[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 106 (Tuesday, June 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6381-H6389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to defend the right of every American 
to be safe and healthy at work. Americans who do the right thing and go 
to work every day should not have to pay for it with their health or 
their lives.
  I have two photos with me this evening, and I hope the camera can 
catch them. The first shows a job which I am personally familiar with, 
working in a slaughterhouse, which I did when I was working my way 
through college. It is tough work, it is dangerous work. I have seen 
people literally mutilated and hurt on the job in this employment, and 
yet those of us who take for granted the meat in the grocery department 
do not realize how many men and women each day literally risk their own 
health and lives in their jobs.
  Below this is another photo in which we cannot see the gentleman who 
is carrying it, but he appears to be a worker in some sort of a grocery 
outlet carrying a bag of bakery flour, which of course can be a 
challenge at times, depending on the size of it.

                              {time}  2145

  These are just two, I guess, regular employment opportunities in 
America that we do not think much of. But the reason that I rise this 
evening and invite my colleagues to join me is to talk about the men 
and women who go to work each day in America and how safe it is in 
their workplace.
  Unfortunately, for too many Americans in all kinds of jobs, they pay 
each day with their health and their lives. The numbers are absolutely 
staggering in America. Six thousand Americans are killed at work every 
single year, almost twice as many as are killed by fires in the home. 
Fifty thousand Americans die of occupational diseases every year, 
almost as many died in the entire Vietnam War. Sixty thousand Americans 
are permanently disabled every year because of their jobs, more than 
all the newly reported AIDS cases reported in 1992. And more than 6 
million workers suffer serious injuries and illnesses every year 
because of their work. That is more than twice the number of people who 
live in the city of Chicago. And it happens every single day.
  On an average day, 16,000 Americans are injured at work. On an 
average day, 154 Americans are killed by job-related injuries and 
occupational diseases. We know how many people are killed and injured 
in auto crashes and we are horrified by it and we demand that the 
Government take action to make our highways safer. We know how many 
people are killed and injured in airplane accidents and we rightly 
demand safer airports and airplanes. The Director of the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration has said that ``if a plane crashed 
every day in this country, the hue and cry for action would be 
deafening.'' But when a plane full of Americans die at work each day, 
silence is all we hear. These are not just numbers. They are real 
people. Their only fault is they get up and go to work every day to 
provide for themselves and their family, and that is certainly no 
fault. They are our coworkers, our friends, our relatives, our family, 
our neighbors.
  Darrell Drummer of Loves Park, IL. He was killed in a gravel pit when 
a cable came loose and struck him in the head. He was 41 years old. 
Janice Banks of Pulaski, TN, killed when the lumber stacker she was 
working on fell up against her. Lloyd Mills, who lost his hearing 
because of this job, and he said, ``Had I had the right to wear hearing 
protection, I would have worn it because the longer I live, the longer 
I'm going to have to listen to that humming in my ears.'' Or the 25 
workers who died in a poultry processing plant in Hamlet, NC, trapped 
in a raging fire because the emergency exits had been locked by their 
employers.
  Unsafe workplaces are not limited to giant factories, meatpacking 
plants, and high elevation construction sites. Job hazards affect 
Americans who work in all kinds of jobs. They affect the employees of 
nursing homes who work in what has become one of the most dangerous 
jobs in America. They affect workers in grocery stores who work with 
band saws that can cut workers as quickly as they slice meat. They 
include locked exit doors that trap workers in fires, electrical 
hazards, toxic chemicals and noise that causes permanent hearing loss.
  This special order tonight by my colleagues on the Democratic side of 
the aisle is a reminder to those who think it is time to turn back the 
clock on job safety and health in the workplace, a reminder that the 
job is not yet done and the victory is not yet won. With me are Members 
of Congress from across the country, and I might add from both sides of 
the aisle now, and I 

[[Page H 6382]]
welcome the gentlewoman from Maryland. They know the importance of 
safety and health in the workplace, because they have worked for safety 
and health laws for years. They know the importance of safety and 
health because they have constituents who have been killed and maimed 
at work. They will tell you about the hazards American workers face in 
food processing plants, coal mines, grocery stores, and construction 
sites and they will tell you what the new majority in Congress, some of 
them, are proposing to do in response, from cutting safety and health 
funding to gutting safety and health laws.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not enough to say that you care about the safety 
and health of Americans at work. The American people will judge us by 
our actions. I hope this special order will remind people of the 
importance, the life-and-death importance, of a healthy and safe 
workplace. I hope it will encourage Congress to work for real 
improvements and real solutions.
  I see among my colleagues this evening the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Owens], the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy], the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Miller], the gentleman from West 
Virginia [Mr. Wise], and the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella]. 
I welcome them all.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens].
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and congratulate him on 
this special order. I would also like to thank the leadership for 
taking this opportunity to highlight a very important piece of 
legislation. I serve as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on 
Workforce Protections of the Committee on Economic and Educational 
Opportunities.
  Mr. Speaker, I have in front of me a package of printouts listing a 
portion of the 10,000 Americans who died in the workplace last year. 
About 56,000 die of accidents that take place in the workplace and of 
diseases contracted in the workplace. But 10,000 die in the workplace, 
at the workplace. I think that it is important that we note that there 
are names and addresses of human beings here. They are very real.
  The notion that government agencies like OSHA exist only to make work 
for bureaucrats or to make life unpleasant for businesses is untrue in 
most cases, but certainly in the case of an agency like OSHA, we can 
clearly prove it to be untrue. One of the great things about the 
Vietnam War Memorial is the fact that it does give individual names. No 
more Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. You know exactly who it was who died 
and what day they died, and I think that to humanize what happens in 
this great so-called bureaucracy of the Federal Government, it is 
important of us to take a look at the actual list of names and 
addresses of the human beings who have died in the workplace.
  Over the years, OSHA has decreased the number who die in the 
workplace, or who die as a result of diseases contracted in the 
workplace, but OSHA has not done the job 100 percent. OSHA must 
continue to exist.
  Congress must be concerned about the health and safety of all 
American workers. The blind and furious ideological war being waged by 
the Republican Party against the Nation's labor unions has propelled 
the Republicans into a search and destroy mission against OSHA. This 
relentless attack places all American workers in harms way. There will 
be a large number of casualties. Already, more than 56,000 American 
workers die each year as a result of accidents on the job or from 
disease and injuries suffered at their places of work. Passage of 
legislation designed to disable OSHA will greatly escalate this 
unfortunate body count.
  Speaker Gingrich has recently proclaimed that politics is ``war 
without blood.'' The reality is that the Republican war on OSHA will 
provide pain and suffering; and in many instances their proposed 
``scorched earth'' assault on OSHA will also produce blood. Among the 
56,000 casualties last year, there were 10,000 who bled and died at the 
work site as a result of horrible accidents.
  It is not exaggerating at all to say that the proposed Republican 
OSHA reforms, H.R. 1834, could be accurately described as the Death and 
Injury Act of 1995. Provisions designed to protect the health and 
safety of workers are being eradicated. The requirements of serious 
compliance by employers is being demolished. Reasonable protections are 
being blown away leaving workers dangerously exposed and defenseless. 
As a result of this Republican invasion of every worthwhile Government 
program there will be a criminal escalation of the body count.
  Before the Republican aggression against programs they target as 
enemies, there is always a barrage of propaganda attempting to 
pulverize the facts and the truth. Always there are bombardments of 
disinformation about Government bureaucracies. Like most Government 
agencies initiated by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and 
Democrat Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, OSHA is not the blundering 
irrelevant entity described by the Republican propaganda machine. OSHA 
is very much in accordance with the mission of the U.S. Constitution 
``to promote the general welfare.''
  Promoting the general welfare of workers involves providing basic 
protections of their health and safety. The workplace should not be a 
place which diminishes the opportunity and damages the capacity of any 
American to engage fully in their right to the ``pursuit of 
happiness.'' Although organized labor led the fight to create OSHA and 
unions play a major role in enforcing the
 regulations, OSHA is not a gift of the Democratic Party to union 
members. OSHA represents a logical fulfillment of the promise of our 
Constitution. OSHA is for all Americans.

