Making strides to protect workers in unsafe conditions

Tom O’Connor, Raleigh N.C.

Sunday, May 9, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

The Tuesday story on lasvegassun.com indicating that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will open a field office in Las Vegas is good news for the state’s workers.

Workers in Nevada, and those in Las Vegas’ construction industry in particular, continue to face dangerous and potentially fatal hazards on the job. If the state plan is not living up to the standards that the people of Nevada expect of it, then federal oversight will be a welcome improvement.

But we shouldn’t be too quick to pat ourselves on the back, thinking the job is done when it comes to protecting workers from employers who willfully violate workplace safety regulations. The fact is, the tools that OSHA has at its disposal to protect workers have not been updated since the agency’s creation nearly 40 years ago.

The Protecting America’s Workers Act (House Resolution 2067) would, among other improvements, provide increased civil and criminal penalties for willful violators of the law and broaden the protection for whistleblowers who call attention to unsafe conditions. In addition, Nevada Rep. Dina Titus has introduced the Ensuring Worker Safety Act (HR4864), a bill that would allow for stronger federal oversight of state-run plans.

These changes are long overdue. American workers should be able to go to work each day secure in the knowledge that their employer has done everything possible to ensure that they will not have to give their lives to earn a living.

The writer is executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, an umbrella organization of 20 state and local nonprofit organizations that advocate for improvements in workplace safety and health conditions.