From the summer 2008 issue of the IBEW Journal

Stop the Sell-Out of Working Families

The last eight years have seen an unprecedented assault on government agencies devoted to protecting American consumers and workers. From gutting safety and environmental regulations to political cronyism in the highest levels of the federal government, the Bush administration has consistently put the interests of corporate lobbyists and right-wing ideologues over the public good.

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt helped create the Food and Drug Administration and break up corporate monopolies that were fleecing consumers. Richard Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Act into law and created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 

Because of this long-standing bipartisan consensus that saw the need for government protection from unscrupulous corporations, each generation of Americans could expect better working conditions, better housing, better schools, better public services and a cleaner and safer environment. That is until George W. Bush came into office in 2001.

Throughout his presidency, Bush has used his authority to gut regulations and laws in order to make the rich richer, allow big corporations to squeeze their employees and pollute the environment and reward his friends and backers with governmental appointments.

“Bush hasn’t just taken big corporate money,” said International President Edwin D. Hill. “He’s put them in charge of our government so they can try to roll back nearly every important reform working people have won.”

The advice President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, gave in his final speech as president remains relevant today. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” he said. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Katrina Disaster

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States in modern times, but it was governmental neglect and political cronyism by the Federal Emergency Management Administration that turned the event into a tragedy of historic proportions.

Throughout Bush’s first term, the government failed to develop effective emergency plans for large-scale disasters, ignoring warnings by scientists and engineers that New Orleans’ levees would be dangerously ineffectual against a major hurricane.

FEMA Director Michael Brown had no background or experience in disaster management, owing his job to political connections with Bush and the GOP. A report by a bipartisan committee created by the House of Representatives to study FEMA’s response found Brown and his agency  largely responsible for the magnitude of the disaster.  

Despite criticism from both Congress and the media over the administration’s failure in New Orleans, Bush used the tragedy to reward his corporate friends, awarding no-bid private contracts to Halliburton Energy Services to rebuild the city.

“They're going to squeeze down on what workers get and then inflate what the management is going to be able to rake out as the profit for the company,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Government and Oversight Committee. “That's wasting our money and also depriving people who need the income from a hardworking job.”

In addition to overturning Clinton-era contractor responsibility standards, Bush also suspended the Davis-Bacon act, which sets a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region, on Katrina clean-up projects. That executive action was overturned weeks later after a public outcry.

Inside the Anti-Labor Department

Unlike many of President Bush’s appointees, the name of Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao is not likely to ring a bell with many Americans, but she is perhaps the most anti-worker labor secretary in the post’s history.

“Chao’s tenure as secretary of labor is stained with dismantling critical mine safety protections, displaying open hostility toward workers and their unions, and collaborating with corporate interests, most notably through her husband, Sen. Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.),” said American Rights at Work Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell.

Under Chao’s watch, the Mine Safety and Health Administration eliminated 100 mine inspector positions while failing to fine mine owners who violated federal safety regulations. It is no surprise the mine industry has experienced several high profile, tragic incidents and reported a 41-percent increase in the number of miner deaths, the worst fatality rate in more than five years.

Chao also led the fight to replace federally mandated ergonomics standards with voluntary agreements and championed Bush’s effort to change labor law that would have deprived approximately 8 million workers of their overtime pay.

During her tenure, she has staffed the department with corporate lobbyists and anti-union advocates, including one who even wrote a paper titled “How to Eliminate the Department of Labor.”

While the Bush administration has managed to decrease funding for nearly every federal regulatory agency, one government office has grown substantially in the last eight years.

The Office of Labor Management Standards was founded in 1959 to enforce the Landrum-Griffin Act, which was meant to protect union members and their interests by promoting democratic procedures within labor organizations. Normally run by career civil servants with a background in labor law, Bush decided to put GOP political operative Don Todd – one of the men behind the infamous 1988 “Willie Horton” ad – in charge.

Without legal training or experience with unions, Todd has used his position at OLMS to increase the paperwork load on unions by 60 percent, while adding new reporting requirements that could force more than 100,000 additional union leaders – now defined by the OLMS to include stewards and safety committee volunteers – to issue conflict-of-interest reports on even minor personal financial transactions such as car loans. (Center for American Progress)

Bush Gives Mine Workers the Shaft

The highly-publicized deaths of 14 miners in Sago, W. Va., in 2006 brought to light the sad state of mine safety enforcement by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration. Sago had received 208 citations from the MSHA in the previous year, but was still permitted to operate. The lack of accountability is no accident.

David Lauriski was appointed in 2001 to oversee mine safety after a long career as a coal industry executive. In 2003, under Lauriski’s influence, the Mine Safety and Health Administration proposed to weaken regulations mandating frequent testing of coal dust in mines, a major cause of explosions.

Lauriski supported the administration in cutting mine inspector positions. He resigned in 2005 after the Labor Department’s Inspector General confirmed a CBS “60 Minutes” report that his agency had awarded no-bid contracts to several companies, including two that had ties to Lauriski and one of his assistants.