  The Republican juggernaut has launched a counterattack against the 
basic mission of our Constitution. The following examination of the 
Republican proposals will expose the destructive nature of their 
``Death and Injury Act'':


             summary of the republican death and injury act

  After the September 3, 1991, fire at the Imperial Food's Hamlet 
Plant--where 25 workers were killed and 56 injured--Mr. Cass Ballenger, 
now chairman of the Subcommittee on Workplace Protections, told the 
Charlotte Observer, ``it's embarrassing that it takes a fire like this 
* * * before the news media makes a big enough deal that people will 
say `OK, we'll pay more tax money' (for worker safety). It's the 
squeaking wheel that needs the grease and this wheel apparently hasn't 
been squeaking loud enough. * * * I think everybody agrees that it's 
underfunded and bogged down with bureaucracy.'' Given this insight, can 
you imagine how utterly incomprehensible it is that the Death and 
Injury Act is being proposed by Congressman Ballenger.
  Let's closely examine the Republican Death and Injury Act.
  The Ballenger bill viciously targets all working Americans--without 
prejudice or discrimination. However, the suffering it will inflict on 
workers and their families is not equally distributed--only the workers 
lose.

                                the bill

  This legislation is an assault on worker safety and health 
protections. The Ballenger bill undermines the safety net for workers 
by: virtually eliminating the general duty of employers to maintain a 
safe and healthy workplace; making it almost impossible for OSHA to 
inspect workplaces and issue citations; taking away the right of 
workers to raise safety and health concerns without fear of employer 
reprisals; making it harder, if not impossible for OSHA to set 
standards; and eliminating important job safety agencies.
                              enforcement

  Ballenger guts the enforcement provisions by shifting 50 percent of 
the resources for this activity to consultation. To focus this agency's 
energies on nonenforcement compliance activities further erodes OSHA's 
ability to prevent hazards likely to cause death and serious physical 
injuries. OSHA's enforcement program is woefully inadequate. At current 
levels of inspections, Federal
 OSHA can inspect workplaces only once every 87 years. Under Ballenger 
there will be no inspections--no enforcement.

  Ballenger permits the employer to self-evaluate by conducting its own 
``safety audits''. Workers will not have access to these audits. If 
this isn't the fox guarding the chicken coop, I don't know what is. 
Fifty-six thousand American workers die each year from accidents on the 
job or disease and injuries suffered at their places of work. 

[[Page H 6383]]
Ballenger guarantees an escalation in work-related deaths.
  Ballenger prohibits OSHA from issuing citations to first time 
violators. Although, under current law, a citation is issued within 6 
months of the inspection, and employers can request an informal 
conference to resolve the citation (even before a hearing takes place); 
it is not enough for Ballenger. This bill sends employers the message 
that they will not be punished until they are caught, not once but 
twice, by OSHA. Therefore, many employers will not comply.
  Ballenger slashes fines and employers who violate laws for which 
there is no specific standard, such as ergonomics or indoor air 
quality, will never be fined. The General Accounting Office [GAO] has 
observed that civil penalties accessed under the OSHA Act are 
inadequate to deter violations of the act. In 1993, the average penalty 
collected for a serious OSHA Act violation was $550. As a matter of 
fact, a report in the Daytona Daily News highlighted a Georgia company 
that paid a $2 fine for an OSHA Act violation which resulted in the 
deaths of two employees. Ballenger insures violators will not have to 
pay.


              protection of employees from discrimination

  Ballenger requires workers to inform employers of complaints before 
contacting OSHA. The right to confidentiality is eliminated and as a 
result, retaliation against workers who file complaints will escalate. 
Employees will not report safety and health hazards, or illness and 
injuries, fearing that they will lose their jobs. Ballenger compromises 
the protection of workers from discrimination: Ensuring the 
victimization of the American worker into the 21st century.
  Ballenger gives employers the right to blame workers for not 
following safety rules in order to overturn citations and fines. 
Ballenger generously provides employers with opportunities to avoid 
sanctions for hazardous work-place violations.
  Ballenger makes it easier for employers to randomly drug test 
workers. Ballenger makes a mockery of a persons right to privacy.


                occupational health and safety standards

  Ballenger prevents OSHA from setting standards unless they can prove 
that the costs will not exceed the benefits. Ballenger effectively 
restricts the cost for worker health and safety to zero.
  Ballenger lets companies overturn safety and health standards in 
court and tie up the standard process in redtape. Ballenger forestalls 
the development of standards for ergonomics, indoor air quality and 
other emerging hazards, indefinitely.


    mine safety and health agency [msha] and national institute for 
                 occupational safety and health [niosh]

