Free Republic

An Ebola strike began at LaGuardia Airport in New York City over fears of contracting the deadly virus. The airport workers strike currently involves only Terminal D workers, but air travel could still be impacted by the walk-off and protests. The AirServ company includes thousands of workers at five major United States airports. Representatives from the company told the media that LaGuardia Terminal D workers initiated the Ebola strike due to “documented health and safety violations.” Related complaints have also been filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – OSHA. Ebola has become a particular concern for the...

In Wisconsin the Republican incumbent governor Scott Walker is on track to win what seems like his yearly re-election to office. He is the most effective chief executive in memory. His TV spots are fresh, creative and as effective as he is. They drive his union and media enemies crazy. One of Walker’s TV spots shows him in an actual hole explaining how he helped get Wisconsin out of a hole. The pit is about eight feet deep and the camera angle covers Walker and a ladder leading to the top. The spot has a simple message and ordinarily would...

Scott Walker can’t stop digging himself into a hole with union workers. After stripping public-sector union members of collective bargaining rights in 2011, one might think that there wasn’t more the Republican governor could do to anger workers. But Walker, who is locked in a tight race Wisconsin against Democratic challenger Mary Burke, ran afoul of the president of a local steelworkers’ union over a recent campaign ad. In the ad, Walker speaks to the camera from a deep hole. Jeff Kaminsiki, head of the United Steelworkers Local 2006, filed a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration over...

Despite significant advancements in workplace health and safety over the past four decades, 150 people will be killed on the job or die from job-related illnesses and diseases today, reports the 2014 edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, released this morning.And that daily death toll, which has remained steady for the past several years, plus the 11.4 million work-related injuries and illnesses a year show:The nation must renew the commitment to protect workers from injury, disease and death and make this a high priority. We must demand that employers meet their responsibilities to protect...

Environmental Protection Agency and FBI agents raided the ammunition company USA Brass over alleged “environmental violations” early Thursday morning. NBC Montana was tipped off by witnesses that federal investigators were there until at least 4 a.m. on Thursday. Federal agents could be seen going through the company’s building and taking items to a truck parked outside. EPA lead criminal investigator Bert Marsden said that the agency was looking into alleged “environmental violations” by USA Brass. “We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law,” Marsden said on Thursday. “An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any...

SEIU and other labor unions can accompany the government inspectors on site visits due to a quiet and contested Obama administration rule clarification issued last year in response to a request from a union representative. Maurice Baskin, an attorney representing the Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Association of Manufacturers, said in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections that OSHA’s clarification letter violates the OSH Act and the National Labor Relations Act. Section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act holds that an “authorized representative” must be an agent from a union that a majority of the...

In Europe, where fracking is heavily regulated or prohibited altogether, consumers pay more than twice for natural gas than what they do in America (currently $11.59 per mBtu vs $4.78). As consumers, businesses, and electric utilities pay more, the result is a stalled economy and lower standard of living. Thanks in part to its large investment in solar energy, Spain's per capita GDP in current U.S. dollars has dropped from $31,679 in 2010 to $28,624 in 2012. Based on his recent words and actions, Obama wants the same for the U.S. Over half the homes in America heat with natural...

Only in California: An amendment to a recently passed law in California requires porn stars to wear protective goggles. This is what happens when the idiot party completely controls the state government. And we thought Bloomberg was bad. The link is below, and make sure you read all the comments. They are hysterical.

Federal safety regulators on Thursday proposed major changes in workplace reporting rules that would require large companies to file injury and illness reports electronically so they can be posted online and made available to the public. Safety advocates said the proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would put more pressure on companies to comply with safety rules and make it easier for employees and the public to identify businesses with poor safety records. But business groups contend making the information public could be misleading and intrusive.OSHA head David Michaels said the changes would provide better access to data...

Scandal: The rest of us must answer IRS questions under threat of perjury, but the agency's execs can take the Fifth. A Tea Party targeted by the IRS — and the FBI and OSHA and the ATF — thinks that's unfair. We do too. Lois Lerner, chief of the IRS' exempt organizations division when the Tea Party and other conservative groups were targeted for their opposition to President Obama, has invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to be questioned on her earlier testimony, her opening statement or any knowledge she may have of who ordered the targeting, who created the...

