Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Richard Brian / File photo
The CityCenter project is shown in May 2008, shortly after an ironworker died after falling 59 feet through a hole in a floor. An OSHA-required backup deck or netting was not in place at the time.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | 12:29 p.m.
Sun Archives
- State OSHA lambasted by House committee (10-30-2009)
- OSHA plans new Vegas office to monitor workplace safety (10-29-2009)
- What’s at stake in House hearing on OSHA (10-27-2009)
- Editorial: Feds slam state OSHA (10-22-2009)
- Feds' appraisal of Nevada OSHA damning (10-21-2009)
- Rare study by feds may prompt OSHA changes (7-31-2009)
Sun Topics
Sun Coverage
Dina Titus
Rep. Dina Titus introduced a bill this morning that would give the federal government more flexibility in its oversight of state workplace safety programs.
The reform legislation is important to Nevada because of the state's poor track record when it comes to keeping workers safe on the job -- and follows House hearings last year on the failings of the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
A Labor Department report last year painted the workplace safety agency as incompetent and ineffective in the wake of a deadly building boom.
The federal probe examined the agency’s oversight of 25 workplace deaths in the state over an 18-month period. It found the state’s staff ill-equipped to investigate accidents and administrators unwilling to impose hefty penalties on companies.
At stake: Nevada’s control over the workplace-safety program. Nevada is one of 22 states operating such a program, which is supposed to protect private and public employees. The federal government shoulders the responsibility in all other states.
Federal OSHA has required the state to make changes to its program. But under current law, federal officials have only one option if the state fails to improve: terminate the state workplace-safety plan and take over. Titus called such a measure a "drastic step that would ... leave state and local government employees unprotected" and put the Labor Department on the hook for federal funding.
Titus' bill, dubbed the Ensuring Worker Safety Act, would create "a formal mechanism" to allow federal OSHA to step in, identify problems with state programs and exercise oversight without stripping states of day-to-day control.
The legislation would also establish a regular General Accountability Office audit of both state programs and the Labor Department's oversight.
The actions follow the Sun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series last year that examined Strip construction deaths and exposed the failures of government, management and labor unions to protect workers.
“The tragic deaths of numerous workers in Southern Nevada highlighted the need to ensure that state OSHA plans are doing their job of protecting workers,” Titus said in statement. “Unfortunately under current law, federal OSHA is left with only two options, both at the extreme end of the spectrum, when it finds state plans that are ineffective. This legislation provides OSHA with an important middle ground so it is not left with the choice of doing nothing or the drastic step of terminating a state plan.”
OSHA has been a government joke since the 70's. I hope this bill improves things, but I doubt it. They are legendary for fining companies, and then cutting the fines in half. A total government boondoggle, and I doubt they will ever change.
This state is controlled by the big casino money. Who hire thugs like Perini to build their projects. Samo, samo...
These problems mutate all the way back to Hoover (Boulder) Dam construction.
Great job dina.... introduce a bill for construction when there is none! What a joke and an attempt to secure the votes of construction workers for her re-election...
Granted, we all want a safe work environment for all employees, even those that test beds for a living. But, there's millions of unnecessary government regulations that cost business profits by requiring paperwork that isn't worth the ink to put on it.
"Great job dina.... introduce a bill for construction when there is none!"
That's right. Cosmopolitan doesn't count, and neither does the wind turbine manufacturing plant that Harry Reid helped bring to town, and neither does Switch Beach Club at Encore, and neither do any of the Downtown Las Vegas projects...
Obviously, there IS some construction now and there will be more as the economy recovers some more. It's good to see that Dina Titus is doing this now so we'll have better OSHA oversight online as more of these construction projects get going.
More government takeover. Time to send this twit back to Georga, OOPS I talked to some people in Georga this week and they don't want her back, they have a peanut farmer they would like to get rid of.
She will be gone after November!
Gee....only took her TWO years to write ONE piece of legislation that is going NOWHERE....
Hey Dina, I'm remodeling my bathroom. Can you come supervise?
Is a part of this bill paying to microchip construction workers with GPS chips to tell when they're going to lunch at the bar?
"At stake: Nevada's control over the workplace-safety program. Nevada is one of 22 states operating such a program, which is supposed to protect private and public employees. The federal government shoulders the responsibility in all other states." -- Why are we and the other 21 states paying for a separate program when 28 other states aren't, especially when the state program seems to be poorly managed? Maybe it would be more efficient & effective if we simply became the 29th state?