  Ballenger collapses MSHA into OSHA, effectively eliminating the 
agency which has been very successful in reducing fatalities and 
injuries in the mine industry. Ballenger places the lives of workers in 
14,500 mines in this Nation at risk.
  Ballenger eliminates NIOSH--the only agency in this country that 
conducts research on worker safety and health. Ballenger eradicates any 
possible major research effort in health and safety; placing all 
American workers at risk.
  The disruption caused by the Death and Injury Act by needlessly 
combining MSHA and OSHA and eliminating NIOSH, will cost the Federal 
Government time, money, and experienced staff. Most importantly, 
however, it will cost thousands of innocent lives--the lives of men, 
women and young people who go to work to help support their families, 
pay for their education or simply to earn a living.
  This Death and Injury Act is a menace to all Americans. A fully 
functioning OSHA offers an umbrella to all Americans. The children, 
families, and relatives of workers benefit when workers are protected. 
Against the Republican attack on OSHA the majority of Americans must 
mobilize to defend themselves. Speaker Gingrich has stated that his 
brand of politics is war without blood. It must be remembered that even 
before the Republican declaration of war against OSHA there were 56,000 
casualties each year. There is
 already too much blood. A war against OSHA will be costly. A war 
against OSHA is madness that must be halted immediately.
  The 56,000 casualties represent real people with names and faces. 
These are real people who left loved ones behind. These are real 
Americans who were lost despite the reasonable efforts of their 
Government to protect them in the work place. We cannot consciously 
accept policy changes which will guarantee that more Americans will 
die.
  Our society places a high value on statistics. Each year for each 
holiday we broadcast the holiday highway death count. We deplore the 
statistics which tell us that homicides by gunshot are out of control. 
Last year there were 16,000 gunshot homicide victims. And, or course 
the periodic Vietnam War body count led thousands of Americans to 
protest in the streets. It should be noted that of the Vietnam War 
Memorial there are 57,000 names of those who died during the entire 
war. In contrast, there are 56,000 American work-place casualties each 
year.
  We Americans place a high value on human life. Large numbers even 
insist on protecting unborn life in the wombs of mothers. To defeat the 
Republican Death and Injury Act we must raise the level of our voices 
and in every way possible inform the voters. This is not abstract 
politics. These are living, breathing, working citizens who are being 
protected. Perhaps the Republican warmongers will get the message if we 
follow the example of the Vietnam War Memorial. This great monument 
ends the practice of celebrating unknown soldiers. Carved on that great 
wall are the names of all the individuals who died.
  Mr. Speaker, each day I propose to enter into the Congressional 
Record a portion of the 56,000 names of the casualties of last year's 
work place hazards. We propose to begin with North Carolina where, a 
few years ago, 25 workers in a chicken parts packaging plant perished. 
During a hearing before the Subcommittee on Workplace Protections there 
was also a mother from North Carolina who pleaded with the committee 
not to destroy OSHA. She had already lost one son and a second son was 
gravely ill as a result of accidents at the plant where they worked.
  Speaker Gingrich defines politics as war without blood; however, the 
kind of politics being pushed by the Republican Death and Injury Act is 
very much a life and death matter. Children will lose fathers and 
mothers; wives will lose husbands; parents will lose sons and 
daughters; Americans will die as a result of these reckless changes 
being proposed to dismantle OSHA. This brand of politics is too 
extreme. This kind of political war is too deadly.
                              {time}  2200

  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the gentleman for his contribution this evening. 
His position as ranking member of the subcommittee which has 
jurisdiction over this issue certainly gives him a good view of the 
issues, and I appreciate the analysis which he has given us.
  At this point I would like to make it clear and I hope I made it 
clear in my opening statement that that statement about worker safety, 
this special order, is a bipartisan effort, and I am happy to recognize 
one of my friends and one of my colleagues, the gentlewoman from 
Maryland [Mrs. Morella], a Republican Member, who is going to address 
the question of worker safety as it relates to Federal workers.
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding. As a matter of fact, I thank him very much for arranging for 
this special order tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to express my concern 
about the health and safety conditions in the Federal workplace. The 
U.S. Government should be setting the example for all employers in 
providing a safe and healthy work environment.
  We tend to forget that that scientist at the National Institutes of 
Health who is isolating the colon cancer gene and the breast cancer 
gene is a Federal employee, that the meat and health inspectors are 
Federal employees, that they are taking care of us and the least we can 
do is to provide the adequate workplace environment to protect their 
health and safety. Federal workers, however, are still faced with 
workplace health and safety hazards that are causing a high rate of 
injuries and illness. Frankly I do not really see this, as the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] mentioned, as a partisan issue. 
Federal employees are Republicans, Democrats, and, independents, 
Americans are Republicans and Democrats and independents, and Americans 
care about the safety of the Federal workers in the workplace.
  For decades Federal safety councils were formed to address the high 
injury 

[[Page H 6384]]
rates among Federal employees. Finally, in 1970, Congress passed the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act [OSHA]. This legislation required 
every Federal agency to establish an effective safety and
 health program. OSHA's Office of Federal Agency Programs was 
responsible for implementing the program, which relied on voluntary 
compliance.

