The Confined Space Endorsement: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

As we approach the most important election of our lifetime (yes, this time it really is), the Editorial Board of Confined Space faces a difficult decision: Follow the “leadership” of some of the nation’s leading newspapers and billionaires (as well as one large union) and refuse to endorse either candidate? Or go way out on a limb and take a stand?

It’s a difficult decision:  Fascism or Democracy?  Women’s ability to make their own health decision, or “protection” by Donald Trump and Republican politicians? Environmental, workplace and consumer protections or judges who will “deconstruct” the administrative state, allowing corporations to control our lives and health? Ensuring workers rights and safety, or condemning them to be the vassals of their employers?

Tomato Tomahto? Should we just hope everyone makes the right decision or make a strong statement for the right choice?

Is this a close call?

On what basis are we making this endorsement? Sure there’s fascism and controlling women’s lives, but the key question for publication is: “is it good for the workers?” Luckily, we don’t have to base our decision on hypotheticals. We have an entire Trump administration and an entire Biden-Harris administration to judge on.

Look at the facts

First, Donald Trump:

• The Trump administration did not issue a single major workplace safety or health standard or regulation in its entire four years. In fact, those standards that were under way (such as workplace violence and infectious diseases) were set aside and ignored.  Trump completely canceled standards covering rules on styrene, combustible dust, construction noise..
• One Obama era regulation addressing recordkeeping enforcement (The Volks Rule) was repealed
• Trump also repealed portions of the recordkeeping rules requiring big employers to keep and report accurate injury records and refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to OSHA .
• Trump attempted — but largely failed — to slash OSHA’s budget and eliminate the Susan Harwood Worker Training grant program.
• Despite the virulent COVID-19 pandemic that swept the country, particularly affecting “essential workers” and their families, the Trump administration refused to issue — or even initiate — a standard to protect workers.
• The Trump administration, faced with massive illness and death from COVID in meatpacking plants, colluded with the the companies to whitewash health and safety investigations and recommendations.
• When Trump’s OSHA was finally backed into a corner and forced to cite egregiously dangerous conditions in meatpacking plants, the few citations issued against giant meat processing corporations were so small that they didn’t amount to a small hair on a freckle on a pimple on the nose of the company.
• Forced by the law to cite violators or companies that had killed or injured workers, Trump’s OSHA refused for months to issue any press releases or announcement of enforcement actions, despite evidence that OSHA press releases save lives.
• Despite Republican control of the Senate during the entire Trump administration, no Assistant Secretary for OSHA was ever confirmed.
• During the Trump administration, the number of OSHA inspectors fell to a historic low, despite adequate funding to hire more inspectors.
• Other Trump agencies also contributed to policies that threatened workers: The Department of Agriculture, also helped increase hazards for workers by allowing poultry processing facilities to increase line speeds. The EPA repealed OSHA’s Obama era chemical plant safety protections, and the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division was in the process of allowing 16-year-olds to operate potentially hazardous patient lifts.
• Despite Ronald Reagan’s antipathy toward and attacks on unions, worker rights and OSHA, Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alex Acosta named Reagan to the Labor Hall of Honor. As I wrote before, Given Reagan’s legacy with workers, unions and OSHA, one struggles to think of appropriate comparisons: Appointing Hitler to Israel’s list of “Righteous among the Nations” or maybe naming Harvey Weinstein  to head the National Organization for Women?

While labor issues have not made headlines during this campaign, the Washington Post speculates that a Trump administration will fire labor-friendly National Labor Relations Board staff and Board members, make it harder for unions to organize, make it easier to hire children to do dangerous jobs, and reverse a Biden rule that made it easier for gig workers, janitors, home health aides to qualify as employees instead of independent contractors who have fewer rights. He would also rescind Biden’s ban on non-compete agreements, reduce workers eligibility for overtimes, and — as we mentioned above — issue no new safety or health standards and weaken OSHA’s enforcement ability, especially for small businesses.

And on the other side, the Biden administration has:

• Started and made good progress on a workplace heat standard, as well as moving forward standards covering infectious diseases, workplace violence, and protections for emergency response workers
• Banned most uses of asbestos and methylene chloride
• Issued a rule to protect coal and metal and nonmetal miners from deadly silica exposure.
• Finalized a walkaround representation rule clarifying workers’ right to designate a union representative, a workplace safety expert or another qualified advocate to be present during OSHA inspections. (Trump, on the other hand had rescinded the 2013 Obama-era policy allowing nonunion workers to participate in OSHA safety inspections.)
• Increased enforcement activity by conducting 31,820 total inspections in FY 2022, a 30.8% increase from FY 2021.
•  Increased OSHA inspectors 11% from the Trump administration.

