Guest post: Most people working today don’t remember how it used to be

Originally a comment by iknklast on Eliminate the safety regulations.

I wonder how the “let’s get rid of safety regulations” policy is going to go over with Trump’s presumed blue-collar, working man base

Most of the blue-collar workers that surround me are ecstatic about the idea. They have bought into the idea that these regulations are unnecessary, are telling them how to do their job, are keeping them from making better money…in short, they voted for Trump because of this sort of thing, not in spite of it. At a recent meeting of a group that benefits highly from OSHA regulations, they were all discussing how eager they were for OSHA regulations to go away.

I think the problem is that most people working today don’t remember how it used to be. They assume the workplace would still be as clean and safe without the regulations, because they have been told that all the regulations do is mean that they can’t move this box without two people—oh, goodness, you mean I can’t lift a 100 pound box without help? How dare they! And they believe that the big benefactor of these regulations is the government, not the working man.

Now, once the regulations actually go away, they may find out the truth…by then, it will be too late. It took a long time and a lot of hard work, and dead people, to get the rules put in place to begin with. It may be even more difficult to get them back. (And it may not…people who have known what life is like with the rules may rise up very quickly and very firmly once they lose them…we can hope that is the scenario, that they throw the bums out).

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