Bill Shorten Quotes
What really matters in a workplace, what helps an employer if you've got a unionised workforce is if your shop stewards know the rules of the game, if your safety reps are taught to be able to examine situations to make sure the workplace is more safety. Better informed delegates, better workplace safety saves companies money. Unions are very good at safety. We are good at teaching delegates how to resolve disputes.
Shorten, Bill. Transcript of Proceedings, Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, Commonwealth of Australia, 8 July 2015.
At the time there was very little such legislation or regulation, and the little there was only occurred after massive lobbying efforts by organized labor. In modern times, often it takes a horrible tragedy to occur before the political will can be mobilized to cope with issues of occupational health and safety.
As hard as it is to understand today, there were few states with safety laws governing industry. There was no OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration ) or other federal regulation of industrial safety conditions.
Most mine safety initiatives have only been passed or implemented after a major mine disaster. This type of inertia, in most fields, is unfortunately typical of legislative calendars and agendas where only a few items are high priority at any one time.
In 1991 the Labor Department found major coal mining companies, including Du Pont, USX, Bethlehem Steel and General Dynamics, tampering with dust samples that were sent for federal safety inspection.
Six of his miners were killed in a Utah mine accident and three more died trying to rescue them. Although a coal mine owner, he also questions the values of our society, the coal mining industry, and his company—all of which accept the fact that coal mining is a very hazardous enterprise while many argue that we should just use safer energy sources.
At the time, the mine owners and operators claimed that they had NO obligations to their workers—not even to ensure a safe mine. There was no OSHA and workers died and were maimed on the job much more frequently than they do today. Many mine owners now accept that they have obligations to the workers, and the rest are required to have responsible and safe working conditions by law and OSHA regulations.
The First Lady was very practical. Although she was a strong advocate of women working in all areas of the labor force, she also realized that there were very few women who had done so before and thus there were few role models for them. So women did not generally know how to dress to keep themselves safe. And if she thought any information was needed, she used her daily syndicated column in many of America’s newspapers to convey that information.
President Harrison had first brought the problem of injured workers having no protection or recourse to public attention {640537} Then Roosevelt’s term created legislation and the Congress passed it. The very conservative Supreme Court had declared the Employers’ Liability Act of 1906 unconstitutional, leaving no recourse of assistance for American railroad employees injured on their job through no fault of their own. Roosevelt was furious and he had the legislation redrafted to get around the Supreme Court objections. and that was passed in 1908 and was not overturned.
William Richard Shorten is an Australian politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labor Party from 2013 to 2019. Shorten was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Maribyrnong in 2007, and was a Cabinet Minister in the Gillard and Rudd Governments from 2010 to 2013.