The administration could have replaced Lauriski with an expert on mine safety. Instead, it appointed Jonathan L. Snare, a lawyer and lobbyist for a union-busting law firm.

FDA – Still Keeping Us Safe?

Contrary to its mission, the Food and Drug Administration has undermined the safety and welfare of Americans.

Tainted imports and an apparent lack of will by officials to vigorously vet the foods and drugs that enter the American market have shaken confidence in the once trusted agency.

The Bush White House has cut the number of FDA inspectors every year since 2003. Thirteen FDA laboratories throughout the nation conduct health and safety testing. The administration proposed cutting seven of them. At the same time, imports from countries with little or no safety standards (like China) have doubled on grocery store shelves and in toy stores since the implementation of NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements. (United Steelworkers)

“It’s bad enough that we have a trade deficit with China,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chair of the Joint Economic Committee. “It is even worse that there is a dangerous quality deficit threatening the safety and health of American consumers.” (Bloomberg News)

Recent headlines tell an alarming tale. Lead paint in children’s toys prompted massive recalls. Imported pet foods including lethal additives like melamine – a chemical used in plastics manufacturing – led to public outcry last year after dogs and cats died or became seriously ill. Giant pharmaceutical companies like Merck (which has paid millions of dollars in settlements over its heart attack-inducing drug Vioxx) are slow to report the possible side effects of their drugs for fear of losing profits. (The Nation, United Steelworkers)

By appointing insiders who care more about protecting industry than American consumers, the administration has put citizens’ health at risk by the very agency that was designed to protect them.

Daniel Troy served as the Bush administration’s first FDA administrator and chief counsel. Prior to this appointment, Troy represented tobacco companies in their suit against the FDA over advertising. During his term, the FDA slowed the investigation into the drug Ephedra, a diet supplement linked to more than 100 deaths. (U.S. News & World Report)

Bush next appointed Mark McClellan, brother of the now notorious former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and a Bush loyalist, to helm the FDA. Like Troy, McClellan fought calls for lower drug prices (instead, he proposed that Canada and Western European nations raise their prices to match American costs). (Boston Globe)

“He’s more liked by the pharmaceutical industry than any other commissioner I can remember,” said Dr. Sydney Wolfe, health research director at Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group. (Boston Globe)

McClellan was replaced by Lester Crawford, whose tenure as FDA commissioner culminated in a Justice Department investigation for violating conflict of interest laws due to vast stock holdings he had in companies he was supposed to regulate. After resigning in disgrace, he was sentenced to three years’ probation and $90,000 in fines. (Associated Press)

Gambling with Rail Security

Seven years after 9/11, our nation’s railroads and mass transit systems still lack the basic security needed to protect passengers, workers (including thousands of IBEW members) and cities from terrorist attacks. According to a report by the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, $9 per passenger has been spent on airline security since 9/11, while only one penny per passenger has been spent on rail and mass transit safety.

After years of lobbying and helping to win Democratic control of Congress, the labor movement and our allies have made progress increasing funding for rail security, but our population centers are still vulnerable to the kind of casualties that accompanied terror attacks on rails and subways in Madrid and London, or even greater catastrophes.

The Pittsburgh Tribune reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has estimated the carnage that would be accomplished if terrorists bombed one of the railroad tankers of chlorine gas that routinely pass through Las Vegas; more than 17,000 deaths,10,000 injuries, with another 100,000 citizens reporting to trauma wards. The clean-up would take weeks and force the evacuation of 70,000 citizens.

The Federal Railroad Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has documented thousands of security defects at railroad yards, chemical plants and storage facilities, but has only rarely initiated enforcement actions.

“It’s criminal that we haven’t done something about this,” Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) told the Pittsburgh Tribune. Biden, who commutes to Washington, D.C., from Delaware on Amtrak, proposes that the administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy be restored to fund every recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. He wants additional federal police assigned to rail yards, enhanced cameras and gates and the rerouting of dangerous cargoes around cities.

Big Business Versus the Environment

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the White House Council on Environmental Policy are supposed to protect our national parks and our environment. But real oversight ends when those agencies are in the hands of a revolving group of big business cronies.

Appointed Secretary of the Department of the Interior in 2001, Gale Norton was an attorney who worked for a law firm that lobbied for corporate clients. During her tenure, Norton relaxed Interior’s regulations on permits for oil and gas in environmentally-sensitive areas. 

Under Norton’s direction, the Minerals Management Service waived two years of royalty payments for private companies drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The Department of Justice later forced Shell, one of the companies exploiting the Gulf’s petroleum, to pay more than $150 million in underpaid royalties after whistleblowers exposed their reporting failures.

After resigning in 2006, when members of her department were linked to the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal, Norton went to work for Shell.

The White House Council on Environmental Policy’s former chief of staff, Philip A. Cooney, was appointed in 2005. Cooney, who had no scientific background, drew public scrutiny when he changed a number of official reports to understate the potential effects of global climate change.

The New York Times reported that Cooney crossed out a paragraph based on research that discussed how global warming might reduce glaciers and snowpack. Cooney resigned two days after the Times report. He now works for ExxonMobil.