Tucked into the Covid-19 stimulus package? Protection for corporations

[Hermit-The-Prog]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/05/tucked-into-the-covid-19-stimulus-package-protection-for-corporations

The proposed legislation would shield corporations from liability if their workers die from Covid-19 in unsafe workplaces

In early October, Harvard researchers sounded an alarm: they released a report showing a pattern of coronavirus deaths surging soon after workers filed requests for workplace safety assistance from the US labor department. The takeaway was clear: workers are desperately begging the government to help protect them from a deadly pandemic, the government has been unresponsive, and lots of workers have subsequently died preventable deaths.

Today, a little more than a month after the study came out, the federal government is finally responding: a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers have announced legislation to shield corporations from lawsuits when their lax safety standards kill more workers.

In practice, the legislation, which is being tucked into a larger Covid relief package, is a holiday-season gift for corporate donors: it would strip frontline workers of their last remaining legal tool to protect themselves in the workplace – at the same time the unemployment system is designed to financially punish those workers if they refuse to return to unsafe workplaces during the pandemic.

The legislation comes not only as workers continue to die, but also as roughly 7- 9% of the total Covid-19 death count are “take home” infections traced to employees unwittingly spreading the disease to their families and friends.

[mucifer]

1. Desperate times Desperate measures. efwads repubs will only pass it that way we have no choice

[SunSeeker]

2. Shit, I was afraid they'd have to put that in there to get Mitch on board.

Fuck.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Chamber of Commerce

as well as the Business Round Table is pushing this. BTW,you damn well know the likes of Smithfield,Tyson,and JBS greased the skids on this baby big time..

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. Here's a part that annoys me ...

From the article:

At the behest of corporate lobbyists, the liability shield initiative has spread like a virus in America’s political system: as the Daily Poster first reported, it coursed through state legislatures across the country after the New York Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, responded to a Covid-19 mass death in nursing homes by shielding nursing home executives from lawsuits – after a healthcare lobby group funneled $1m into his political machine.

Senate Republicans in Washington then copied Cuomo’s liability shield legislation and pasted it word-for-word into their last Covid-19 stimulus proposal in July.

[Wellstone ruled]

11. This Baby has been Corporate Americas

special gift list since Truman. Goes back to the Coal Mine disasters of the thirties and forties. Laid dormant until Bob Murry gave Trump 10 mill four years ago.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. Moscow Mitch and the Gangsters Of Putin are milking covid-19 for advantage to the rich.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[LizBeth]

5. Gotta get it done before Dec 26. Temporary from what I hear, but not like companies are being held

to any standards now. without this in this time of escalation, then employees lose even more option with staying with a job or leaving than without UI extension.

There is not an option and has to be done by Dec 26. Biden can pick it up in a month when he gets in.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. It's a Trojan Horse/Sophie's Choice forcing to choose between worker safety and minimal $ aid

Either option guarantees more suffering and death.

[hedda_foil]

7. That's why Pelosi has stood strong for so long. It's the poison pill McConnell has insisted on.

[samsingh]

9. why aren't our leaders making a big deal about this? repugs take everything and attack us with it.

We seem to stay silent. Get on TV, on Twitter - label the repug Senate as anti-worker and keep hitting them with it so that even the idiots among the voters get it.

If i wasn't on DU i would'nt even know about the repug poison pill.

[BComplex]

8. More: Locks in the trump tax cuts for rich. Leaves out money for states/cities. And worse....

and most important, starts an act that guts social security and medicare.

And people aren't screaming to the high heavens about this??? Our democratic leaders aren't throwing things at the republicans over this??

Is there one fucking person in Washington actually looking out for this country?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214664500

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. They've drooled over raiding SS for years, now they use a pandemic as leverage!

[pecosbob]

14. It might be said that this is the only reason Republicans are interested in a bill at all.

To be fair their opening bid was this and also to tie Biden's hands by restricting his access to the Treasury for relief funds.