Government Shutdown To Hit Labor Department Workplace Safety, Discrimination Investigations
Posted in: Today's ChiliWASHINGTON — If Congress fails to fund the federal government to avert a shutdown, most investigations into workplace safety and discrimination will cease on Tuesday morning, when the overwhelming majority of Labor Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission employees are pulled off the job.
Of the Labor Department’s 16,304 workers, only 2,954, or 18 percent, would be permitted to work during the shutdown, according to a plan released by the agency on Monday. Of the EEOC’s 2,164 employees, only 107, or a mere 5 percent, would work through the furlough period, the commission said in a press release.
The Occupation Safety and Health Administration, the Labor Department office that performs the crucial function of monitoring workplaces, would have to stop inspections that don’t involve immediate dangers or deaths, the department wrote in the plan. That means the agency’s routine inspections — an already woefully underfunded responsibility — would generally grind to a halt during the shutdown.
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