Court Orders Bush Labor Department to Respond to Unions’ Safety Suit

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/02/20/court-orders-bush-labor-department-to-respond-to-unions%e2%80%99-safety-suit/

Court Orders Bush Labor Department to Respond to Unions’ Safety Suit

by Mike Hall, Feb 20, 2007

The Bush administration’s Department of Labor is not going to be able to duck a suit filed by the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) over the department’s failure to finish a safety rule requiring employers to pay for workers’ personal protective equipment (PPE). Protective gear, such as specialized clothing, lifelines, face shields, gloves and other equipment, is used by an estimated 20 million workers to protect them from job hazards.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the Bush administration to respond to the suit, filed Jan. 3, within 30 days.

By the government’s own estimates, the PPE rule could have prevented 400,000 injuries and saved 50 lives since it was first proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1999.

The lawsuit asserts the Bush administration’s failure to act is putting workers in danger. The union groups say workers in some of America’s most dangerous industries—meatpacking, poultry and construction—and low-wage and immigrant workers who suffer high-injury rates are vulnerable to being forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of OSHA’s failure to finish the rule.

In 1997, OSHA announced that it would issue a rule on protective gear, and it formally proposed a rule in 1999. The proposed rule does not impose any new obligations on employers to provide safety equipment; it simply clarifies that employers, not employees, have the responsibility to pay for it.

In 2003, the AFL-CIO and UFCW petitioned the safety agency to finish the protective equipment standard. In addition, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus made several requests to OSHA to finish the rule. But OSHA has yet to act.

The lawsuit asks the court to issue an order directing the secretary of labor to complete the protective gear rule within 60 days of the court’s order.

[Miss Chybil]

1. K & R. nt