And that’s just health and safety.  In other labor issues

• The Biden-Harris administration appointed the most pro-union National Labor Relations Board in history, making organizing easier for workers. Their actions led to the largest one-year increase in union victories on record.
• The Biden-Harris administration rescued the country from the disastrous economic conditions left by Donald Trump: adding 16 million jobs—including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs and launching the longest streak of sub-4% unemployment in more than 50 years.
• Vice President Harris recommitted to the Biden-Harris administration’s promise to sign the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act into law if/when Congress passes it. The PRO Act is a landmark labor bill that would end union-busting “right to work” laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts.
• Both President Biden and VP Harris have walked picket lines during strikes.

Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz has actually shown the country what a pro-labor Governor looks like. As Governor, he passed laws and standards that increased ergonomics protections for warehouse, food and other workers, issued protections for warehouse workers, increased funding for the state’s OSHA program, publicized inspection results, and raised OSHA penalty levels.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, on the other hand, has called on Trump to “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state.” That means you’ll have Trump political operatives not just running OSHA, but also replacing OSHA’s technical and scientific experts.

I could (and often do) go on and on. But you get the idea.

Froth on the Surface

I know there are some well-meaning pro-labor advocates out there who are declaring a pox on both houses, choosing to sit this one out, or even vote third party: Obviously, Republicans and Trump are bad for working people, they argue, but Democrats also toe the corporate line far too often.

I am somewhat sympathetic to these views. Someday, when I write my memoirs, I will talk about the fights, controversies, delays and concessions to corporate America and “moderation” that were made (or attempted) during the Obama administration when I was at OSHA. But although many Democratic politicians cannot be characterized as champions of working people, there are a lot who are worker champions — some of whom, like Sherrod Brown in Ohio — are running frighteningly close re-election campaigns.

From my long experience in Washington — often years of frustration no matter what party was in control — there is one factor that stands out. Democrats, when they stray from the path of worker protection — can be influenced, steered and corrected.  It’s hard work, and sometimes unsuccessful, but it can be done. We’ve seen it over and over again.

Republicans, on the other hand, are a lost cause when it comes to worker rights and protections. They know where their bread is buttered and who they need fear.

As Jon Oliver says in this must-watch clip,

The struggle for justice isn’t just about what happens on election day. It’s a fight waged constantly, day in and day out in protests on the streets, meetings with  legislators and in the thousands of small actions to cumulatively move the government forward an inch at a time….Elections alone are not sufficient for large-scale change but they are absolutely necessary for it to ever happen.  Because it’s the date when you essentially get to choose who you prefer to be pushing for the next 4 years and where you’ll be pushing them from.

Whenever faced with these “they’re all bad” arguments, I’m often reminded of an essay by George Orwell, Reflections on the Spanish Civil War.  Orwell fought in that war on the Republicans side (vs. Franco’s fascists). And the anti-Franco forces were riven with problems, conflicts and contradictions.

Nevertheless, Orwell wrote:

When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor and futility of war — and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings — there is always the temptation to say: “One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral.”  In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins.  Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, play-boys, blimps and what-not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay….If [the war] had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened.  It was lost, and the dividend drawers all over the world rubbed their hands.  That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface.

The Endorsement

I have often written that how workers vote affects their likelihood of coming home alive and healthy at the end of the work day, how much they’re getting paid, their benefits and what rights they have at work.

So I have decided to make the courageous decision (well more courageous than certain billionaires and labor leaders, I guess) to make an endorsement for President.

Yes, I realize that if the election goes sideways, this endorsement will likely mean that Trump declares me (and all of you readers) to be “the enemy within.”  And doing the right thing by making an endorsement may mean we have to deal with investigations, imprisonment, deportations, firing squads and critical and soul-crushing Twitter (or X) attacks.

Nevertheless,  the Confined Space Editorial Board has unanimously decided that it is our responsibility to the millions (take or leave) of undecided Americans who depend on Confined Space for advice on how to support the workers in this country.

So, close call? Not really. The choice is clear. (Drum roll)

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the only possible choices for any voter concerned about workers’ rights and protections.

And while we’re at it, don’t forget to vote for other labor champions, such as Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and North Carolina’s candidate for Labor Commissioner, Braxton Winston. In fact, it’s also vitally important that we have a Democratic Senate and House if we are to defend — and expand on — worker protections. Remember, the Senate (and President) are solely responsible for Cabinet and sub-cabinet appointments (like Secretary of Labor, Assistant Secretary for OSHA, NLRB Board members, etc.), and also for confirming federal judges and Supreme Court justices who will be deciding the fate of OSHA standards, labor laws and enforcement decisions for decades.

So if you’re a worker or worker advocate who hasn’t quite decided how or whether you will vote tomorrow, sit down, take a deep breath and consider (to paraphrase Orwell), that there is hardly such a thing as an election in which it makes no difference who wins.

Because this election will make an enormous difference — not just for the next four years, but for the next four decades and beyond. Vote for yourselves, you children, and your grandchildren.

Cover photo courtesy the AFL-CIO