Lax safety oversight is paid notice on the Hill

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/apr/30/lax-safety-oversight-paid-notice-hill/

Government should raise fines for dangerous sites, labor experts testify

By Alexandra Berzon

Wed, Apr 30, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Labor experts told a U.S. Senate committee Tuesday that weak government oversight of workplace safety is putting workers at greater risk and contributing to on-the-job fatalities, including in Las Vegas.

Experts testifying before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee generally agreed that government should increase fines and step up criminal prosecutions to deter companies from allowing unsafe conditions.

“We need a law with teeth so that employers will be vigilant about complying with safety laws,” said the committee’s chairman, Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

The comments were directed at laws administered by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, created 37 years ago this week to give government a hand in improving workplace safety. The act, signed into law by President Nixon, succeeded in reducing accidents and fatalities.

In recent years, however, government safety regulators have exercised lax oversight and worker safety has suffered, witnesses said.

Citing stories from the Las Vegas Sun, Peg Seminario, health and safety director of the AFL-CIO, testified about the deaths of 10 construction workers on the Strip over the past 17 months.

FULL story at link.