OSHA finally releases emergency COVID-19 safety standard, this week in the war on workers

[Brexiter]

After more than a month of footdragging—and before that, nearly a year of outright refusal under Donald Trump—the Labor Department finally released an emergency workplace safety standard for COVID-19.

The new rules mean that employers in low-standards states like Texas and Mississippi will have to provide workers with PPE, at least for the next six months.

OSHA made another good move, too, by fining Dollar Tree stores for widespread safety violations.

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The term low-skill as we use it is often derogatory, a socially sanctioned slur Davos types casually lob at millions of American workers, disproportionately Black and Latino, immigrant, and low-income workers. Describing American workers as low-skill also vaults over the discrimination that creates these “low-skill” jobs and pushes certain workers to them. And it positions American workers as being the problem, rather than American labor standards, racism and sexism, and social and educational infrastructure. It is a cancerous little phrase, low-skill. As the pandemic ends and the economy reopens, we need to leave it behind.

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At the same time its CEO is compensated to the tune of $10.5 MILLION a year, Churchill Downs is refusing modest pay increases for their workers. Absurd. I am proud to stand with the workers of SEIU Local 541 on strike for better pay and better working conditions.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 30, 2021