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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTucked into the Covid-19 stimulus package? Protection for corporations
Source: The Guardian David Sirota and Julia Rock TIn 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.
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Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/tucked-covid-19-stimulus-package-141304554.html
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If the Dems are serious about this bill, they need to get rid of this poisonous pill. I guess this is what is troubling Sanders. Me too.
Budi
(15,325 posts)David Sirota
Here's the problem, Mr Sirota:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214664500
Mitch McConnell.
Stop laying this horror on the Democrats.
betsuni
(25,705 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)I have never read a thing he wrote that wasn't damning the Democratic Party.
He ran an entire campaign opposing the Dems.
Along with Nina Turner, (now employed by a big old Corporation as a KStreet Lobbyist),. That same Nina Turner that Sirota applauded when she screeched at a Primary rally, "You have a bowl of shit, one half is Trump & the other half is Biden".
Their propaganda schtick is convincing social media that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans.
THIS is Who Sirota is as well, and in this article of his, we see the same lie being told again & again.
Better vetting of sources should be a requirement.
Its no secret what David Sirota's goal is.
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Disgusting is putting it kindly.
Thanks betsuni
betsuni
(25,705 posts)Yes, no secret what the goal is.
These days pretty much everything is called a right-wing source unless it lies about Democrats.
uponit7771
(90,367 posts)LizBeth
(9,952 posts)stepping into the game unaware of this conversation for a long time? Really? You are just getting to this point? You have not taken it any further, like Sanders has not done, thinking this thru, like Pelosi very well has?
Hugin
(33,222 posts)Make no mistake. That's exactly what this is all about.
Granting immunity is unethical and irresponsible. Look at what happened when it was done for the gun manufacturers.
LonePirate
(13,431 posts)The bipartisan legislators who crafted the current bill added this provision specifically to attract the votes of Republican Senators as this was Turtle's primary ask in all of the COVID relief bills.
Yes, it's corrupt and it proves once again how Republicans do not care about working Americans. However, this provision is not surprising or intended to be a poison pill.
betsuni
(25,705 posts)McConnell compromised and made liability temporary in the bipartisan deal.
In the October proposal, Wonkette: "Worst of all, and a flat out deal killer, the White House insisted on a poison pill, Mitch McConnell's near-total grant of immunity for corporations whose negligence led to employees or customers contracting the virus."
Faux pas
(14,698 posts)betsuni
(25,705 posts)In the White House proposal pre-election.
In the new bipartisan deal, unemployment aid, aid to states and cites and businesses was added, the liability grant changed.
Wonkette:
"And perhaps most crucially, it doesn't include McConnell's deal-nuking liability shield. The outline so far calls for 'short term Federal protection from Coronavirus related lawsuits with the purpose of giving states time to develop their own response,' which would be temporary, and unlike McConnell's liability shield, it's not yet cast in legislative language, so there's a chance to negotiate its final shape, though our preference would be to take it out altogether."
Yoyoyo77
(270 posts)To everyone who's been complaining that the dems should be ready to compromise to get needed relief to the people. A even more comprehensive version of liability insurance was in every GOP proposal. Shut up Wolf Blitzer!