OSHA, OSHI-

This new year has been quite hectic, hey? Tariffs this and DEI that. In addition to executive orders every day of the week a Republican Congressman Mr Biggs of Arizona submitted a bill with the intention to dismantle the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Submitted on the 3rd of January in the current year 2025, the bill will if passed abolish OSHA, and leave nothing in its wake.

I've never heard of Biggs, and I have no idea whether this bill has a chance at making it to law. But if I were a worker in the USA, the mere attempt would be cause for concern. Currently, I work in an office but in the past I work on industrial sites, refineries, docks, warehouses etc. To be allowed on the premises I had to pass several health and safety courses and every single site had their own safety inductions. And those all had to be renewed over time. They are extremely dull and 90% of the information you get is obvious and already known to you, unless it's your first day. But I'd rather be bored two or three days a year than have my head crushed between a jetty and an oil tanker1 . Or go death prematurely due to not demanding ear defenders.

They can also be quite grim, with photos and videos of accidents leading to deaths, some were staged, but most were not. The videos in the sections I call "Here's how painfully you will die if you half arse safety" all used examples from work in the USA. All of which were OSHA compliant. So, that might sound like I'm in favour of scrapping OSHA, and yes, if that scrapping process involves a radical restructuring of work in the USA that shifts focus onto the wellbeing and safety of employees over potential maximum profit, and expands safety in the workplace.

But none of that is in this bill, it is just getting rid of OSHA and leaving nothing.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is abolished

I realise this point is difficult to get across without showing you some of those video clips of graphic deaths, so I'll be blunt. The current safety and protection system in effect in the USA is weak and insufficient to the point that a UK employer who followed its guidelines to the letter would be prosecuted for safety violations even if no accidents or near misses had occurred yet. That's not to be patriotic and make present the UK's health and safety systems are perfect2 , it isn't, we still have workplace accidents, injuries and deaths, we still have to work without any real say in how we do it. The UK is a modern capitalist economy its not some land of milk and honey. I have my own criticisms of how health and safety works in this country too.

I'm comparing the two to show how even for a capitalist economy, workers in the USA are especially vulnerable to death and injury. So, anytime a politician tries to scrap what limited safeguards that do exist should be taken seriously and met with determined opposition as the direct consequences will be more deaths, more injuries and fewer compensation payouts for the survivors. The only time a working person in the USA should welcome a bill to repeal OSHA is if it's part of an expansion and reform of workplace protections and safety procedures.

Mr Biggs may just be a one-off maverick extremist and will not get any support, but I wouldn't want to take the risk, and as a Congressman Biggs is part of the ruling strata of the nation, and clearly at least some of those people are fine with trading human lives if it means removing the slightest inconveniences and restrictions on maximum profit and control. Class war doesn't get more overt than that.

• 1This was not a hypothetical, I know someone who stuck his head in the gap between the two because he couldn't be bothered to wait. Fortunately, somehow his hard hat saved him
• 2we are also made to watch UK based dangers and accidents, but they're either old historic cases or used to show specific examples of failures to follow specific site requirements