Joe Nixon vs BP Explosion Victims
HoustonChronicle.com - Lawmaker to shelve bill that restricts worker suits (a few days old now, but still merits some outrage)
Sheesh, how is it that this guy gets away with crap like this?
For the past month, legislators in Austin have been considering a new law to keep contract workers and their families from suing for injuries and deaths that occur on the job.That all changed in the wake of last week's BP refinery explosion, which killed 15 contract workers and injured dozens more. State Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, proposed House Bill 1626. He now says the bill, which was being debated in committee, will be shelved for this session.
"When the tragedy occurred everybody decided we would not allow those people to be politicized and those injuries to be politicized," he said. "It's not right to grandstand on somebody else's tragedy. We're not going to do that."
...
"The purpose of the bill was to address possible ambiguities and, quite frankly, to give more rights to employees, not less," Nixon said.
Joseph Alexander, an attorney with Mithoff & Jacks, scoffs at the notion. "Well, let's just take away everybody's right to sue," he said.
Summation is as follows ... current law prohibits workers covered by workers' comp to sue their own company in instances like the BP explosion here in Houston. But, in the same incident, contract workers can sue the company and BP employees can sue contractors.
Enter State Rep & wannabe State Senator, Joe Nixon. He wants to give people MORE rights. Funny. Read the bill, and all you'll see that it does is take away the rights of those who can go to court and place workers' compensation as the "exclusive remedy."
Joe Nixon has the balls to stand up and claim this is an added right. He also has the testicular fortitude to suggest that shelving legislation that would be beneficial to BP employees and give them these "more rights" isn't going to happen.
Which is it?
If it's a net positive, then let's give it to 'em, Joe! Of course, Joe Nixon knows he's lying. It ain't the first time he's done it, either.
Categories
Politics-20051 Comments
Oh, this is worrisome. Last year, I did a long story about illegal immigration for the magazine I write for. That might sound like a non-sequitr, but here's where I get relevant... Big companies shield themselves from charges of hiring and abusing undocumented workers by using contractors, basically saying, "Hey, we're not the employer." But, there is case law, especially in the garment industry that does treat a contract employee as an employee of the company at the top of the contract. This is an important civil rights precedent.
But, here you write that you can't sue your employer when covered by workmen's comp... if I apply the immigration case law to this, which says that you are an employee of the comany at the top of the contract, well, it seems to apply.
So, there's a choice to be made about what we want here. On one hand, companies that use contract employees are held responsible, on another hand, they get out of an employer's responsibility by the workman's comp loophole.
I can't decide which I want as a matter of policy.