  Without an enforcement mechanism, workplace programs to protect the 
health and safety of the Federal employee are dismal and uneven. They 
simply do not work. OSHA reports that for 1991, there were more than 
170,000 work-related injuries and illnesses in the Federal Government, 
at a cost of more than $1.5 billion.
  While workplace hazards continue to grow, the staffing levels at the 
Office of Federal Agency Programs [OFAP] have decreased. This is 
another matter of great concern to me. OFAP has only 8 full time 
professionals compared to 25 during the Ford administration. Budget 
constraints have limited OFAP's evaluations of Federal agency programs 
to two per year. The number of Federal agency safety and health 
inspections has also decreased by 40 percent since 1988.
  OSHA is required to conduct annual safety and health program 
evaluations at 15 agencies which employ 2 million Federal workers. 
However, OSHA has conducted only 16 out of 150 evaluations of the 
targeted 15 agencies mandated by law since 1982. A report by the 
General Accounting Office [GAO] concluded that even when OSHA does 
inspect a Federal workplace, it does not use that information to assess 
the agency's safety and health program.
  The lack of resources at OSHA, coupled with a lack of commitment by 
most agencies to evaluate their managers' performance in the area of 
health and safety, put Federal employees at risk on a daily basis.
  In the private sector, OSHA conducts an independent, objective review 
of health and safety allegations. In the Federal sector, however, the 
agencies investigate themselves. In the private sector, there is an 
enforcement mechanism. Private firms can and have been shut down for 
health and safety violations through systematic fines and their 
publication.
  The health and safety concerns in the public sector mirror the 
private sector. Asbestos fiber release in buildings, Legionnaire's 
disease, accidental death due to poor training and supervision, and 
failure to properly ventilate machine shops are among the commonplace 
concerns in both the public and private work environments.
  Just as in the private sector, the greatest number of workplace 
injuries are occurring in repetitive motion occupations, primarily 
where computer and video display terminals (VDT's) are used. In the 
Federal sector, the workers most likely to sustain these injuries are 
women. We need to take reasonable steps to protect our Federal workers.
  The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) conducted a 
study in 1992 relating to repetitive motion injuries at the Social 
Security Administration. Let me share the alarming results:
  78.4 percent of the employees surveyed experienced pain in their 
shoulders, arms, elbows, and/or necks.
  53.9 percent have had pain, aching, stiffness, burning, numbness, or 
tingling in their hands more than three times and lasting more than 1 
week.
  56.5 percent wake in the night or in the morning with pain, tingling, 
or numbness in their hands, fingers, arms, or shoulders--carpal tunnel 
syndrome.
  These injuries are preventable. It is cheaper to take steps to 
prevent the pain and suffering, rather than paying for lost work time 
and expensive surgery.
  Mr. Speaker, to protect our Federal employees, I recommend the 
following:
  Enforcement mechanisms to compel agencies to meet safety and health 
standards;
  Top management commitment to address safety and health problems;
  Protection for workers who report unsafe conditions;
  The right of workers to refuse work that is dangerous;
  Safety and health labor/management committees.
  Mr. Speaker, we must work together--in a bipartisan fashion--to 
protect the health and safety of Federal employees in their work 
environment. They work for us; we must not ignore their safety.
  Again, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for arranging this special 
order, and I was honored to be part of it.
  Mr. DURBIN. Of course we are honored to have the gentlewoman's 
participation in this bipartisan special order.
  I would like to at this point yield to my colleague from the State of 
California, Mr. George Miller. He has served on what was then called 
the Committee on Education and Labor, and he is very familiar with the 
issue of worker safety.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding and for calling this special order to address what is a very, 
very serious threat to American workers, and that is the demise of OSHA 
that is being presented to our Committee on Education and Labor in the 
guise of reform, but in fact it guts the basic tenets of OSHA and the 
basic enforcement mechanisms of OSHA.
  As the gentleman rightly pointed out when he took the well this 
evening, millions of Americans go to work every day, and they play by 
the rules, they work hard, and what they do not need is to engage in an 
accident at work or have an unsafe workplace take its toll on them or 
members of their family.
  When we send our spouses or our parents off to work or our brothers 
and sisters, we expect to see them come home in the evening in as good 
a shape as they left, but as has already been pointed out here this 
evening, for tens of thousands of workers a year that does not happen, 
and unfortunately for tens of thousands of workers it costs them their 
lives.
  What we know since the advent of OSHA obviously is that these 
accidents are preventable, and the workplaces of America can be made 
safe, they can be made safer if not completely safe, and the accident 
rate can be impacted in a very, very positive manner. In fact since 
OSHA came into being the accident rate has dropped by over 50 percent. 
In some of the toughest industries we see that the protective standards 
that have been set forth by OSHA have had an impact. In the 
construction industry, where there are protective standards now for 
trenches that are being dug, where before hundreds of people lost their 
lives and thousands of people were injured in the cave-ins in trenches, 
we now see that those accidents and fatalities have declined by 35 
percent. In industries where lead and high concentration of lead is 
used, thousands of smelting and battery plant workers suffer from 
anemia, nerve disorders, seizures, brain damage, and even death as a 
result of prolonged exposure to lead before OSHA issued its standard in 
1978. Now we see that those same workers with high concentrations of 
lead in their blood has dropped by 66 percent.
  Grain handling, where we had a rash of explosions, hundreds of 
workers and thousands injured in grain dust explosions prior to the 
standards in 1988. We now see that these fatalities have dropped since 
those standards by 58 percent, and the injury rate has dropped by 41 
percent. We see cotton dust, where hundreds of thousands of America's 
textile workers contracted brown lung, the dust from the cotton 
processing, and we now see the dramatic drop in the cases affecting 
brown lung, and we also see there that it may have very well been 
responsible for making that industry competitive in worldwide 
competition as they were forced to modernize because of those 
standards.
  So what we really see is in the 3 years following an OSHA inspection 
and fine, injuries at the inspected workplace decline by as much as 22 
percent, and we have seen that the injury and illness rates have fallen 
where OSHA has concentrated its enforcement,
 mainly in construction, manufacturing, oil and gas extraction. These 
are all testimonies to the fact that these protective standards have 
worked to protect the American families. They have worked to protect 
the American worker. They have saved both the employer money, the 
employee money, the health care system money, the workers' compensation 
system money, and that is the result that we said we wanted in 1970, 
and that is the result we are getting.

[[Page H 6385]]


  Have some of these standards caused industries to strain to meet 
those standards? Yes, they have. But what we have also seen is that we 
have gotten back the benefits of those standards. We now see that 
where, as the gentlewoman from Maryland just talked about, cumulative 
repetitive motion distress, carpal tunnel syndromes, we now see a 770-
percent increase in those injuries. We have got to figure out how to 
address that, to take sure that those people can continue to earn a 
living without being disabled and their employers can save the money 
from having a safer workplace.
  OSHA is trying new programs. They are trying to make sure that OSHA 
works better for the employers, for the employees. No longer are there 
quotas. No longer are people rated by the number of inspections they do 
or the penalties that are assessed. We have seen the simplification of 
the standards. We have seen compliance assistance, helping small 
businesses to meet these standards. I think some 24,000 small 
businesses have been helped with this and hazardous free inspections, 
no citations, no fine, helping the small businesses make their place 
for the worker.

                              {time}  2215

  In a program in Maine they took the 200 most unsafe workplaces and 
they said, You can voluntarily inspect your own workplace or we will 
give you a wall-to-wall inspection. The workers for the most part, the 
employers decided they would inspect their own workplace for hazard. 
They found 100,000 hazards. 100,000 hazards; 14 times higher than 
OSHA's own rate of inspection in identifying hazards. And almost half 
of these have now been abated since that program was recently started.
  So what we see is that OSHA can work very well with employers. In my 
district, heavy concentration of the oil and chemical industry, we have 
hundreds of millions of dollars of refinery work going on now. The 
major oil refineries, Exxon, Union, Texaco, Chevron, and Shell. And we 
have hundreds of thousands of worker hours, because of safety 
committees, because of OSHA compliance, because of learning how to set 
it out and get a work plan together and where the workers in some of 
the most dangerous industries in this country are working hundreds of 
thousands of hours without job loss.
  Let me say before I came to Congress I worked in a
   lot of these industries. I have driven trucks. I have worked on 
tugboats. I was a firefighter. I worked in the oil refineries. I worked 
on the farms and ranches bailing hay. I have been a tree faller, in the 
construction industry, commercial fishing, in the merchant marines and 
oil tankers.

