It’s always tragic when someone dies on the job, but sometimes federal safety rules, when implemented and enforced, can prevent accidents and save lives. Some are now arguing that employers who neglect safety rules and indirectly contribute to fatal accidents face felony convictions. It sounds like a pretty uncontroversial idea to me.
A man whose son was killed 11 years ago in a gruesome workplace accident urged Congress on Tuesday to give prosecutors the threat of felony convictions against employers whose neglect for federal safety rules causes a death.
Ron Hayes, a Fairhope, Ala., resident who in December ended his two-year term on the advisory panel overseeing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was in Washington to lobby for a proposal by Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
In past visits, Hayes has blasted what he calls lax oversight by OSHA and the Department of Labor. On Tuesday, the eve of Worker Memorial Day, his focus was less on oversight than enforcement — a potential 10-year prison term for violators who are “willfully” responsible for the death of a worker. That crime now is a misdemeanor, carrying up to six months in prison — a term which Hayes says only one person has served in 33 years.
“We cannot go another year,” Hayes said. “We cannot see the bodies pile up like (an) accordion because no one is helping us. I promise you until this bill is passed, until we start seeing prosecution, OSHA is going to disappoint and betray family after family after family. We’ve got to stop it.”
Increasing penalties would create an incentive for businesses to help protect workers and hold them accountable if they don’t. Of course, having employers create safer working environments might cost a little money, so Tom DeLay and other Republicans are fighting the proposal.
As the DCCC’s blog noted yesterday, the GOP wants to protect businesses against penalties, even when their negligence costs human lives.
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans called the Corzine-Kennedy proposal “just another policy to destroy jobs.” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said the proposal would be “the worst thing that you could do — telling a small business person that they could go to prison over an OSHA violation.”
Gotta love that pro-family GOP agenda.