offers other hints of a significant relaxation in the government’s approach to occupational safety.

A successor to Mr. Michaels at OSHA has yet to be named. Mr. Trump’s proposed budget eliminates at least two other strategies designed to promote worker safety, including the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical plant accidents, and an OSHA grant program that provides training in industries with high injury or fatality rates and workers who do not speak English well.

During the early months of the Trump administration, a former lobbyist for an industry group that has opposed the beryllium, silica and record-keeping rules served on the transition team at the Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA. That official, Geoffrey Burr, who has since moved to the Department of Transportation as chief of staff, had been a lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents nonunion construction companies.

Asked about the Trump administration’s approach to occupational safety, a spokesman for the White House said, “The President and his administration care very much about worker safety, but believe the Obama administration’s approach was counterproductive, and we think we can do better.” He added that decisions to repeal and reduce specific OSHA regulations had not been made.

“The agency, under Obama, changed into something that was more explicitly allied with unions and critics of business,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “That’s likely to change.”

Some workplace experts and advocates say the Obama administration’s decision to wait until the eleventh hour to finalize some major rules made them vulnerable.

“Because they did it so late in the game, they left the rules open to change,” said Dr. Lee S. Newman, a pulmonary expert at University of Colorado in Denver, who helped uncover worker deaths caused by beryllium.

Experts like Dr. Newman also fear that a widespread regulatory rollback is beginning, and possible changes to the beryllium rule are particularly frustrating to them because it had taken so long to get the new standards in place.

Source & quite a bit more at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/...skepticism.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur

 

[FrontalMonk]

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn't give a shit about Occupational Safety and Health under Trump?

Gonna file this one under "not fucking surprised".

 

[Khansolo1]

Just because Obama did it. Trump is going to get rid of it

 

[epmode]

According to Trump, the regulations against asbestos use are part of a mafia scam so this kind of story doesn't surprise me at all.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/the-trump-files-asbestos-mob-conspiracy

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Just because Obama did it. Trump is going to get rid of it

Moving forward, we need to make a list of every single thing Obama so much as touched, and assume it's in jeopardy if not already gone.

In the miracle world where we survive a Trump presidency, I'd love for the incoming president to pass the Obama Act, reinstating every single thing Trump repealed, so he can watch behind bars as his anti-legacy withers away.

 

[Ryuuroden]

I own a construction company, rolling back OSHA rules scares the shit out of me. At least a lot of us actually run tougher restrictions than OSHA requires within our companies but that doesn't matter if your working with other outfits on large jobs that are taking shortcuts.

 

[Eusis]

God damn, can they sue the government for rolling this shit back if they suffer as a direct result? These fuckers need to feel pain for this crap.

 

[Nirolak]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

 

[Grym]

next let's MAGA and bring back some good old fashion black lung coal miner deaths /s

 

[4Tran]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

Trump hates regulations because they make it harder for him to get away with shady business. His base doesn't care as long as it's their team bending/breaking the rules.

 

[WiiredShawn]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

So he can legitimately lose the 2020 election while making it seem like the liberal media and deep state were out for his blood. He gets off the hook of actually doing more work while pretending to be a martyr for the rest of his miserable life.

 

[Shoeless]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

Well, if you really want to take the dark, cynical route to explaining this, if his base is going to continue to wallow in both a lack of education, fanatical loyalty and unplanned pregnancies, there's always going to be more of them, young and strong to replace the ones that get killed off by occupational hazards. And as long as it's a job in factory or a mine, they're actually happy about that. It's the perfect self-sustaining cycle of cheap, uninformed, continually replenishing, compliant workforce.

 

[Wilsongt]

Can we gets ads on TV from late night lawyers asking for people to join into a class-action lawsuit against the federal government because you or a love one died from mesothelioma?

 

[gabbo]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

Because he's led them to believe that this will bring back their jobs. Also, "Fuck you, got mine" in effect. Lung Cancer and work places accidents happen to other people, not them. Or God will protect them.

It's really a take your pick situation, as for why he can get away with it.

 

[Electric Eye]

Companies who think this is a win are going to find themselves getting sued in class action lawsuits when the administration changes again and they start looking into punishing retroactively every company that hopped onto the regressive train. Corporations have bit off more than they can chew as they may be living in a regressive period now but it's it's not reality based and simply a ticking time bomb.

 

[astroturfing]

According to Trump, the regulations against asbestos use are part of a mafia scam so this kind of story doesn't surprise me at all.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/the-trump-files-asbestos-mob-conspiracy

good lord lol, there is literally no end to his stupidity. i learn something new every goddamn hour!

 

[commedieu]

I continue to be confused why Trump is literally trying to kill his own base.

It's not killing if it's suicide. A lot of people are anti unions. People that would directly benefit. It's like Hillary rhetoric, some how it's evil, and has been burned into folks minds.

Example coworker a little while ago; "why would I need a union to tell me to be mad at my boss!!!"

 

[MazeHaze]

I work at a liquid plastics manufacturer and this all sounds scary as fuck.

 

[Zophar]

Voting for Trump is turning out to be the greatest self-own in history. Jesus.

 

[IrishNinja]

literally can't recall the last thing of merit to come from CATO

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

How is the gop the party of the working class again? Always baffles me.

It's not like we don't have xenophobic, racist parties supported by the working class in Europe but those are at least actually looking out for them.

 

[yanipheonu]

According to Trump, the regulations against asbestos use are part of a mafia scam so this kind of story doesn't surprise me at all.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/the-trump-files-asbestos-mob-conspiracy

Simpsons being proven more right every day.

 

[gabbo]

How is the gop the party of the working class again? Always baffles me.

It's not like we don't have xenophobic, racist parties supported by the working class in Europe but those are at least actually looking out for them.

I want to say Reagan sold that basket of goods and it's stuck since, even after he killed the PATCO union in his first term

 

[Ogodei]

This is basically every Republican president, OSHA, NLRB, and SEC basically go to sleep for 4-8 years.

 

[Dehnus]

And still there are people taking offence at this forum when you call the GOP evil. Seriously this is Dickensian Evil by now. They don't care squat about anything but the great industrialists and the moneylenders.