Catherine Engelbrecht’s tale has all the markings of a classic conspiracy theory: She says she thinks that because of her peaceful political activity, she and her family was targeted for scrutiny by hostile federal agencies. Yet as news emerges that the Internal Revenue Service wielded its power to obstruct conservative groups, Catherine’s story becomes credible — and chilling. It also raises questions about whether other federal agencies have used their executive powers to target those deemed political enemies. Before the Engelbrecht family’s three-year ordeal began, Catherine says, “I had no real expectation or preparation for the blood sport that American...

The West, Texas fertilizer plant where a powerful explosion killed at least 14 and injured dozens on Wednesday failed to disclose a massive ammount of ammonium nitrate ordinarily regulated by federal officials, according to Reuters. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires fertilizer plants and depots to disclose amounts of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make a bomb, above 400 lbs. The West, Texas plant, West Fertilizer, reportedly held 270 tons of the substance, 1,350 times that limit.

Federal safety regulators are investigating the blowout of an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. well in West Texas that killed two workers and sent three to the hospital, the company said. The blowout occurred Friday morning while a crew was operating a maintenance rig on a completed well in the Bone Spring play in Ward County. The rig hit a pocket of high-pressure natural gas that caused a blowout and threw the crew off the wellhead, the Ward County Sheriff’s Office reported. The men were contractors working for Anadarko and employed by Fort Worth-based Basic Energy Services. Anadarko, based in The Woodlands,...

Workers who blow the whistle on violations of the healthcare law will be protected from retaliation by the federal government, according to new rules issued on Wednesday. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is encouraging people to turn in employers who fail to abide by the rules set in the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, the rules would shield whistleblowers who report employers who are blocking access to healthcare tax credits or denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. In the 58-page interim rule, OSHA notes that the healthcare law could “create an incentive for an employer to retaliate against...

At a ceremony commemorating the late U.S. President Richard M. Nixon’s 100th birthday, politicians, a military official and Nixon’s eldest daughter on Sunday remembered him as an underappreciated president and a foreign policy genius. Nixon, the Cold War-era Republican stalwart who opened U.S. relations with communist China, was the only American president to resign from office, leaving the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. “He looked at (the world) as a world with 200 countries and 200 leaders, and he studied every one of those leaders, and he knew most of them,” said Bruce Herschensohn, a friend and...

As coal mines shut down due to Obama's war on coal and the promise of more EPA regulations on coal fired plants, Obama seems to be tightening the regulatory vice on coal mines even more. A couple of Weeks ago I was at a coal mine while a gaggle of people in US government tagged vehicles were touring it. Okay, an MSHA inspection, I thought to myself. Not something you see every day but not unheard of either. Yesterday at the same mine, every truck that entered the site was shut down and put in line for an inspection by...

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a citation, along with a proposed fine of $111,000 fine (OSHA press release here), against Illinois Gun Works–a gun store and gunsmith business which has a shooting range and teaches safety classes. HT Instapundit and David Codrea. In a November 2009 article for the NRA magazine America’s 1st Freedom, I warned about the dangers of President Obama’s nomination of David Michaels as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health (head of OSHA), based on Michaels’ well-established record as an anti-gun advocate. Many of alleged OSHA violations at the safety...

An Illinois gun range has been cited for “27 serious violations includ[ing] 13 for violating the lead standard” resulting in proposed fines of $111,000, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced in a news release earlier this week. Illinois Gun Works Ltd. was cited for “failing to implement engineering and work practice controls” following “a Jan. 21 inspection referred by the Illinois Department of Public Health.” The citation, issued on June 6, also included what OSHA defines as “serious violations” that “include failing to implement a hazard communication program, train workers on hazardous …label chemical bottles…administer an effective hearing conservation...

US Department of Labor's OSHA cites Illinois Gun Works for exposing workers to lead, other hazards at Elmwood Park, Ill., plant ELMWOOD PARK, Ill. – The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Illinois Gun Works Ltd. for 28 alleged health violations following a Jan. 21 inspection referred by the Illinois Department of Public Health that found two gun range operators were exposed to airborne lead levels up to 12 times the permissible level. Proposed fines total $111,000. "Illinois Gun Works has a responsibility to protect the health of its employees by ensuring that they operate...

Here in Texas we produce a variety of products and services, notably energy, agricultural, and technology related, but also across many sectors (including my own construction industry). We also create and produce jobs. In fact, we do it as well if not better than any other state. Part of the right formula for job creation here in Texas has been lower taxes and less regulations. We have no state income tax and our legislature meets infrequently, denying them opportunity to do much meddling. These simple principles has led many companies to set up in this State, and in return many...