Moiraine said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again) why are anti-big-government people okay with businesses doing whatever they want even when it harms the public? There are good reasons for regulations. They protect the public. People don't trust the government. Fine. But why trust corporations to do the right thing when we know that hasn't always been the case. Why trust corporations more than you trust the government?
Of course some of them will do the right thing on their own but we need protections in place to protect the public from the sh**ty ones who care for nothing except their profits. People have died due to businesses being neglectful and/or hiding things.
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone who won't make money off of the stuff dudeguyy just posted would be for those things. How does the Republican Party dupe so many people?
I'm an anti-big-government person who understands the need for regulations. I'm not opposed to regulations because of what you have said.
However, there is a difference between having reasonable regulations that protect the workers and out of control OSHA agency that can absolutely cripple or put a company out of business simply by walking through the door.
Years ago, we had an OSHA inspector come in. I wasn't too worried because we do take safety seriously. We have a full time safety person, we have at least two meetings per week that discuss it with supervisors or employees. We reprimand employees who don't take it seriously. We have our insurance agency come in and do a safety audit...among other things.
However, once he left, we were stuck with close to $100,000 in fines. The worst of the offenses were a couple extension cords on the ground and one saw where maintenance had removed a shield and neglected to put it back on. The rest were very very minor things that our insurance company didn't even know would result in a fine.
We ended up negotiating down to around $40,000.
As of August, OSHA fines have almost doubled. So, a visit like before would come in around $200,000 and I'm being told they are much less likely to negotiate.
This is absurd.