Government used to protect workers....

With the goose-stepping toward deregulation and slashing government spending, the deregulation folks have succeeded where they couldn't rescind regulations.

Remember, Middleboro has a large ammonia storage facility and a freight line running through the town.

A community leveled --

Below are some interesting excerpts from Democracy Now --


.....every year in the United States, 4,500 Americans die a year in workplace accidents.

There are 2,200 inspectors in this country, OSHA inspectors, for eight million workplaces. Due to the understaffing of OSHA, OSHA could inspect a plant once every 129 years.

.....OSHA is a top enemy, and workplace safety rules, of deregulatory people. For instance, last year the Obama administration proposed a rule that would have limited-would have put rules in place to protect children working on farms. Children that work on farms die at six times the rate of children working in other industries. The Obama administration, under pressure leading up to the election, withdrew that rule and said that they would never submit that rule again during the term of the Obama administration. That's an unprecedented thing. So, obviously, workplace safety is one of the things the anti-regulatory people go after the most.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about Texas in terms of workplace safety compared to other states?

 

MIKE ELK: Yeah. Texas, as statistics shows, has the highest rate of workplace deaths of any state in the country. And a big part of that can be contributed to the fact that it's one of the most non-union states in the country. Quite frankly, no worker is going to speak up and call OSHA. OSHA has such a severe limited budget that they typically don't go and inspect a workplace unless they get a phone call from a worker saying there's a big problem. And when you're scared of losing your job, you're not going to do that. So, places that tend to have less unions tend to have much higher rates of workplace accidents. And as, you know, the West, Texas, accident showed, workplace accidents just don't hurt workers, they hurt the surrounding community, as well.

 

 

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/344-208/17034-could-greater-oversight-by-osha-have-prevented-deadly-texas-blast