  I have seen the workers who have fallen from great heights and the 
workers who suffered damage from toxic chemicals. And I have shaken 
more hands in my district with three fingers on those hands than can be 
imagined, and they lost them in industrial accidents.
  I have seen workers hit by cables and snapped by ropes because safety 
procedures were not in place when I was working in those industries. I 
have seen workers go in the tank farms in the oil refinery, I have gone 
in, with no protective gear, no breathing gear or skin protection. And 
I have seen the workers suffer the consequences and pass out on the job 
from the fumes, unable to go back into those tanks and come into 
contact with those chemicals.
  I have seen people lose their hands in hay bailers. Why? Because 
safety procedures were not in place. Those are the same industries that 
are in my district today. All of those industries now have a safety 
record that was unheard of, unheard of prior to OSHA.
  And I would just hope that people would understand that this is not a 
fight between the AFL-CIO and the American Manufacturers Association. 
This is about the safety of America's families. People who go off to 
work every day to earn a living.
  And many of these people, millions of Americans earn those livings in 
dangerous workplaces. Simply because of the occupation, they are 
dangerous. But they can be and they have been made safer by the OSHA 
regulations.
  And we cannot succumb as a Congress, we cannot talk about the 
importance of our families, we cannot talk about the importance of a 
worker being able to sustain the economics of their family and 
household income and then resort to the kind of legislation that is 
being proposed to us in the Education and Labor Committee and being 
sent to the floor of this House basically on a party line vote by the 
Republicans that would take away the rights of employees to go to OSHA 
to demand a safe workplace, would take away the reporting of how many 
times did the employees tell the employer their workplace was not safe.
  The employer, under the new law, would not be required to keep 
records. They could disregard that. And when an accident takes place, 
an injury takes place, no penalty to be paid. You get a citation and 
are told to clean it up. And if you do not clean it up, you are still 
not held liable under the law.
  This is not the way to protect America's families. This is not the 
way to protect family's children from having to lose a mother or father 
in a workplace accident. And this is not the way to protect workers 
from those employers who will violate the law, as we saw in the tragic 
chicken factory fire in North Carolina where the employer thought they 
could get more productivity out of their workers if they chained the 
doors closed so that the workers couldn't get out in the fresh air. And 
then, when the fire started, the workers were burned up and people lost 
their spouses and mothers and fathers and lost their sons and daughters 
in that accident; an accident that did not have to happen in the first 
place.
  But the tragic loss of life and the injuries were completely 
avoidable had the law been followed and had we had people who respected 
the dignity and the rights of those workers.
  So I want to thank the gentleman for taking this time in this special 
order. I think we need to talk more about this. I think we have got to 
educate that it is OSHA that has provided the safe workplaces in this 
country for America's families and we should not have to go back, we 
should not have to go back where the workplace is based upon the whims 
of the employer as opposed to the right of a worker and their families 
to have a safe workplace.
  That is what OSHA provides today. But that is not, that is not what 
the OSHA legislation that the Republicans want to pass would provide 
for workers in the future. And I thank the gentleman.
                               OSHA Works


                           I. OSHA's Mission

  Congress created OSHA in 1970 ``to assure so far as possible every 
working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful conditions.'' 
OSHA's fundamental mission is as important to America's working 
families today as it was a quarter-century ago.
  The 1970 OSH Act authorized the agency to issue and enforce 
protective standards, and to provide compliance assistance through 
consultation, education, and training. The 1970 OSH Act gave states the 
option of establishing their own state OSH agency; to date, 23 states 
have done so.


                           ii. why osha works

  By developing protective standards, and making employers more safety 
conscious, OSHA has made a real difference--often the difference 
between life and death--to millions of working Americans. Overall, the 
workplace fatality rate has dropped by over 50% since OSHA was created 
in 1970, according to the National Safety Council.
  a. OSHA's Protective Standards Save Lives. Here are just a few 
examples of how OSHA has saved lives and improved worker health and 
safety through the promulgation of hazard-specific protections:
  Trenches. Thousands of construction workers were buried alive in 
trench cave-ins before OSHA strengthened trenching protections in 1990. 
Since then, trenching fatalities have declined by 35%, and hundreds of 
trenching accidents have been prevented.
  Lead. Thousands of smelting and battery plant workers suffered 
anemia, nerve disorders, seizures, brain damage and even death as a 
result of prolonged exposure to lead before OSHA issued protections in 
1978. The number of workers with high-lead concentrations in their 
blood dropped by 66% in the ensuing five years, markedly improving the 
health of workers in these industries.
  Grain Handling. Hundreds of workers were killed and thousands injured 
in grain dust explosions before OSHA issued protections in 1988. Since 
then, according to the grain industry's own data, the fatality rate has 
dropped by 58%, and the injury rate has dropped by 41%.
  Cotton Dust. Several hundred thousand textile industry workers 
developed ``brown 

[[Page H 6386]]
lung''--a crippling and sometimes fatal respiratory disease-from 
exposure to cotton
 dust before OSHA issued protections in 1978. That year, there were an 
estimated 40,000 cases, amounting to 20 percent of the industry's 
workforce. By 1985, the rate had dropped to 1 percent.

  b. OSHA's Enforcement Program Saves Lives. Millions of working 
Americans have also benefitted directly from OSHA's enforcement 
program. Most employers have reported that their workplaces became 
safer after OSHA inspected them; a recent study confirmed that in the 3 
years following an OSHA inspection and fine, injuries at the inspected 
worksite decline by as much as 22 percent. In fact, since 1975 injury 
and illness rates have fallen in industries in which OSHA has 
concentrated its enforcement activities--construction, manufacturing, 
and oil and gas extraction--while they have risen in other industries.
  In fiscal year 1994 alone, OSHA inspections helped make over 40,000 
workplaces safer for nearly 2 million working Americans. There is no 
shortage of examples of successful enforcement efforts:
  Following a 1991 inspection, a West Virginia vending machine 
manufacturer instituted a safety program and lowered its lost workday 
injury rate by 73 percent.
  OSHA inspected a Cleveland construction site in 1994, insisting that 
workers wear safety belts while working on a scaffold 70 feet above the 
ground. Four days later the scaffold collapsed, but the workers were 
saved by their new safety belts.
  OSHA's 1989 inspection and $700,000 fine was the catalyst for Boise 
Cascade to improve worker protections. The company implemented a 
comprehensive safety and health program, cutting injury rates by 78 
percent and worker's compensation costs by 75 percent. ``OSHA played a 
key role in these accomplishments,'' according to the company's 
counsel.
  Following a 1989 OSHA inspection and fine, an automobile carpeting 
manufacturer established an ergonomics program at two Pennsylvania 
plants. Cumulative trauma injuries declined by 94 percent and 77 
percent respectively at the two plants over the ensuing 3 years.
  c. Safe Workplaces Save Dollars. Every workplace accident cuts into 
the employer's profit margin. In 1992, for example, workers' 
compensation claims amounted to $44 billion. Compliance with OSHA's 
protective standards helps save lives, reduce injuries and cut these 
unnecessary losses. For example, 2 years after OSHA issued a cotton 
dust standard to protect workers from respiratory disease, The 
Economist magazine reported that the required protections were helping 
to make the industry more efficient.
                      iii. do we still need osha?

