[The right-to-know law is] a sop to a small group of people that I would call ‘overreactors’ I know it’s going to cost a business a helluva lot of money.
The moment you get either people or lawyers apprised of the fact that a company has a toxic material on their premises, they’re going to bring a lawsuit.
A strike is an economic struggle between employer and employee, testing to see who will succumb to the economic pinch first and seek settlement. But if one side is relieved of economic hardship by tax-supported subsidy programs, the struggle is undermined.
Prior to the passage of this legislation [the OSH Act], certain special-interest groups (i.e. unions) testifying in support of punitive legislation attempted to describe American business management as irresponsible and unsympathetic to safety on the job….We continue to maintain that standard setting should be carried out by an independent board of experts who are not subject to the pressures of special-interest groups.
Panic decisions on regulatory matters, inspired and promulgated by today’s abundant supply of instant ecologists, legal opportunists, activists with or without cause….Many of these people know not what they do, let alone what they say.
Many companies have cut back drastically their research efforts on new pesticides and diverted their funds to defensive research….Legislation and regulation may ban products but replacements cannot be regulated into existence…Companies are leaving the pesticide business or cutting down their research and development efforts.
The class-action bill would open a happy hunting preserve to ambitious lawyers with a quick eye for the plump bird. They are not likely to be much concerned with fraud in the ghetto: No money there. But has a major manufacturer gotten a little too exuberant in his advertising? Has he promised a ‘benefit’ that may not be fully deliverable? Well, then, let us find 10 customers ready to say they’ve been damaged, and let us sue in the name of 10,000 more.
[The legislation to permit consumer class actions] “is only nominally an act ‘to extend protection against fraudulent or deceptive practices.’ It is more accurately an act to line the pockets of ingenious attorneys. If this bill passes, the lawyers will be in high cotton; their client consumers will be still hoeing the short row.
We are particularly intrigued by the term byssinosis a thing thought up by venal doctors who attended last year’s ILO [International Labor Organization] meetings in Africa, where inferior races are bound to be afflicted by new diseases more superior people defeated years ago...As a matter of fact, we referred to the ‘cotton fever’ earlier, when we pointed out that a good chaw of B.L. dark would take care of it, or some snuff...Well, we want to tell Mr. [James] O’Hara [D-MI] that, and for all our life, we have hated federal interference in our lives businesses…Congressman O’Hara is typical of the lousy representation we get from time-serving Northern Democrats who sell their souls to the venal labor leaders.
Enforcement of Federal standards through Federal inspectors would result in the most intimate involvement of the Secretary of Labor in all operations affecting interstate commerce….easily result[ing] in blowing up the most minor grievances to very substantial proportions. A minor complaint can very well become a ‘federal case’. Provision of this kind of authority in the Federal government would tempt many an employee representative to boost his stock by calling on the federal government, since the very presence of a federal inspector could be used to demonstrate his importance and influence.
