Donald Norcross: “Before entering public office, I was an electrician. I used to work on top of bridges doing very dangerous work. Imagine…”

“Before entering public office, I was an electrician. I used to work on top of bridges doing very dangerous work. Imagine climbing 150 feet up over water. But over the course of that career, three times, there were gentlemen I worked with who never went home, never clocked out, never went home to see their wife or their children. Every day, 13 Americans are killed on the job; they didn't go home to see their wife, their children, their husband. Sometimes accidents are unavoidable, but many, many times they aren't, and that is what we are talking about here. {time} 1515 The rule doesn't talk about hurting companies. We are talking about basic information, the same information that everybody in this room would ask if they were building an addition on their house. You would want to know, if you were spending $10,000, whether or not that contractor had any violations, did he finish the job, were people killed on the job. But when we are spending $81 billion of the American taxpayer, somehow we don't want to know that. If you go for a loan, they want to know what your background is, even if you had given it ten times before. If you are going to college, they certainly want to know your background. So what we are talking about here is simple transparency. It is not just about workplace safety. It is about giving a free pass for something that they did wrong. Let me repeat that. Something that contractors did wrong. If they did nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear.…”