Saving The Labor Force From The U.S. Government

Years ago, the government put agencies in place to protect the labor force. I look at those agencies today and discover those agencies no longer have the teeth to protect us. A prime example would be the Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). For those of you who are business owners you would be very familiar with this agency. They are the folks who stick their nose in if an employee is hurt on the job. Has anyone seen OSHA lately? My husband works for the Post Office and was injured on the job. He stepped on a golf ball. Supervision called him in to ask if he didn't bother to look where he was going and attempt to blame the injury on him. When my father worked for the Post Office if a golf ball had been found on the shop floor OSHA would have been right there to find out where the golf ball had come from, who brought it into the Post Office, how it came to be on the floor, etc.

I worked as a "casual" a couple years ago. Many of the clerks wore "Z-Coil" shoes to keep their backs from hurting. Then supervision said no more "Z-Coils", you could trip on exposed cords on the shop floor. Doesn't OSHA have a reg covering this issue that states if there is an exposed cord on the floor it must be covered by a cord protector? As a matter of fact they do. In fact, there is a hefty fine attached to the violation of this regulation. Yet the Post Office gets by with banning shoes that make their personnel more comfortable at work for a reason that violates federal regulations.

This is a truly sad commentary. Where are the protections we use to rely on? The government has removed them so big business can get richer off of the work force. It is time for us to take the country back, protect our people and quit settling for second place. Once upon a time we elected our officials to work for us. When did they cease to work for us and tell us what is "in our best interests"? If we want to be safe in the work place again and make this country the once great land it was we need to see who is the best person for the job. Who is going to insure our protections are put back into place and quit making the victim the person receiving the blame for a preventable accident, quit making ridiculous rules to protect the business and not the worker.