  OSHA has had notable successes, but its job is far from done:
  Every year, work-related accidents and illnesses cost an estimated 
56,000 American lives--more than the total American lives lost in 
battle during the entire 9-year Vietnam War.
  On an average day, 17 working Americans are killed in safety 
accidents, an estimated 137 more die from occupational disease, and 
another 16,000 are injured. Meatpacking workers, for example, suffer an 
incredible annual injury and illness rate of 39 per 100 workers. These 
incidents have a devastating impact on thousands of America's working 
families each year.
  There are staggering economic costs as well: safety accidents alone 
cost our economy over $100 billion a year, and occupational illnesses 
cost many times more. We all bear these costs--as employers, as 
workers, and as taxpayers.
  New workplace hazards are emerging as our economy changes to meet the 
demands of the new global marketplace. For example, cumulative trauma 
disorders have increased roughly 770% in the past decade.
  Other federal programs may provide job training, civil rights 
protections, a minimum wage, or collective bargaining rights. But what 
good are they to a worker who is killed or disabled on the job?


                      iv. making osha work better

  In the past, OSHA has been criticized for focusing too much on 
nitpicky technical violations, and too little on eliminating serious 
safety and health hazards. OSHA must improve its targeting of the most 
dangerous hazards and workplaces, particularly given the ever-widening 
gap between OSHA's resources (1,000 inspectors) and responsibilities 
(3.7 million workplaces). Under the leadership of Assistant Secretary 
of Labor Joseph A. Dear, OSHA has begun to refocus its mission to 
maximize its impact on worker safety:
  No Inspection Quotas. The number of inspections is no longer an 
agency performance measure. Neither is the amount of penalties 
assessed. Instead, performance measures will be based on real 
improvements in worker safety and health.
  Standards Simplification. In October 1994, OSHA asked the public and 
its field staff to identify outdated, vague, conflicting or duplicative 
regulations for simplification or elimination. That effort is in 
progress.
  Compliance Assistance. In FY 94, OSHA's consultants helped nearly 
24,000 small
 businesses identify and abate hazards free of citations and fines, 
under OSHA's consultation programs.

  Targeting the Most Dangerous Workplaces. Under the Maine 200 program, 
the 200 most unsafe employers were offered a choice: implement a 
comprehensive safety and health program, or be put on a priority list 
for a wall-to-wall inspection. The vast majority of employers chose the 
first option, with stunning results. During the first 18 months of the 
program, participants identified nearly 100,000 hazards, at a rate over 
14 times higher than OSHA's own rate of identifying hazards through 
inspections. More than half of these newly-identified hazards have 
already been abated.
  Targeting Real Hazards. OSHA is refocusing its enforcement program on 
the most dangerous hazards: Under a new focused inspection program, 
construction employers with safety and health programs will only be 
inspected for the four leading causes of on-the-job deaths (e.g., 
falls, electrocutions). Citations for the most common paperwork 
violations have declined by 35% over the past 4 years.
  Recognizing Excellence. OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program 
recognizes employers who have excellent safety and health records, 
exempting them from general inspections. OSHA expanded the VPP Program 
by 70% in FY94.
  Additional Initiatives. OSHA has taken many additional steps to 
refocus the agency on results including: increasing the involvement of 
stakeholders in setting the agency's regulatory agenda; redesigning the 
agency's field offices to streamline the complaint process, reduce 
paperwork, and focus more on results; establishing customer service 
standards (in a recent survey, over 75% of employers found OSHA 
inspectors to be professional and knowledgeable); establishing the 
Maine Team Concept Pilot Program to empower front-line inspectors to 
use their own judgment in deciding how to make the best use of their 
resources (In FY94, at the participating field offices, the number of 
inspection hours increased by 86%, delays between inspection and 
citation dropped by 30%, and the employer contest rate declined by more 
than 50% as inspectors adopted a less adversarial enforcement 
approach); establishing pilot programs to improve response time from 
complaint to abatement (reduced for nonformal complaints from 61 days 
to 9 in Cleveland and from 35 days to 5 in Peoria); simplifying 
recordkeeping requirements; and expediting FOIA request processing.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for 
that excellent statement. And I would like to at this point yield to my 
colleague, the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Bob Wise, who is 
familiar with another aspect of employment in America that at one time 
was the most dangerous. And were it not for efforts that have been made 
at Federal and State levels, might still be the most dangerous and 
still is very hazardous. And I would like to yield at this point to Mr. 
Wise.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and he is correct. As he 
has spoken before on this floor for the need, not only for OSHA but for 
MSHA, the Mine Safety Health Administration. The MSHA was created in 
1969 as the direct result of the Farmington mine disaster. Finally, 
this country had had enough. It had taken all the bloodshed in the 
mines that it could tolerate and MSHA grew out of that.
  MSHA celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. But there may not be 
a 26th anniversary should this legislation pass. What this legislation 
would do, in addition to what has already been talked about concerning 
OSHA, this legislation would merge MSHA and OSHA together, of course 
cutting the funding together and merging them together.
  Let me talk for a second about what the proposed legislation would do 
to MSHA. It would end mandatory inspections of surface mines. It would 
reduce mandatory Federal inspections of underground mines from 4 per 
year to 1 per year.
  It would eliminate the current surprise factor in mine inspections by 
canceling mine inspectors' rights to inspect mine workplaces without a 
warrant. That is right. You have to call and get the permission to come 
on. If you do not get the permission to come on, you cannot come on 
without a warrant. And by that time, the surprise factor is gone.
  It would provide several ways for operators to avoid inspection 
altogether 

[[Page H 6387]]
such as employing a consultant to certify that the mine has an 
effective safety and health program, thereby exempting the mine for 
virtually all inspections for the year. I bet we can find a real 
industry developing in certification consultants.
  It would prevent Federal mine inspectors from closing unsafe mines 
for uncorrected hazards, extreme operator negligence, or a pattern of 
violation.
  One area of concern for me, it would ban workers from contacting the 
agency unless they first raise the problem with their employer, even 
when the worker faces imminent danger on the job and the likelihood of 
retribution.
  It would eliminate penalties for mine operators violating the law, 
prohibit Federal mine inspectors from removing untrained miners from 
the workplace. The gentleman knows it took us a long time at the State 
and Federal levels to get training requirements for miners in the 
workplace.
  It would limit the rights of miners, including the right to take 
their own cases to court if they have suffered reprisals for 
maintaining their safety rights.
  This is not simply a deficit reduction issue or a budget reduction 
issue. It cannot be put on the paper in black and white. And, yes, 
there are some that say Why do we need MSHA as a separate agency? Cut 
the funding and put it in OSHA, because the fatality rate is down.
  And happily, Mr. Speaker, it is down. It is down from 400 every year 
being killed in the mines. As the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] 
noted, the most hazardous industry in the country, it went from 420 6 
years ago to 84 this year. That is testimony that OSHA is working; that 
MSHA is working.
  It is still one of the most hazardous occupations. In West Virginia 
last year we lost 11 miners. That is a far cry from the 20-some we were 
losing just a few years ago. A far cry from the 50 and 60 that we were 
losing a few years before that.
  I would like to point out to those who want to make it a black and 
white issue, think for a second about what work in a mine is all about. 
Particularly
 a deep mine. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] I know, knows 
the mines in Illinois. He has been associated with them for a long, 
long time.

