Warning, this piece is loaded with facts, not our opinions!
We have written at great length here, here, here, and here, about OSHA’s plans to enforce safety regulations and fine violators. The “new sheriff in town” is on a mission.
So imagine what we felt when we found this report detailing 6,300 safety hazards just in Capital Hill Buildings.
- 1058 fire hazards
- 1742 electrical problems
- 102 storage shelving violations
- 70 machine guarding violations (In the last fiscal year, the machining industry had just 56 violations. See the link here. Capital Hill machine guarding violations alone are equal to about 125% of the entire machining industry’s violations for the entire country in 2009)
- 25% of hazards continue to be high risk to employees and visitors.
6300 violations compared to 56 for the machining industry, thats 11,250% more violations than our machining industry.
Library of Congress- 530 violations- not quite 10 times the violations of the entire machining industry..
“Congress has one standard for itself and another for everyone else.“- Melanie Sloan, committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
In other words “Do as we say, not as we do.”
We could go on, but whats the point? You can read the report at this link.
Here’s a wrap up quote from Senator Joseph Lieberman:
“We are talking about the safety of real people…Congress’s failure to meet OSHA workplace safety standards means that it is putting the health- and possibly the lives- of its workers at risk…This state of affairs is not just bad public relations, it is bad government.“ (Page 16)
So when you hear all that stuff about how the government is somehow more concerned about safety today- well, now you can see that they don’t practice what they enforce. That the push is for revenue not real safety.
If it was really about safety, wouldn’t you think they’d make it safe to work for the government?
That “new sheriff in town” and this administration is merely trying to enhance revenue collection from private manufacturers – shops like ours.
If it was about safety, well, why wouldn’t they start on Capital Hill? Thats where 11250% of the violations are, compared to machining.
