[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 57 (Thursday, April 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4699-S4700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. Corzine, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Bingaman,
Mr. Harkin, Ms. Milkulski, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Edwards, Mrs.
Clinton, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr.
Feingold, and Mr. Durbin):
S. 2371. A bill to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of
1970 to expand coverage under the Act, to increase protections for
whistleblowers, to increase penalties for certain violators, and for
other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the
Protecting America's Workers Act.
This week, on Workers' Memorial Day, we remember and honor those who
have died or been injured on the job in the past year. We remember and
honor their families. And we pledge to do more to end the unsafe and
unhealthy conditions that still plague so many workplaces across
America.
We have made significant progress in protecting worker safety since
1970, when we passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act. But there
is still a tremendous amount to be done. Every year, over five thousand
workers are killed and nearly five million others become ill or are
injured on the job. That's an average of 15 deaths and 13,000 injuries
or illnesses each and every day.
Too many companies are doing too little to deal with this crisis.
They blatantly ignore the law, but they never
[[Page S4700]]
go to jail--even when their actions or lack of action kill loyal
employees who work for them. Criminal penalties are so low that
prosecutors don't pursue these cases. Employers who violate safety laws
again and again pay only minimal fines--which they treat as just
another cost of doing business.
We cannot let these shameful practices continue. We cannot allow
employers to put millions of workers at risk in our factories, nursing
homes, construction sites, and many other workplaces every day.
We need to hold this Administration accountable--require them to act,
instead of sweeping serious violations under the rug. We also need to
protect workers with the courage to speak out against health and safety
violations in the workplace.
That is why we are today introducing the Protecting America's Workers
Act.
It will protect millions of workers not covered by current safety
laws. By extending the Occupational Safety and Health Act, we will
cover 8 million public employees and millions of transportation and
other workers.
The bill imposes jail time--up to ten years, instead of only six
months under current law--on those whose blatant violation of safety
laws leads to a worker's death. We also increase civil penalties, to
provide additional deterrence for employers.
We require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to
investigate more cases, and we give workers and their families more
rights in the investigation process.
We provide stronger protections for workers who report health or
safety violations.
I know it will be an uphill battle to get this legislation through
this Republican Congress. But I'm committed to the fight. I'm committed
to fighting for people like Jeff Walters, whose son Patrick was killed
when a trench collapsed on him two years ago. His employer was known to
be violating critical safety rules. We will fight for people like Ron
Hayes, whose son Patrick suffocated in a grain elevator. Ron is now
helping families throughout the United States deal with the grief of
having a family member killed at work.
We intend to do everything we can to keep other working families from
that grief. These deaths and injuries aren't accidents they're crimes,
and it's time we started treating them like crimes.
I urge my colleagues to join in this fight for a safe workplace for
all of America's workers. We can take a major step forward by the
Protecting America's Workers Act.
Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support
for the Protecting America's Workers Act introduced by Senator Kennedy.
I am proud to join him as a cosponsor of this important legislation.
Yesterday, this country recognized Worker Memorial Day. Created in
1989 to remember workers who have been killed or injured in the
workplace over the past year, Worker Memorial Day has been designated
April 28 as a tribute to the anniversary of the enactment of the
Occupational Safety and Health Act. In my view, there is no better
tribute to the lives that have been lost than to think about how we can
prevent future losses of this kind.
The facts tell a grim story: an eight-month examination of workplace
deaths by The New York Times found that, over a span of two decades,
from 1982 to 2002, OSHA investigated 1,242 horrific instances in which
the agency itself concluded that workers had died because of their
employer's ``willful'' safety violations. Yet in 93 percent of those
cases, OSHA declined to seek prosecution.
Employees have a fundamental right to a safe work environment, and
more needs to be done to ensure that businesses that deliberately put
the lives of their workers at risk are held accountable for their
actions. This legislation would go a long way to strengthen our
workplace safety system in a variety of ways.
I am particularly pleased that this legislation includes provisions
to shore up a fundamental weakness in American workplace safety law:
the shockingly inadequate penalties associated with crimes under the
Occupational Safety and Health Act. This legislation includes the
provisions of the Workplace Wrongful Death Accountability Act, S. 1272,
legislation that I introduced to increase the maximum criminal penalty
for those who willfully violate workplace safety laws and cause the
death of an employee.
It is unbelievable to me that, under existing law, that crime is a
misdemeanor, and carries a maximum prison sentence of just 6 months.
These provisions would increase the penalty for this most egregious
workplace crime to 10 years, making it a felony. They also increase the
penalty associated with lying to an OSHA inspector from 6 months to 1
year, and increase the penalty for illegally giving advance warning of
an upcoming inspection from 6 months to 2 years.
In recent times, Congress has focused on a shocking succession of
corporate scandals: Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, to name a few. These
revelations of corporate abuse raised the ire and indignation of the
American people. But corporate abuses can sometimes go further than
squandering employee pension funds and costing shareholder value.
Sometimes, corporate abuses can cost lives.
The provisions are based on the simple premise that going to work
should not carry a death sentence. Annually, more than 6,000 Americans
are killed on the job, and some 50,000 more die from work-related
illnesses. Many of those deaths are completely preventable.
While many factors contribute to the unsafe working environment that
exists at certain jobsites, one easily remedied factor is an
ineffective regime of criminal penalties. The criminal statutes
associated with OSHA have been on the books since the 1970s, but, over
time, the deterrence value of these important workplace safety laws has
eroded substantially. With the maximum jail sentence of 6 months,
Federal prosecutors have only a minimal incentive to spend time and
resources prosecuting renegade employers. According to a recent
analysis, since the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted,
only 11 employers who caused the death of a worker on the job were
incarcerated.
The logic behind increasing criminal penalties in these cases is
simple. It will increase the incentive for prosecutors to hold renegade
employers accountable for endangering the lives of their workers and,
thereby, help ensure that OSHA criminal penalties cannot be safely
ignored. This will provide the OSHA criminal statute with sufficient
teeth to deter the small percentage of bad actors who knowingly and
willfully place their employees at risk.
I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this landmark
legislation.
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