  First of all, turn out all the lights in this Chamber and put on a 
blindfold, because there is no light at the bottom of a mine. The 
second thing to do, if you want a real impression, now crawl under this 
desk that I am standing in front of. It stands about 3 feet high and 
that is what a low coal seam is.
  You have no lights now and you are lying underneath this desk 
expected to work under there. Now, imagine thousands of tons of rock 
about you. Not just a wooden platform, thousands of tons of rock above 
you. It is creaking, it is belching and it is moving.
  It is wet down there and on top of the creaking, you have the 
potential, if you hit it just right, you can dig right into a gas 
deposit and you can be snuffed before anyone knows what happened to 
you. Methane is a very common problem in mines. And, of course, 
explosion is often a tragedy as well in mines.
  That is what working in a coal mine is all about. It is not something 
that is easily reduced to black and white. It is not something that is 
reduced to number on a page. It is a very, very dangerous occupation. 
And anybody that threatens that, even well-meaning, threatens that, I 
think has to be called to account.
  I hope that this legislation does not pass. I thank the gentleman for 
taking this position. This is another wrinkle to the OSHA debate. And 
in the hearings that the committee will continue to hold, I hope this 
message comes through loud and clear. This is not a place to be 
reducing the deficit.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague for joining us this evening. And 
like him, I have had the opportunity to be in a deep-shaft coal mine. 
It is a humbling experience to be in that closed atmosphere and you 
have described it so well, to fear for your own safety every step of 
the way.
  That we should in any way diminish this kind of inspection from the 
Federal and State sources is, to me, just to invite disaster and 
tragedy. And I certainly hope that the legislative proposals that we 
have heard will be more sensitive to what men, and now women, are 
subjected to each day in these coal mines.
  Mr. WISE. As the gentleman well knows, whether it is the Centralia 
mine disaster in Illinois or the Farmington mine disaster in West 
Virginia, that is what has brought this to the attention of the 
country. And, unfortunately, State legislation, State mining 
enforcement was not adequate. It is better now and MSH has been driving 
for that and continues to do so.
  Mr. DURBAN. I thank my colleague.
  My colleague, the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy], is here. 
And I thank him for joining us and being patient to speak this evening. 
I yield to Congressman Kennedy.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Thank you. I would like to thank my 
colleague from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] for allowing me to be here for 
this special order. And as I rise to discuss with him OSHA in terms of 
the problems that have been solved, the lives that have been saved, and 
the injuries that have been prevented by making the workplace a safe 
place. And that has been because of OSHA.
  The record of success is now at risk because some want to crush 
OSHA's ability as an agency to function, leaving today's workers 
vulnerable and exposed, 40 stories above the ground on today's job 
site.
  I want us to ask ourselves a few questions. Do we not as a Nation 
need to protect workers from the safety and health hazards that they 
are exposed to on the workplace?
  Do we not want the Federal Government to take action against 
employees who would jeopardize the well-being of their workers?
  Do we not believe that this is important to determine what is killing 
and injuring people in America's work force?
  The answer is, of course, yes. The answer should be yes. But what I 
am hearing from my colleagues from the committee, the Republicans have 
said, no.
  Every day workers are asked to gamble their lives and take 
unnecessary risks because someone wants to cut corners. Today, while it 
is usually the contractor, today it seems like it is the Congress that 
wants to cut corners. They want to cut corners when it comes to 
worker's safety. Many want to argue that today's rules in OSHA are too 
restrictive and excessively infringe on a company's right to do 
business.
  What is so excessive about ensuring a safe workplace? What is so 
excessive about ensuring that thousands of workers are no longer buried 
alive in trench cave-ins, as was the case before OSHA strengthened its 
protections of these workers in 1990?
  Since then, trenching fatalities have declined by 35 percent, and 
hundreds of trenching accidents have been prevented.
  In one instance, OSHA inspected a Cleveland construction site in 1994 
and insisted that the workers wear protection gear while working on a 
scaffold 70 feet above the ground. Four days later the scaffold 
collapsed, but not one worker was killed because each one was wearing 
the new protective equipment. How does this protective gear infringe on 
a company's right to do business? Because it costs money. That is why. 
It costs money. OSHA made the difference. We are here today to tell our 
colleagues that we are drawing the line. We will not stand for budget 
cuts that destroy an agency that is charged with protecting American 
workers.

                              {time}  1030

  Remember, we are protecting American workers. This is America, not a 
third-rate nation, and we will be acting like a third-rate nation if we 
treat our workers as if they were workers in a third-rate nation. That 
is why I commend the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] for working 
on this issue, and my colleagues that are standing up for workers in 
this House, to make sure that we have a safe workplace, that has the 
dignity that we would want and the safety that we would demand for our 
workers in this country. I do not think we should accept anything less 
than a safe workplace. I commend the gentleman from Illinois for his 
work, and thank him for allowing me to be here this evening.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague from Rhode Island [Mr. Kennedy] for 
joining us with a very forceful and articulate statement on this issue, 
particularly as it relates to construction 

[[Page H 6388]]
workers. We will continue this debate, not only on the floor, but also 
in the committees and subcommittees. I thank you for joining in this 
special order.
  The last speaker joining us this evening comes from the State of 
Minnesota. Congressman Jim Oberstar is one of the most articulate 
spokesmen on behalf of working men and women. The time I have served in 
Congress, he has risen many times to their defense and is recognized as 
somebody in this body who has a very intimate and personal knowledge of 
not only the men and women he represents who work for a living, but 
those across the country.
  I yield to my colleague from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar].
  Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank my colleague for yielding and I join my 
colleagues in complimenting the gentleman for calling this special 
order to focus on the industrial workplace and safety.
  I have seen the face of tragedy in mining. I have lived with it. I am 
here because, for me, it is real, it is personal, it is family.
  My father worked 40 years in the iron ore mines of northern 
Minnesota, 26 of those years
 in the underground Godrey Mine between my hometown Chisholm and nearby 
town of Hibbing. I never worked in the underground. He never let me go 
down there. I worked in the open pits.

