 In Copyright Since September 11,
2000This web site is in no manner affiliated with any Kaiser entity and the for profit Permanente Link for Translation of the Kaiser Papers ralphnaderpressconference.kaiserpapers.info TRANSCRIPTION OF, “Injured Workers Get Support from Matt Gonzalez at 8/1/2008 CCWMD Press Conference”
transcribed to the best of the transcriber’s ability
Mr. Matt Gonzalez: You
know, for a number of years now under the current administration,
there’s been a growing sense that the Department of Labor and OSHA do
not have the resources committed to them to do the necessary job of
enforcing the various laws that we have, on the book’s so to speak, and
of course Mr. Nader has been instrumental in passing some of those
important workplace and public safety laws.
It’s
interesting..... I’ll tell you as an asigh, that the Secretary of
Labor, Elaine Chow... that one of my colleagues on the Board of
Supervisors had offered accommodation for her, for her good works,
which I and one other colleague voted against. We were condemned at
the time because she has been saying over and over again that workplace
injury and illness rate’s are the lowest ever recorded in 2006 and that
has been an ongoing trend ever since she was appointed.
Unfortunately
for her, the scrutiny of her record has finally caught up with her.
The U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor released a report; it
was highly critical of her agenda. The report was titled, “Hidden
Tragedy, Underreporting of workplace Injury... Injuries and Illnesses”.
And
to just give you an idea I’m going to read you a quotation here that
Steve [Zeltzer] prepared and I think it’s taken from the report, “Extensive
evidence from academic studies, media reports and testimony show’s that
work related injuries and illnesses in the United States are
chronically and even grossly underreported”, the report said. “As much as 69% of injuries and illnesses may never make it into the survey of occupational injuries and illnesses, The nation’s annual workplace safety and health report card generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics”.
So
it appears that Secretary Chow was in effect suggesting that she has
done good work, simply because she is not funding and not asking that
her agency do the critical work that it must. If we are truly going to
keep track of these records, and obviously we condemn that, we’re not
interested in a government that is like that and we hope that
Democrats; the opposition party will do more to respond to this. It’s
great that there’s this committee report, let’s see some action though
and as you all know it’s an unfortunate reality that the United States
Congress has; I think the lowest approval ratings that anybody has ever
seen.
I want to speak briefly about two specific instances that we’re aware of and we wanted to show support for.
Ralph
and I attended a Press Conference, Steve [Zeltzer] was instrumental in
putting it together with the Downey workers in Santa Monica during an
appearance that we made there and I really do want to convey that the
workers were... that were present were in bad shape. I mean it was
obvious that some of them had respiratory problems, some of them had...
what appeared to be health head type injuries, some of them were
complaining of other illnesses. And what.... in effect what happened
is the Downey Studio that they worked at was built on a former Super
Fund site that had been downgraded to I guess what’s called a
Brownsfield site. And after working there for some time I believe it
was over a hundred workers had these unusual kind of symptoms, that you
just don’t get and it can’t be a coincidence. And yet, that’s what the
government officials, who went on site to take a closer look,
ultimately concluded; that it was just a coincidence and all these
workers that were working there happened to have these very odd and
strange illnesses all at once.’
Well
it’s a failure of our government when we tolerate those kinds of
findings, I think it’s an insult to common sense and it’s an insult to
all of us when that’s the best our government can do, and Mr. Nader and
I were there, we spoke out against it, we encouraged the press to
report on it; to speak about it, to try to help us get the attention to
these workers, cuz that’s the way government otta be. We otta be
responsive and if mistakes were made; we otta take responsibility for
it.
Here,
closer to where we are in Davis, there’s a very unfortunate story
involving a company called Agraquest and a particular worker, biotech
worker there... that worked there named David Bell; I’ve traded phone
calls with him to hear his story individually and again it’s another
issue; an incident that Steve [Zeltzer] has been working on. But in
affect it show’s that OSHA is not capable of; sort of keeping pace with
emerging technologies; with the biotech industry etc. They don’t know
what to do so they do very little, if anything and a worker like David
Bell can be infected by fungus and bacteria that was illegally brought
into this country by this company. It turns out that the..... that
these organisms were patented by the owner, and yet they have never
fully compensated Mr. Bell for his many injuries. The insurance
company and the owner sorta trying to cost shift so that we pay for
part of the injury.... and of course I wish David were here so you
could hear from him directly.
But
again, it’s just another example where you have clear causation and you
have a company that’ fights.... fights causation; then tries to get
somebody else to pay for it and never really takes full responsibility
for what has happened.
I
think now, more than ever, it’s important that we not allow the
presidential race; that Mr. Nader and I are involved in to simply be a
personality contest and some kind of race about charisma. It’s got to
be about the issues and it’s got to about who has the history of
working on the issues; whose been attacked for working on the issues
and who has not deviated on those matters and I think if you review Mr.
Nader’s record against that of other candidates...
I
hope those that are here who do that will see he has a long history of
working to improve public safety and health and also disclosures
related to these issues by working on things like the Freedom Of
Information Act.
I
want to thank Steve [Zeltzer] for his diligent work on this. It’s hard
to bring attention to these matters, but it requires committed
individuals who are willing to do it and I thank him for his work.
Thank you.
From: Sandi Trend Mother of injured biotech worker - David Bell
Website: BIO-TECHNOLOGY AWARENESS
Is Biotechnology used in Agriculture Really that Safe?
Is it safe to work in this field? RESULT OF FUNGUS & BACTERIA EXPOSURE (on Planet Thrive) ~CLICK PICTURE FOR INFORMATION~
|