Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!pesnta!pertec!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Red plot foiled at govt. agency (OSHA) Message-ID: <197@kontron.UUCP> Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 21:09:49 EDT Article-I.D.: kontron.197 Posted: Mon Jun 3 21:09:49 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 01:14:25 EDT References: <466@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA Lines: 88 > The 1984 Libertarian Party platform makes a similar recommendation: > > We call for the repeal of the OSH Act. This law denies the > right to liberty and property to both employer and employee, > and it interferes in their private contractual relations. > OSHA's arbitrary and highhanded actions invade property > rights, raise costs, and are an injustice imposed on > business. > > Heaven forbid we should impose an injustice on business, but what > about the problems of worker safety and health that OSHA was intended > to address? Millions of workers are daily exposed to such toxic > substances as lead, cyanide, silica dust, cotton dust, pesticides, > asbestos, and radioactive materials, and many workers are required to > risk their physical safety in various ways. > Occupational risks (as measured by injuries per hour) have been declining since early in this century --- at a time when the government's actions in pursuit of occupational safety were few and far between. This has been largely because of the efforts of labor unions to protect industrial workers from crippling and lethal accidents. While I am not great fan of labor unions, they are a natural part of a free market, and I trust them to be more concerned with worker safety than *any* government bureaucracy. > According to my understanding, libertarians deeply deplore the fact > that thalidomide was not allowed to be marketed in the US; Banning thalidomide eliminated a very effective medication for several groups that could have used it safely: men, women not of child-bearing age, and children. I have read that because thalidomide had been approved by the British government's equivalent of the FDA, the legal standards meant that the manufacturer of thalidomide was *not* liable for anything but a small part of the money sought by parents of the injured children; only the bad publicity caused the British manufacturers to increase their settlement from the equivalent of $5 million to $200 million. > they > profoundly regret the fact that crib safety standards have interfered > with the right of infants to strangle themselves; If the crib safety standards make sense, you shouldn't need to impose them coercively; has anyone forced RS-232 standards on manufacturers? > and they are > outraged by government-imposed safety standards for both airlines and > nuclear power plants. Airlines would certainly have created safety standards in the absence of government regulation for two reasons: dead people's estates file *very* expensive suits. (You may recall some years ago the airline crash in Chicago. I believe the final bill came to over $200 million. If that doesn't get the attention of a hard-eyed accountntintype, how will a few fines from the federal government?) > Does this antiregulatory stance extend to the > prohibition of all workplace safety and health regulation as well? > I suggest you do some reading concerning occupational safety, especially in regard to workman's compensation. In California (and many other states), the workman's compensation system took away the right of the injured party to sue the employer. If you aren't happy with the settlement that Workman's Compensation Board gives you --- you are out of luck. A recent example: a woman who drives a bus for Rapid Transit District was attacked by one of her riders. She requested assistance. After 34 minutes, her supervisor decided she really needed help, so he called the police. Of course by then, her assailant had raped her. Workman's Compensation granted her the standard amount for someone unable to work; she wanted to sue her employer, a public agency, that had been negligent in their actions. The courts told her she did not have a right to sue; the only process available to her was Workman's Compensation. You see, the current system was established just after the turn of the century because employers in high risk industries got tired of being sued when an employee was hurt on the job. The new system helps to socialize the risks and costs involved, reducing the incentive for an employer to make things safer in the workplace. > Let us have [trumpets, please] the Libertarian Solution to the > problems of occupational risk. And make sure it's a simple one. > > Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes Perhaps you should actually *read* about some of these issues. You might find that the world isn't anywhere near as simple a place as you seem to think.