Pelosi Keeps The House Working To Protect Workers During Impeachment-- Corporately-Owned Conservatives Of Both Parties Balk

While the impeachment inquiry keeps chugging along in the House, there is also always Congress' regular, less glamorous but important work to get done. Wednesday, for example, California Congressman Mark DeSaulnier introduced a resolution to consider H.R. 1309, a bill to "direct the Secretary of Labor to issue an occupational safety and health standard that requires covered employers within the health care and social service industries to develop and implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan." The bill was simply to proceed to debate and vote on the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act. Conservatives don't like it-- and they nearly stopped it in its tracks. It passed by the skin of its teeth-- just 4 votes: 209-205.

How did that happen? Easy enough: all the Republicans stuck together and they were able to peel off a dozen of the most anti-working class Blue Dogs and New Dems to vote against their own constituents and in favor of corporate tyranny. Who were the assholes this time? Pretty much the same assholes who are always eager to show how much they hate workers and how in the pocket of Big Business they are:

• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Mikey Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
• Jefferson Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)

I would like to point out that the Blue Dog scum who have the strongest primaries from progressives are the ones who didn't dare vote with the Republicans on this bill. When do you ever see Henry Cuellar (Dog Dog-TX), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA) and Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ) sticking with the Democrats instead of crossing the aisle on this kind of a vote? The resolution would have failed if they had followed their natural instincts. What prevented them from doing so? Respectively: Jessica Cisneros, Marie Newman, Kim Williams and Eva Putzova. So what should we be thanking Jessica, Marie, Kim and Eva for?

Here's how the Education and Labor Committee explained the underlying bill: "Our nation’s caregivers-- including nurses, social workers, and many others who dedicate their lives to caring for those in need-- suffer workplace violence injuries at far higher rates than any other profession. Last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that health care and social service workers were nearly five times as likely to suffer a serious workplace violence injury than workers in other sectors. Public employees, such as caregivers in state and local government health care and social service work, suffer particularly high rates of workplace violence. In 2017, state government health care and social service workers were almost nine times more likely to be injured by an assault than private-sector health care workers. Workplace violence often causes both physical and emotional harm. Victims of these incidents often suffer career-ending post-traumatic stress disorders that take away their livelihoods and weaken an already stretched health care workforce.

The Problem: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the authority and responsibility to protect America’s caregivers from workplace violence, but it has not been given the basic tools to fulfill its mission. Unless Congress takes action, it will be years, if not decades before this challenge is adequately addressed.

• There is currently no OSHA standard that requires employers to implement violence prevention plans that would help reduce workplace violence injuries among health care and social service workers. The lack of an enforceable standard means that OSHA, the federal agency created to protect workers’ safety, has few meaningful tools to protect health care workers from the threat of workplace violence.

• Unless Congress intervenes, it is highly unlikely there will be any action taken to protect health care workers in the next decade. The Government Accountability Office estimated, conservatively, that it takes OSHA at least 7 years to issue a standard. Two of the most significant OSHA standards issued in recent history-- crystalline silica and beryllium-- which cause irreversible lung disease—each took OSHA 20 years to finalize.

• Despite its promises and its obligation to defend workers’ safety, the Trump administration is erecting new barriers that will prevent OSHA from protecting caregivers from workplace violence.

The Solution: The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1309) would provide health and social service workers the protection they deserve by:

• Compelling OSHA to issue an interim final standard in one year and a final standard within 42 months requiring employers within the health care and social service sectors to develop and implement a workplace violence prevention plan.

• Identifying risks, specify solutions, and require training, reporting, and incident investigations. It would also provide protections from retaliation for reporting violent incidents.

• Protecting health care and social service workers in the public sector in the 24 states not covered by OSHA protections. 


If Marie Newman wasn't running, there is no doubt Lipinski would have voted with the other Blue Dogs against the bill. Marie told us that she's "pleased that my opponent voted with the Democrats on this bill, this is a critical bill for workers and as we all know, he has not been a reliable vote on wage earners issues." Similarly, Arizona progressive, Eva Putzova's activism has likely prevented O'Halleran, a former Republican who still voters with the GOP with some consistency, is keeping O'Halleran on a straighter and more narrow path. "My opponent," she said, "the incumbent, was forced to vote for the Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act under pressure from my progressive, pro-worker, people-first campaign. All along he has been a loyal member of the corporate-influenced Blue Dog Caucus, opposing strong government regulations to protect workers. When I am elected to Congress, no one will need to force me to support the right to a safe working environment free from violence as described in the Act. My campaign is funded by individual voters and I answer to them. His is funded by corporate PACs and he answers to them." Please consider contributing to both Marie Newman's, Eva Putzova's and Kim Williams' campaigns by clicking on the Blue America thermometer on the right.

Kim Williams understands how this works. "It’s not surprising," she told us this morning, "that Jim Costa is working to push his Trump score down. He began changing his votes in February when he first learned about a challenger from the left. But his long record remains, and it’s not hard to find where he voted with Trump 47%  of the time last Congress. It’s also not hard to find many scorecards that rate him poorly for his votes on Yemen, equality, and the environment. There is no question that Jim would have voted with Republicans if he had not faced a challenge. Our district is home to some of the highest poverty and unemployment in the nation, and it is the direct result of political neglect. He has been a long standing advocate for the billionaire grower over the farm worker, and he has favored the oil executive over the poor communities that live with dirty air and water. What is especially troubling about the Blue Dogs who voted against the Workplace Violence for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act, is that these industries mostly employ women. And women are not only more likely to live in poverty, they are the backbone of the Democratic party. It’s time to make sure we are considered in every vote, every time and not just when corporate Democrats are being primaried."

When the bill itself was voted on yesterday, the recalcitrant Blue Dogs were back in their kennels. It passed 251-158. Not only did all the Blue Dogs who tried to kill it vote for it, 32 Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with Pelosi as well! Many of the Republican flip-floppers were voting out of fear rather than conviction, like Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Don Bacon (R-NE), Fred Upton (R-MI), John Katko (R-NY), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Rodney Davis (IL), Debbie Lesko (AZ), and Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), all of whom have serious challenges to reelection this cycle.