Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/765771
Air acts, is a major focus of those, like the fossil fuel industry, who are expected to have increased influence after Jan. 20. Employers hope to sharply erode workplace safely rules by 1970, some 14,000 workers were killed on the job every year. But, following passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1971, which regulates levels of blood borne pathogens, asbestos, lead, and many other dangerous hazards, the workplace death rate by 2009 had declined to about 4,340 a year even though the work- force has more than doubled since then. For more than a century, workers who spent years in coalmines struggled with breathing difficulties. The buildup of coalmine dust caused healthy pink lungs to turn black, thus the deadly disease known as black lung. For most of the history of coal, mine owners have blocked efforts to hold them accountable for safer workplaces and paying for health benefits for workers suffering from dreaded black lung disease. Even with the United Mine Workers winning the first-ever benefits for black lung, thousands have died, and many more were denied proper funding of their healthcare costs at the hands of company lawyers in what the United Mine Workers of America calls a "black lung court system." One lesser-known provision of the Affordable Care Act shifted the burden of proof from the worker to the mine owner that their disability from black lung was caused by years of toil in the mines, leading to a significant gain in black lung benefits. That lifeline, as well as OSHA, the FDA, pharmaceutical standards, and limits on the banking industry malfeasance that led to the 2008 crash, are, like the EPA, key targets of Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and other mega corporate titans. Ultimately, we must confront what kind of society we want to live in. As Philip Whitehead and Paul Crawshaw wrote in the International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy in 2014, "the market-driven ethic of neoliberalism is diametrically opposed to that of a moral economy concerned with universal- ism and equality in meeting human need." Competitive individualism, with an unfettered profit focused marketplace, is the antithesis of a humanistic culture and the essence of a caring people, which is at the heart of the nursing profession. NNU and nurses know how to fight, and we will not accept these attacks or stop working to transform our nation and world. RoseAnn DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 11 RNs make preemptive lobbying visits to Congressional offices on Nov. 17 to let lawmakers know they will fight post-election attacks on social service programs like Medicare.