Brought to You by Big Government

This Plant Has Worked 307 Days Without a Lost Time Accident.
The Best Previous Record Was 286 Days.
Report All Unsafe Conditions to Your Foreman.

My diverse and rather circuitous professional life has taken me at times to facilities where signs are displayed that read like my subhead above. It strikes me that these signs probably wouldn’t exist without unions and their negotiating power, without government regulations, and without “big-government” agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

There would be far fewer, if any, people who have job titles like Safety Director. Industrial plants would be less likely to hold regular safety meetings, during which rank-and-file workers report and discuss hazards they have observed and brainstorm with their peers and superiors about creative ways to eliminate them. Workers would not have the benefit of the increasing body of knowledge, accumulated through such processes, about how to work safely, provide safety training to new employees, and stay proactively on the lookout for previously unknown hazards as they emerge constantly in the work environment.

Those from a more laissez-faire point of view would argue that, in a truly free market, industry self-regulation would take care of all that. But history, let alone a common-sense understanding of human nature and its unchecked workings in pursuit of short-term gain, tells us otherwise.

During the years when I used to ride the Metrorail daily from suburban Maryland into Washington D.C., a hand-painted sign showed up at a construction site near the Catholic University of America station. It read:

Unions -- The People Who Brought You the Weekend

The sign made a good point, and there are many other rights, privileges, benefits, and protections, taken for granted by the U.S. workforce of today, that originated with unions, big government, and other elements of the so-called Left:

• The 40-hour, five-day workweek -- brought to you by unions and big government
• Child labor laws -- brought to you by big government
• Laws prohibiting minors from performing certain hazardous duties -- brought to you by big government
• Required Material Safety Data Sheets instructing employees on how to safely handle toxic or otherwise hazardous substances -- brought to you by big government
• Overtime pay at time-and-a-half -- brought to you by big government
• Companies no longer able to recklessly expose their employees to hazardous materials like asbestos without proper protection -- brought to you by big government
• Companies required to provide adequate safety equipment to employees doing hazardous work -- brought to you by unions and big government
• No more non-illicit sweatshops in the U.S. -- brought to you by big government
• Workers’ compensation laws and insurance coverage -- brought to you by big government
• Unemployment compensation for laid-off workers -- brought to you by big government
• Minimum wage laws -- brought to you by big government
• Laws prohibiting racial and gender discrimination and sexual harassment -- brought to you by big government
• The Internet as an important tool for conducting daily business in the workplace -- brought to you by big government
  

I could go on and on. But I think this list of twelve good things is already long enough to make you wonder just what it is that those who bash big government and unions really want. Sphere: Related Content