The Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Kim recently commented about the fact that we- almost literally- dodged a bullet when the end run on our firearms rights was defeated.
here’s the thing, for people who don’t get it.
I spent my apprenticeship in what, next to actual coal mines, was the filthiest place on the planet. I saw “actual” hazards. And then I saw Osha and the MSA enact regulations that had nothing to do with actual job hazards, but more to do with ways to make lawsuits more profitable for individuals who put themselves in harms way in order to have a payday.
Sure, in the early days, Osha was an important thing; however, like all gummint agencies it became the same bloated bureaucracy that the unions are, sucking the life from manufacturing and making it more and more difficult for people to do their jobs.
Osha has been at least as dangerous to manufacturing in the last ten years as the EPA, or NAFTA. Watch these bastards, they are in the pockets of the trial lawyers, lock stock and barrel.
And if you think OSHA is fun … you should get a load of CALOSHA (yeah, they have their own in CA). We had to deal with them at the NAS I was stationed at … and those poindexters …had permanent woodies for all the little forest and sea creatures we might accidentally displace while providing for the defense of the nation. What a hoot.
EPA was once a great thing, but we’ve pretty much cleaned up our act. Now that it is so much cheaper tomake goods in other countries, businesses are doing what comes naturally. Should be interesting to watch trade with China, huh?
EPA, OSHA, the unions…
They’re all self serving agencies with agendas in left field.
We had a guy who took the guards off a press and then proceeded to chop the end off his finger. Of course the company was fined a huge some of money. In the end the union kept us from firing the guy, the company had to pay the medical costs and fines and the employee sued the company. It was settled out of court. OSHA enabled it all.
When I worked at Stewart-Warner (a short period back in the early ’80s) there were a couple of incidents like HB describes. I could never figure out the idiocy of removing or defeating safety devices just to save a few seconds. I don’t ever remember hearing about any other serious injuries outside of the press room. And like HB says, the end result in every case was create a gigantic shit storm due to the OSHA rules.
I guess the guys who got hurt figured it was worth a couple of fingers.
When I took the Unit Safety Officer Course last year, the OSHA maunal was damn near bigger than an encycopedia. And we only just touched on a bit of it. To actually get in depth with OSHA regulations is an entire class on it’s own.
It’s rather insane.