Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment, which would remove protections for workers who report workplace injuries and prevent OSHA from collecting data necessary to identify and target the most hazardous workplaces and serious safety and health problems. Let's look at 2015. There were nearly 5,000 workers killed on the job by traumatic injuries and an estimated 50,000 deaths from occupational diseases. Each day, 150 workers in this country died because of exposure to workplace hazards. In 2015, there were 3.7 million workplace injuries reported, with more than half of them serious, but these numbers don't show the whole problem. Studies have shown that up to half of all workplace injuries are not reported on the OSHA injury log. One of the reasons is that some workers fear that they will be retaliated against or fired if they report an injury. The new OSHA rule strengthens protections for workers who report injuries, which will allow workers to report them more freely and result in more complete reporting. OSHA's injury tracking rule is an important worker protection measure that does three things. First, it prohibits employers from retaliating against workers who report workplace injuries. Second, it continues longstanding requirements that certain employers in high-risk industries submit summary injury and illness data to OSHA, which now must be done electronically.…”