Today is Workers’ Memorial Day – a solemn remembrance

Who knows what lurks in the dark hearts of those who’d exploit and endanger workers and their organizations? Diminishing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the weeks before Workers Memorial Day April 28 may have seemed a bit much for these power-brokers. So instead of a final, fatal attack, they opted for a piecemeal assault. While hardly stealth, the approach might have an outcome comparable to being “nibbled to death by ducks” (or by billionaires or collaborators or Twentysomethings with some tech savvy).

It still ends up in death.

Eroding OSHA rather than outright annihilation like too many federal workers facing job cuts or the elimination of agencies, the Trump administration has chosen to ignore the statistics.

At press time, the most recent data on workplace casualties, from 2022, shows that more than 3.5 million workers had work-related injuries and illnesses, with 5,486 deaths on the job – up from 2021. The numbers don’t include worker fatalities from occupational diseases, which the AFL-CIO estimates to be 135,000 annually. (The construction industry in particular is risky. Eight different building trades make up 8 of the top 25 list of “Most Dangerous Jobs” – roofers, ironworkers, delivery drivers, crane operators, construction helpers, highway maintenance workers, cement masons and construction workers,)

Already, OSHA for years has had an inadequate corps of inspectors, and though blue states might pick up some of the vital service, the number of federal inspectors – available to cover some 8 million workplaces –

is likely going to get depleted.

And now, Trump’s nominations for OSHA leaders could result in a new OSHA motto: “You’re on your own.”

Trump has named:

* David Keeling as OSHA chief. He formerly worked for Amazon, which has logged more than half of all U.S. warehouse injuries);

* Amanda Wood Laihow as senior counsel. She’s the ex-director of employment policy for the National Association of Manufacturers; and

* Michael Asplen as OSHA's senior policy adviser. He used to run a training institute for Littler Mendelson, a prominent employer law firm.

 

In the field, Elon Musk and his “efficiency” underlings on March 8 announced the termination of leases for 17 OSHA offices nationwide, and they added two more on March 24.

Meanwhile, reports and other documents have been purged from OSHA’s web site, some seemingly due to an outright anti-worker attitude and some because of the administration’s clumsy removal of all DEI-related language, such as diversity, equity, inclusion or gender.

Responding to Trump’s Executive Order, OSHA had to destroy the digital and physical copies of 18 publications on workplace safety, according to an internal February email obtained by the independent Popular Information news site. Censored material includes a Guidance Manual for Hazardous Waste Site Activities, Ergonomics Guidelines for Shipyards, and Best Practices for Protecting EMS Responders. The latter publication was apparently flagged because of the use of “diversity” and “diverse” in text – “a diversity of state-specific certification” and “diverse conditions under which EMS responders could work.”

A fact sheet on Workplace Mental Health also was deleted, presumably because of a sentence saying “People of any age, gender, and background can have thoughts of suicide.”

Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO director of occupational safety and health for 29 years, commented, “The Trump DEI purge is misguided, harmful, wasteful and wrong. It has purged important worker safety and health information and guidance that assists employers, workers, clinicians and safety and health professionals in understanding and identifying and protecting workers from serious hazards and complying with OSHA standards and regulations. The DEI purge makes workplaces unsafe and puts workers in danger.”

Likewise, the status of a rule that became effective Jan. 1, 2024, mandating record-keeping for employers with 100 or more workers is unclear.

An existing rule permitting independent observers such as union job-safety people to accompany OSHA compliance officers on inspections, is at risk, too, according to labor/management lawyers. This so-called walk-around rule, which went into effect May 31, can be valuable because “union experts are likely to find violations which bosses can pressure OSHA to conveniently ‘overlook’,” according to Press Associates reporter Mark Gruenberg. Chamber of Commerce lawsuit in Texas could block the rule.

A proposed rule to ensure employers minimize exposure to hazardous heat probably won’t be enacted.

In a related move – although not in the Labor Department like OSHA, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the Department of Health and Human Services – the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) didn’t escape the ax (however temporary OSHA’s reprieve may be).

Trump’s HHS Secretary RFK Jr. plans to eliminate about 875 jobs there, some two-thirds of NIOSH staff.

Part of the CDC since Reagan’s presidency, NIOSH conducts research and investigations, administers programs for nuclear veterans and World Trade Center survivors., certifies respirators, runs the National Firefighter Cancer Registry, studies child labor and mine safety, and maintains 18 Education and Research Centers, including the Great Lakes Center for Occupational Health and Safety at the University of Illinois - Chicago.

The drastic cuts will decimate the nation’s leading occupational safety and health researchers, according to labor reporter Mike Elk.

“Without NIOSH’s ability to investigate outbreaks and certify respirators, more health-care workers, firefighters, construction workers and others will get sick and die,” Elk wrote. “Sooner or later this country will face another pandemic and, as with COVID, workers will be on the front lines without the benefit of research to protect them. More workers will die of heat-related illness, and more miners will succumb to dust-related illness and other deadly hazards.”

AFL-CIO President Lia Shuler added, “Every worker should be able to go home safe and healthy at the end of their shift, but the Trump administration is gutting NIOSH, which will have devastating and irreversible effects on workers’ lives.  

“This action is a gift to corporations that want to slash worker protections to create more profits,” she continued. “It’s an insult to the workers who put their lives on the line at work every day and their families who wait for them to come home. The Trump administration must reverse this anti-worker, anti-health and safety action. We will fight until the work of this critical agency is restored.”

Finally, there’s the possibility of an outright repeal of the law – passed in 1970, during the Nixon administration. The Nullify Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act (“NOSHA”), introduced by U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), proposes the complete elimination of OSHA, using a “states’ rights” argument that private employers and states could take over the duties.

“This bill would be a catastrophic step backward for worker safety in this country,” commented Sally Greenberg of the National Consumers League. “Repealing OSHA would put workers at great risk by dismantling the very protections that have helped reduce workplace injuries and deaths for over 50 years."”

This year’s Workers Memorial Day must remember the sacrifices of the past – and also recognize the threats ahead.