At a hearing before the Senate's Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee today, Konnie Campagna, a registered nurse from Washington State, told the assembled Senators that it was time the Federal government started looking out for workers' safety again:

On my labor and delivery unit, I estimate that 40% of the nurses have had debilitating back and shoulder injuries, usually ruptured discs and rotator cuff injuries. After more than 30 years of lifting patients in ICUs and other units, I suffer from shoulder and elbow injuries which prevent me from working almost anywhere else in the hospital.

I serve as the charge nurse for my unit, and every night I have to make patient assignments to the nurses and nurse aides based on who can still lift patients or push wheelchairs. But I know that the nurses and aides who can lift and push today are the nurses who will be injured tomorrow.

(Here's the transcript of Konnie's complete statement, in PDF format.)

Konnie's not the only one who's noticed that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), which is supposed to be the guardian of worker safety, has been slacking off on the job under the Bush Administration. The New York Times wrote the issue up yesterday, too:

Seven years ago, a Missouri doctor discovered a troubling pattern at a microwave popcorn plant in the town of Jasper. After an additive was modified to produce a more buttery taste, nine workers came down with a rare, life-threatening disease that was ravaging their lungs.

Puzzled Missouri health authorities turned to two federal agencies in Washington. Scientists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates the causes of workplace health problems, moved quickly to examine patients, inspect factories and run tests. Within months, they concluded that the workers became ill after exposure to diacetyl, a food-flavoring agent.

But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with overseeing workplace safety, reacted with far less urgency. It did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill.

The health problems the workers in Jasper experienced have become so common in the popcorn-making industry that they have been labeled "popcorn lung". Even as hundreds of workers fell ill, though, OSHA did nothing -- choosing instead to continue its program of "voluntary compliance", in which corporations promise to police themselves for safety problems.

You can get a sense for OSHA's attitude towards worker safety from this tidbit in the Times article:

Early in his tenure at OSHA, [OSHA head Edwin] Foulke delivered a speech called “Adults Do the Darndest Things,” which attributed many injuries to worker carelessness. Large posters of workers’ making dangerous errors, like erecting a tall ladder close to an overhead wire, were displayed around him.

“Kids don’t always know what their parents do all day at work, but they instinctively understand the importance of them working safely,” he told the audience, which included children who had won a safety-poster contest. “In contrast, adults could stand to learn a thing or two. Looking at the posters, I was reminded of a couple examples of safety and health bloopers that are both humorous and horrible.”

Wow. Just, wow. It's great to know what the people who are supposed to be protecting our health think of us...