WASHINGTON (AP) -- The business-friendly Bush administration is rolling out the Labor Department's welcome mat to employers.þþLabor Secretary Elaine Chao, in a Friday speech to the National Federation of Independent Business, was to announce a ``new culture of responsibility'' to teach businesses about the department's exhaustive list of regulations.þþThe changes include a new senior position, the compliance assistance director, who will coordinate efforts to help companies understand and comply with regulations. A new small-business office is being created at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.þþ``Our culture is changing to one where NFIB and other employer groups are viewed as allies,'' Chao said in her prepared remarks. ``Now we encourage our agencies to form partnerships with groups like yours because we'll protect workers better when we work together.''þþCompanies will get to see the handbooks that detail what inspectors from Labor's Wage and Hour Division look for when investigating businesses. A new call center has been set up to answer questions from businesses, and department employees will be prohibited from initiating investigations of companies that call.þþ``It's not fair that you are expected to know every rule and regulation without any decent help from the people who write them, promulgate them and penalize you if you aren't abiding by them,'' Chao said. ``It's not fair that you can literally be driven out of business for not complying with something that you didn't even know about.''þþUnion leaders have complained that the Bush Labor Department kowtows to business contributors at the expense of workers. They cite Chao's decision in April to create voluntary guidelines to help reduce workplace injuries in certain industries instead of mandatory government regulations.þþThey also say a February memo to Employment and Training Administration employees from Assistant Labor Secretary Emily Stover DeRocco illustrates business' weight -- even when it comes to training programs designed to help workers.þþ``A key priority in the coming year will be to firmly and clearly establish business as the primary customer,'' the memo said.þþDeRocco later clarified the statement in a letter to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, saying that businesses are a ``crucial means'' to helping workers obtain good training, jobs and wages.þþAFL-CIO spokeswoman Kathy Roeder said the Labor Department should be working harder to protect workers' safety and rights, and helping them return to work after the recession.þþ``The White House has a business agenda,'' Roeder said. ``It focuses primarily on the needs of business, and the Department of Labor echoes that.''þþChao, in her speech, said helping business comply with regulations is an idea whose time has come.þþ``We want to bring about the day when someone answers your phone call and says, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' -- and it won't make you laugh,'' Chao said.þþThe department's enforcement efforts will continue, she said. About 95 percent of all employers take their responsibility to their workers very seriously.þþ``Employers who knowingly neglect or abuse their employees are a very, very small minority,'' Chao said. Enforcement will be focused on that small percentage, she said.þ
Source: NY Times
