Donald Trump doesn’t give a [BLEEP] shit about you.

If he did, he wouldn’t be trying to undermine the federal agency that protects your health and safety on the job — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Many have forgotten this, but during his first term, Trump defanged the agency. Under Trump’s watch, the number of OSHA inspectors on the job hit a 45-year low. The number of workplace inspections overall dropped too, even as the need for more investigations into fatal or catastrophic safety incidents grew. And this was happening as Trump gutted regulations that protected workers from exposure to dangerous chemicals on the job.

But if you thought Trump's first term was bad for workplace safety, just wait until you hear where Trump's new choice to lead OSHA used to work... 

That's right, Amazon. The same corporation that had a warehouse injury rate at least 50% higher than its competitors. No wonder vending machines at Amazon distribution centers are reportedly filled with pain killers.

One of Amazon’s former top executives, whose tenure saw Amazon cited numerous times for OSHA violations, will be running the agency tasked with protecting workers’ health and safety on the job. 

Jeff Bezos must be thrilled. After all, he said he would support Trump’s deregulatory agenda:

Trump isn’t stopping there. He’s paused the implementation of federal guidelines to protect workers from extreme heat and is pushing federal agencies to stop enforcing other safety regulations. He’s shutting down Department of Labor offices dedicated to workplace safety. And he’s firing staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which conducts vital research to prevent work-related injury, illness, disability, and death.

Given Trump’s anti-worker history and his support from the richest men in the world, it’s no surprise that Trump is willing to put workers in harm's way during his second term. But going after agencies like OSHA is especially dangerous because it’s quite literally a matter of life and death.

Let me give you a little history lesson.

OSHA was established with the passage of the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970, signed by President Richard Nixon. Yes — Trump is somehow worse than Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon on workers’ rights.

But the fight to protect workers’ health and safety on the job stretches back more than a century.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, conditions for workers were deplorable. Workers, including children, toiled for 10 to 12 hours, six days a week, working with unregulated heavy machinery and dangerous chemicals for poverty wages. Workers eventually began organizing for better pay, shorter work days and weeks, and safety precautions. But dangerous work conditions and deadly accidents, like the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, were common.

This fire was witnessed firsthand by FDR’s eventual Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. The tragedy influenced her to establish the Bureau of Labor Standards in 1934 as the first federal agency dedicated to promoting the safety and health of the entire workforce. Despite this important step, however, workers’ health and safety still largely remained in the hands of the states, and more alarmingly, employers.

Over the next forty years, working conditions improved as millions of workers unionized and fought for better safety on the job. But they were still routinely exposed to dangerous chemicals, injured by heavy machinery, and died both on the job, and long after, due to these workplace hazards. A shocking 1965 report finding that a dangerous chemical was introduced in the workplace every 20 minutes put workplace safety back at the top of the political agenda.

Despite intense corporate resistance, a bill finally made it through Congress in 1970 — and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency was born.

Big corporations and their political puppets have continued their fight to undercut OSHA every step of the way in a quest for more profits. I dealt with it myself in 1995 as secretary of the Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA. 

That year, a newly elected Republican majority in Congress set their sights on dismantling the agency, claiming that employers could be trusted to keep workers safe on their own and that OSHA regulations were too burdensome.

CLIP: “These politicians, this new gang, they claim they care about worker health and worker safety. Ha! But just last week, they announced their proposal in the House of Representatives to cut OSHA by one-third, closing down half of the offices of OSHA around the country, closing down and cutting half of the inspectors around the country that make safe working places possible.”

We fought that bill — and won. Sadly, Republicans continued to target OSHA.

But the numbers don’t lie. Since 1971, OSHA has reduced workplace-related fatalities by almost 63 percent. It’s slashed the rate of serious workplace injuries and illnesses by 75 percent.

That’s millions of workers’ lives saved. Millions of workers who are free from debilitating health conditions. Millions of families who aren’t missing a loved one. 

And more must be done, because too many workers are still injured on the job.

If Trump actually cared about workers, he would not undermine the federal agency that keeps them safe. He wouldn’t appoint an executive from a corporation that repeatedly violates worker health and safety to oversee worker health and safety. 

The only people who benefit from gutting OSHA are the billionaires who control our economy. 

No worker should have to pay the price for corporate greed with their limbs — or their life.