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OSHA Inspectors Decline, the Latest Assault in Trump’s War on Workers

Jan. 8, 2018

OSHA Inspectors Decline, the Latest Assault in Trump’s War on Workers

Statement of Shanna Devine, Worker Health and Safety Advocate, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division

Note: The number of workplace safety inspectors in the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has declined by four percent during the Trump administration, according to data released by NBC News today.

The decline in OSHA’s workplace safety inspectors hamstrings an already woefully understaffed and leaderless agency. It’s also just the latest assault in the Trump administration’s war on workers.

In November, President Donald Trump nominated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s deregulatory spokesperson, FedEx Safety Chief Scott Mugno, to take the helm of OSHA. And earlier last year, the administration partnered with Republicans in Congress to roll back commonsense worker safety protections including the Volks rule that would have preserved records of workplace dangers and the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order that would have protected employees of federal contractors.

The Trump administration’s anti-worker policies are not isolated to OSHA. The past two weeks have seen a wave of industry-friendly actions that overhaul oil rig safety rules while expanding drilling along our coasts. As we learned in the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, cutting corners endangers workers, our environment and our economy.

Trump’s track record on workplace safety is directly at odds with his campaign promise that “the American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” To the contrary, his actions continue to put workers in harm’s way while lining industry’s pockets.

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