AFT Supports Legislation to Make Workplaces for Healthcare, Social Service Employees Safer

By American Federation of Teachers

Washington, D.C. - February 23, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1309), introduced by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), would make nurses and healthcare workers safer in their workplaces. The bill requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop protection measures and enforceable safety standards for people who work in front-line healthcare jobs, who are five times more likely to be assaulted at work than the rest of the labor force.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, 80 percent of emergency medical workers experience violence during their careers, some reporting verbal assault and some reporting physical abuse. And the rates are rising. Between 2007 and 2017, rates of violence in hospitals grew by 123 percent.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said, “Our nurses and health industry workers care every day for the sick, the elderly and the mentally ill, yet they often feel unsafe or unprotected themselves from the assaults that occur in hospitals and other healthcare-related settings.”

“While OSHA has left these workers vulnerable,” she said, “incidents of workplace violence continue to rise, with 69 percent of reported cases occurring in healthcare settings. Thankfully, this bill addresses this increasing trend head-on, and it provides long-needed protections and specific and enforceable safety standards for people who work in front-line healthcare jobs.”

Weingarten concluded, “No one should face violence, intimidation or fear for their safety while they’re on the job. And as a union of healthcare professionals, educators and public employees, we welcome this effort to finally make federal workplace-safety regulations a priority.”

The AFT represents 1.7 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.

Civil War II: It's already here.

Hello. It's me, that crazy lady who has been sitting behind the computer keyboard screaming at the top of her lungs about the lies that the main stream media has been dishing out. I got some interesting stuff today:

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) says he "feels like violence is coming". I hate to tell him, but it's already here. None of us were ever in the first Civil War, but if you read your history, the killing only happened in a few areas. The USA is a big country. Most people only read about it in the newspapers of the day.

Jump forward to 2017: there is violence everywhere -- in pockets.

More protests over Civil War monuments have erupted all over the USA. (Read about it here) As a post on Twitter depicted: "Nancy Pelosi has been in Congress since 1987. That's 30 years. Why is it that she just now has decided the monuments need to go?" Seems to me all she is doing is adding fuel to the fire that is smoldering across the country today. Isn't that against the law?

The Democrats love playing "pass the blame" and deflecting their own sins to their opponents, as evidence by this Young Conservatives report about the New York Attorney General, who has decried Trump for alleged ties with Russia, who himself has received money from Russia.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has accepted more than $60,000 in small donations from Leonard Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born energy billionaire with ties to Russian oligarchs, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation examination of the Democrat’s financial disclosure reports.

If you are mad that the left refuses to hold Antifa and BLM accountable for their part in the violence that has erupted across the country, there is something you can do. Sign the petition to have them Formally recognize AntiFa as a terrorist organization.

It is time that all Senators and Representatives disavow Antifa.

When Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN, 9th) came out with a press release to impeach the President after Charlottesville, he misinterpreted Trump's words during a press conference, and said that the only people who were wrong in Charlottesville were KKK and White Supremacists. He claims that Antifa and the BLM were innocent, because they fight racism. Never mind the violence they incite and instigate. Breitbart reported Cohen's misplaced rage.

So, I guess violence is okay if you're a Democrat, right?

That's all for now. I got some more writing to do elsewhere.

Hey, ya'll make sure you come back now, you hear? (and don't forget to share this page with your friends!)

Antifa activists show up at Heather Heyer’s funeral with bats

Dennis Michael Lynch

A funeral was held Wednesday morning for Heather Heyer, the young woman who was killed in the vehicle attack in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Taylor Lorenz, a reporter from The Hill who was covering the funeral, posted a notice on Twitter stating that the “[a]nti-fascist activists have just shown up outside the theater with baseball bats and purple shields.”

Read more...