Public Employee Press

Union’s battle for fair budgets
Political Action 2005: Fighting state budget cuts
Pataki: safety hazard

Following Bush’s lead, Pataki masks efforts to weaken workplace safety as budget savings.

By JANE LaTOUR

Most Republicans have never seen a regulation enforcing standards for workers’ safety and health that they like. Less regulation is more pleasing to their business allies. During the first term of the Bush administration, OSHA — the federal agency charged with enforcing safety in the workplace — wiped out important safety standards and moved toward a strategy stressing cooperation with employers.

Gov. George E. Pataki moved in the same cynical direction in his proposed 2005-2006 budget. He plans to do away with the independent state Hazard Abatement Board and give its responsibilities to his appointed Commissioner of Labor. The board determines whether to adopt new safety and health standards to protect public employees from hazards and administers the Occupational Safety and Health Training and Education Program and the Capital Abatement Program.

The Governor’s moves are wrongheaded on many counts. On Feb. 15, DC 37 Safety and Health Director Lee Clarke traveled to Albany to give legislators forceful testimony against the governor’s attack on members’ protections. She testified before the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committees of the State Senate and Assembly.

“This budget will drastically undercut advances made in this state to make workplaces safer and healthier,” she said. The training program, initiated in 1986, is based on the theory that prevention is better than paying workers after they are injured. Since it is funded by a small assessment on employer-paid Workers’ Comp premiums, “The program is off-budget and does not affect the state’s deficit,” she said. Therefore, calling it a way to cut the budget is at best erroneous.

“DC 37 was able to develop a range of programs that allowed the union to train members, produce and distribute materials that educated our members so that they are much more likely to recognize and deal with hazardous and unsafe conditions,” she said. Occupational fatalities and injuries in the state decreased over the last decade, “But there are still an unacceptable number of workers who die or are crippled because of job-related health and safety hazards,” said Ms. Clarke.

Ms. Clarke warned the legislators that many features of the governor’s plan are ill-advised. “We believe that open hearings in front of an independent board are superior for deciding whether a safety or health standard is necessary, compared with turning the decision over to a political appointee of the governor,” she said.