Republican lawmakers have indicated it is more important to let employers police themselves on workplace safety than it is to give workers protection when they blow the whistle on unsafe practices.
In comments to Daily Labor Report last week, Republican Representative John Kline said his party would reject President Obama’s proposed budget for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the official health and safety enforcement agency. He revealed Republicans are particularly opposed to the additional $4.9 million (£3.1m) for worker whistleblower protection and the $3.2 million (£2m) cut in the voluntary employer compliance program that was the hallmark of the Bush administration.
Kline said Democrats wanted “to increase whistleblower opportunities, increase penalties, increase the number of inspectors, increase the number of inspections and pull back from voluntary participation programs. We just have a fundamentally different view of what we think that relationship ought to be between the government and the workforce.”
In a blog posting, the national union federation AFL-CIO responded: “The last time we checked, more inspectors, more inspections, tougher penalties and worker protections were the hallmarks of any effective workplace safety program. There’s plenty of evidence that when given the opportunity, some employers don’t hesitate to cut corners or just downright ignore safety and health laws.”
An AFL-CIO Executive Council statement last week noted: “Some employers, such as Massey Energy and BP, cut corners and flagrantly violate the law, putting workers in serious danger and costing lives.”
The police or security services supplied information to a blacklist funded by the country’s major construction firms that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades, 
A secret blacklisting file opened on an academic who researched health and safety following the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster claims the offshore oil industry threatened to cut funding to his university if he “continued to cause problems”.
Full Carillion judgment exposes blacklisting scandal
Employment judge AM Snelson criticised the lack of legal protection for Dave Smith (above, second from right, with his pro bono legal team), an engineer who took Carillion to an employment tribunal after he discovered his name was on the illegal Consulting Association blacklist.
Carillion admitted that its subsidiaries Carillion (JM) and Schal International Management had used the Consulting Association’s blacklist. It also admitted that its managers supplied damaging and false information to the blacklist about Mr Smith because he had raised concerns about safety when he was an accredited safety rep for builders’ union UCATT.
Mr Smith lost his tribunal case because he was not employed directly but via an employment agency. But Judge Snelson said the tribunal had “reached our conclusion with considerable reluctance.” He added: “It seems to us that he has suffered a genuine injustice and we greatly regret that the law provides him with no remedy. We hope that he can take some comfort from the fact that the wrongdoing of which he complains has been exposed and punished and legislation passed designed to protect others from the misfortunes which he has experienced.”
Following publication this week of the judgment, Dave Smith said: “The written judgment says that I have suffered a great injustice at the hands of big business.” He added: “It is not just me, but thousands of other workers who have suffered a grave injustice. The decision sums up by saying that, as an agency worker, I have no protection under UK law. In that case we need to change the law. That’s why we are going to fight this all the way – we will appeal it to Strasbourg, if necessary.”
An appeal to an Employment Appeal Tribunal is being prepared.