(Summarized from the USA Today)

President Bush signed a repeal of new workplace safety regulations, saying they posed "overwhelming compliance challenges" for businesses.

The measure, revoking rules issued late in the Clinton administration, was the first substantive policy that Bush signed into law

The rules from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were aimed at preventing carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and other health problems associated with repetitive motion, awkward postures, contact stress and the like. If such injuries were reported, adjustments to work stations would have been required.

Businesses, which were given until October to comply, said the required changes would cost them as much as $100 billion a year.

Bush has asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to devise a cheaper way of addressing workplace safety.

He held the legislation up as a victory for himself and the Republican-controlled Congress.

WASHINGTON - When George W. Bush nominated a Labor Secretary that was against Affirmative Action and other programs that help progress women and minorities, CLUW (Coalition of Labor Union Women) objected, loud and clear. CLUW quickly organized with the AFL-CIO to devise a plan to defeat Linda Chavez. But that plan was unneeded because Chavez quickly withdrew her nomination eyeing the forces that were against her.

The opposition to Linda Chavez reached its peak when the news got out that the person who would be responsible for enforcing the labor laws and standards of the nation (Chavez) used an illegal immigrant to perform services at her suburban Washington residence. This was an absurdity that ultimately forced President Bush to keep a safe distance from his nominee.

But the president refused to back down from his support of John Ashcroft, the former Missouri senator who was confirmed as Attorney General. "Ashcroft's record demonstrates an antipathy to labor rights, minority rights, women's rights and the rights of all American citizens," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney who joined over 100 organizations in opposition to the Ashcroft nomination.

"In six years as a US Senator and eight years as Missouri Governor, Ashcroft has sided against working men and women on virtually every issue of importance to their lives," Sweeney said.

"It is about principles and national concerns that wear no party label. It is about a nominee whose record of statements and service are so far out of the mainstream that they are bound to divide us at the very moment that this nation needs healing."

The healing Sweeney was referring to is over the deep division of the nation during the closest Presidential election in US history where voting irregularities marred the final outcome.

Gloria Johnson said, "Even those members of Congress who participated in the Ashcroft nomination hearings were deeply divided on whether his personal pro-choice beliefs and his track record of discrimination would prevent him from enforcing the laws of the land."

CLUW NEWS
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Jan/Feb 2001, Volume 27, No. 1