Rep. Andy Biggs would nix worker protection to appease billionaires
How does an Arizona politician tell you he sides with billionaires over working people without telling you?
In the case of U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, it's easy.
He introduces H.R. 86, which reads in its entirety: 'The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is abolished.'
OSHA was created in 1970 and signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon at a time when Congress finally decided there simply were too many workplace deaths, and that they needed enforced safety standards, training and protection for whistleblowers. Among other things.
In a press release accompanying the announcement of his bill, Rep. Biggs said, 'OSHA's existence is yet another example of the federal government creating agencies to address issues that are more appropriately handled by state governments and private employers.'
He added in par, 'It's time that we fight back against the bloated federal government and eliminate agencies that never should have been established in the first place.
'I will not let OSHA push Arizona around with their bureaucratic regulations and urge my colleagues to support my effort to eliminate this unconstitutional federal agency.'
Never should have been established in the first place?
I grew up in steel mill and coal mining country and spent years in a mill to earn money for college. I was among the first generation to receive some OSHA protections on the job, unlike the generations before mine, whose losses were well known in my neighborhood.
Biggs' bill does not require states to offer any protection for workers. It doesn't require protection for whistleblowers. It simply dissolves the system.
The folks at an important website for contractors, ForConstructionPros.com, also point out that 'in the asphalt and road building industries it's not uncommon for an employee to travel across state lines for a job on a given day, especially in rural or high-traffic interstate regions.
'When they go to the jobsite, should construction workers have to be concerned that the quality and standard for safety could dramatically change depending on their geographic location, or should the same standard of human safety be consistently applied for all those who put their lives on the line?'
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I believe — as did those who created OSHA — that the standard for human safety should be 'consistently applied for all those who put their lives on the line.'
Since the law creating OSHA was enacted, the agency reports that worker deaths in America are down from roughly 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 15 a day in 2023, and that worker injuries and illnesses have gone from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to 2.4 per 100 in 2023.
And even that is too many.
Rep. Biggs apparently does not care about those statistics, however, or the lives saved by OSHA.
He is a multi-millionaire who earned his riches the old-fashioned way … through blind luck. Back in 1993, Biggs was handed a $10 million check by Ed McMahon and Dick Clark as the winner of the American Family Sweepstakes.
The people who hate OSHA and want to abolish it are people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, people who operate businesses where protecting workers cuts into profit margins.
It's some of those very workers, sadly and ironically, who keep Biggs in office.
But it's the billionaires he loves.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: OSHA keeps workers safe, but Biggs doesn't care for them | Opinion
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