Stonewalling in N.Y.
Cable company won't bargain with striking
workers

Southside Traincars
Chinese manufacturer to produce cars in Chicago

Texas Appeal
IBEW health plan an organizing bonanza

Win-Win Contract
Raises, new members
at AT&T

From the Rooftops
Solar contractor touts IBEW partnership

Starting Over
A renewed search for suitable donor

North of 49°
Prioritizing Safety in
New Brunswick

Au nord du 49° parallèle
On accorde la priorité
à la sécurité au
Nouveau-Brunswick

In their first 100 days in power, the Trump administration and the Republican Congress have repealed and blocked worker safety regulations that were years, sometimes decades, in the making.

Through legislative action, executive orders and the use of the Congressional Review Act, the executive and legislative branches jointly and repeatedly shifted the cost and responsibility of keeping workers safe from corporations to workers and the public.

In total, IBEW Safety Department Director Dave Mullen said Republicans in Congress have targeted more than 225 rules and standards affecting U.S. workers.

But even more than specific regulations, Republicans have the power to achieve a decades- old dream of dismantling the entire system of workplace and consumer protections built since the birth of the labor movement and cemented into place during the New Deal.

The 2016 Republican party platform called that system "the quiet tyranny of the 'Nanny State.'"

The Occupational Safety and Health Act, requiring employers to protect their workers from preventable injury and death, is called "exploitation." The regulations that bar bankers from ripping people off are "burdensome." The Environmental Protection Act's bans against dumping toxic chemicals into waterways are called "punishing."

Now that they have all the levers of power in their control, Republicans are delivering on their platform's promise to "make regulations minimally intrusive" and "respectful toward the creation of new and small businesses."

"They have been making regulation synonymous with burdens, with costs," said Celine McNicholas, labor counsel for the Economic Policy Institute. "By only focusing on the cost to business of keeping workers safe, they ignore the cost to everyone else when workers get hurt."

Getting rid of workplace protections doesn't just shift the economic burden from companies to workers, it increases costs to everyone. The company saves money by not providing facemasks that filter out asbestos, but the cost of treating long term respiratory illness, premature death and disability vastly exceeds the savings to the company.

Stephenson:
A Better Way to Work
Cooper:
My Commitment to You

Dennis Phelps;
William J. Pledger
Donald W. Vidourek;
R.W. "Red" Purcell

Driving Down Wages in
the Construction Industry

'They're the Experts':
Iowa Generating Plant Members Recognized;
In Canadian Schools, Prioritizing On-the-Job Safety

Skills and Professionalism;
Nuclear Energy: Safe, Effective, Modern;
IBEW Goes Nuclear

April 2017

From 'Broken' to Independent and Honored