IVINS: The Old Insult to Injury

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16675

 

IVINS: The Old Insult to Injury

 

 

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet

August 28, 2003

 

AUSTIN – This poignant Labor Day, when the numbers are bad, the policies are

worse and the jobs are disappearing, it's not so much the economy that riles me

as the disrespect and the gratuitous contempt with which this administration

treats working Americans. The old insult to injury.

 

 

 

If we've had an administration so blinkered by class blinders before, it is not

within my memory. What these people know about working-class Americans would fit

in a gnat's eye. In the summer of 2002, when Ted Kennedy and the late Paul

Wellstone were working to get an emergency extension on unemployment benefits –

something that has been largely pro forma under earlier administrations –

Majority Whip Tom DeLay protested that Democrats want " unlimited unemployment so

people could stay out of work for the rest of their lives. " Actually, one

million unemployed workers had already exhausted their benefits before the House

finally acted in January 2003, and were simply left in the streets with nothing

under the too-little, too-late Bush bill.

 

 

 

The idea that workers lead the life of Riley on unemployment compensation and

want to " stay out of work for the rest of the lives " is so blatantly untrue it

would be comical, if one could dredge up a laugh. Anyone who has been through

the mill of unemployment, with the endless rounds of appointments, waiting,

applications, interviews, taking the bus to the job training program and finally

walking when you can't afford a bus, knows precisely how insulting this hooey

is.

 

 

 

In February 2003, one of the most extraordinary sessions ever recorded between

labor and a sitting labor secretary took place. Secretary Elaine Chao, whose

chief qualification for the job seems to be that she is the wife of right-wing

Sen. Mitch McConnell, met with the AFL-CIO's executive council. " Participants

said Chao shocked the group by opposing any increase in the minimum wage,

showing no sympathy for retired steelworkers who lost pension benefits, and

reciting a list of legal actions her department has taken against unions and

their leaders, " reported The Washington Post. " We had a pretty unbelievable

session, " said John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. " She was angry at

points, insulting at points. I said that in all my years in labor, I've never

seen a secretary so anti-labor.

 

 

 

" There was a lot of shock and amazement in the room, " said Leo Gerard, president

of the Steelworkers. " We were made to feel we were the enemy. " Fortunately,

Chao's condescending, insulting and hostile performance has united labor,

including the building trades and the teamsters, against the Bush

administration. Nothing like a little old-fashioned solidarity.

 

 

 

Another insulting episode came when Bush named Eugene Scalia, son of the Supreme

Court justice, to be solicitor of the Department of Labor, apparently as a cruel

joke. Scalia's specialty as a K Street lobbyist was fighting ergonomic

regulations. For years he attacked and mocked the very idea of repetitive stress

injuries, calling them " junk science, " " exotic and absurd, like a trip through

Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. " " Work less, and you'll feel better! Why

I've experienced the same thing myself! " He has written that heavy lifting does

not cause back strain and reported increases in repetitive stress injuries are

caused by " feeding frenzies. " Try doing the same thing hundreds and hundreds of

times an hour, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Neither Mr.

Scalia nor President Bush has ever held a job that involved physical labor.

 

 

 

One of this administration's first actions was to repeal the ergonomic

regulations that prevent repetitive stress. Two years later, the administration

solved the entire problem with characteristic brilliance – it revoked the

provision requiring employers to report such injuries! This was almost as good

as the time the administration solved global warming by simply editing it out of

an environmental report. Just the other day, Bush said he had been elected to

" solve problems " and, boy, howdy, does he. Even better, he's solving the entire

problem of workplace injuries and deaths by trying to weaken OSHA! A new House

bill would reduce penalties and weaken OSHA's enforcement powers to correct

safety and health standards. About six million American workers are injured on

the job every year, and more die in workplace accidents annually than were

killed during the Sept. 11 attacks. Ha, ha, ha, how funny, let's just have

companies stop reporting these things.

 

 

 

I know as well as you do that many companies make a terrific effort on worker

safety: Bush's first Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, was justly proud of the

record at Alcoa (he's the one they fired, of course). Perhaps there are a few

people on worker's comp who seem to have no trouble lifting their bass boats off

the trailer. But I happen not to find thousands of dead and millions of injured

workers annually funny. No one doubts that this administration will continue to

screw the workers of America – but I'd appreciate it if they'd can the sarcasm

in the meantime.