  But I will never forget the day my father came home from a cave-in, 
where he heard the timbers cracking, and in a drift, he pushed his two 
coworkers out the mouth of the drift, and the ore caved in right around 
him and stopped right at his throat. The timbers cracked because the 
mining company was not willing to put in new timbers. They were not 
willing to put in bigger and stronger oak in the mines, and he almost 
lost his life.
  I will never forget him as chairman of the mining safety committee in 
the underground saying the most horrible memory was the awful screams 
of the men when the cables broke on the cage, and they went plunging to 
their death 100, 200, 300 feet, with nothing to save them. No safety 
catches. Nothing to break the fall of the cage.
  We heard our colleague Bob Wise talk about how dark it is in a mine. 
My father told me about the time when the storm above ground cut the 
power, and there they were, 600 feet underground, he and a partner who 
had a heart condition, and all the light went out and the water was 
trickling in. They switched on their head lamp, but there was no power, 
because the mining company would not replace the batteries, though the 
men appealed and asked for them to be replaced. They knew they were 
weak, knew they were down, but the company said no, it costs too much. 
And you could not move. You could not see your hand in front of your 
face. And they waited for three hours while the water crept up, waist 
high and armpit high. And, finally, someone got the power going. I will 
not tell the rest of the story about getting the pumps going to start 
draining the mine.
  The year that I was born was the year of the Milford Mine disaster in 
the Cuyuna Mountain Range south and west of where I lived. The miners 
were told to keep digging for that rich load of ore, until they were 
well under a lake. And they could see the water seeping in, and they 
knew it was dangerous. But the mining company said, ``Go on, go on, dig 
further and deeper, and keep going.'' then, one day, the lake caved in, 
and an entire shift was wiped out. Thirty-four men, only three 
survived, as the lake swept into the underground and drowned them all.
  There was no mine inspector. There was no Federal law. There was a 
weak little State act that had been drafted by the mining companies and 
run through the legislature. It did nothing to protect lives.
  Then later I had my own experience in the Alworth Pit, watching 
helplessly from afar while a 15-ton ore truck backed over and crushed 
an elderly man. Natali never had a chance. No one had ever taught him 
how to back a truck up. He had no training. And yet later when we got 
Mine Safety and Health Act passed, companies protested about the 
requirement for training and safety, how to back a truck up, how to 
operate equipment safely. ``Oh, that is second nature. People know how 
to do that.'' He did not know how to back up a 15-ton ore truck, and it 
ran right over him. It snuffed his life out.
  That isn't just ancient history. Last year, 1994, February, Duluth 
News Tribune. ``Tragedy reminder of mining's risks.''
  It reads:

       Twisted backs. Crushed feet. Ruptured tendons.
       Disabling injuries are common among workers at Iron Range 
     taconite mines.
       That's because operating and repairing the heavy-duty 
     machinery used daily in iron ore mining has inherent risks. 
     Over the past century, Iron Range miners have learned to live 
     with those risks.
       But sometimes the odds finally catch up.
       When Louis DeNucci died as a result of tons of compacted 
     ore dust falling on him Thursday at Eveleth Mines' Fairlane 
     taconite pellet plant, the impact was felt by thousands of 
     miners across the Range.

  It is never very far away. In the 1930's we had an average of 230 
deaths a year from metal and nonmetallic mining. In the past 10 years, 
that has dropped to 53 fatalities a year. But the danger is still 
there, and the significance of the Mine and Safety Administration was 
brought up by testimony given by Peter Minsoni, district director of 
Steel Workers 33.
  I introduced him at a hearing of the Committee on Education and Labor 
on mine safety and health as the committee was preparing the 
legislation we know today as MSHA. I was a cosponsor of that original 
bill and helped draft it. Because when I came to the Congress, there 
was one thing I wanted to do, and that was to erect a memorial to the 
men and women who died in mining, who had given their arms and legs and 
limbs and eyes to make it a safer place to work.
  Pete Minsoni said, talking about the action of the then Ford 
administration to abolish the Federal Advisory Committee on Mine Safety 
Standards, it had been enacted in 1966, 5 years later they were 
proposing to abolish it. It finally happened in 1975. He said, 
``Abolishing the Mine Safety Review Board caused me concern, to think 
that because the review board had no work, some Members of Congress and 
the public will be misled into thinking that the Government deserves a 
pat on the back for finally abolishing a Federal agency.'' He went on 
to say, ``The reason the Mine Safety Board did not have any work is 
there was no law to enforce.'' There was nothing to review. There were 
no teeth in mine safety legislation.
  He went on to talk about a good example. The White Pine Copper Mine 
in upper Michigan where the steel workers unions represents some 2,600 
workers employed in one of the largest mines in our country. A fatality 
occurred when a foreman picked up a hot cable. The Mine Enforcement 
Safety Administration inspectors found improper grounding and a lack of 
control boxes for electrical cable throughout the mine, a mandatory 
standard set by the Mine Safety Act not enforced, paid no attention to.
  Mr. DURBIN. I think we only have just 2 or 3 minutes left.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. What he went on to say was the miners learned they do 
not have a legal right to join mine safety inspectors. Standards are 
only advisory and not mandatory. And only when they had tough 
inspection standards, mandatory fines, mandatory inspections, did we 
get safety in the mines.
  I just want to say that in all of America's history, more men and 
women have died in the industrial workplace in our country than died in 
all the wars combined. Let it not be the epitaph of our generation that 
we let another decade come to pass when mine safety took a back seat to 
economics.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague. I am sorry I had to cut him short, 
as we have run out of time this evening in this important special 
order. Perhaps we can resume it later on at a different time.
  If you listened to the debate in Washington over the last 6 months, 
you would be convinced that all we are talking about tonight are 
faceless Federal bureaucrats meddling into the affairs of business 
people, making their life miserable with fines and inspections and all 
sorts of minutiae that in fact weighs heavily on their profit 
statements.
  What I hope we have conveyed tonight in this special order is we are 
talking about something much larger. 

[[Page H 6389]]
We are talking about dignity of workers. We are talking about safety in 
the workplace. We are talking about a history in America of danger in 
the workplace that we do not want to see repeated again.
  The fact is since OSHA was created in 1970, we have seen deaths on 
the job in America cut in half. In factories deaths on the job have 
been cut by more than half. In construction, deaths have been cut by 60 
percent. Can OSHA be improved? Yes, it can. But for those who address 
this issue in terms of terminating the Federal responsibility and the 
Federal authority to help protect workers and their families in the 
workplace, I would say they are really going in the wrong direction.
  I hope that the special order this evening, the stories that you have 
heard and I guess the information that we have shared with you, will 
help people to understand that the debate which goes on on the floor of 
this House of Representatives each day is a relevant and important 
debate to every working family in America. We hope that those on the 
Republican side of the aisle who take an extreme position of doing away 
with this Federal responsibility will stop and think twice about the 
legacy of pain and the legacy of death which we have seen in America's 
workplace, certainly something we never want to see repeated again.


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