Every wanted to see a Chinese production facility?

OSHA is one of the reasons why that factory is in China and not in America.

I'm not suggesting that worker safety should be ignored, but OSHA has become one of the many bloated self-serving government bureaucracies that has contributed to forcing manufacturing overseas. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet). Did you know that OSHA even has an MSDS for saline eye wash solution (pure water with a little bit of salt added)? I came across that little gem when working in the Navy: I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It wouldn't surprise me if there was an MSDS for distilled water.

Lawyers, bureaucrats, and socialists will be the death of this nation.

OSHA and EPA regulations combined amount to around 8% of manufacturing cost in the US. The wage differential between high-quality workers in China and high-quality workers in the US runs around 96%.

So you have an 8% solution here to a 96% problem.

If anything kills manufacturing in the US, it will be doctrinaire, conservative free-trade economics.

Ed Huntress

Fair trade and free trade seem to be completely different things.

Strangely those same people who promote "free trade" are deathly afraid of China.

If we ever do have to fight China we will have to do it with what ever is on hand because all our production facilities will have moved over there. That war will not be about oil so much as about computer chips and machine tools.

Yeah, for starters, free trade is a myth. Fair trade is in the eye of the beholder. Making trade with France and Germany "fairer" would be good for everyone. Making trade with China "fairer" would do absolutely nothing at all.

They know their policies are a crock of baloney; they just haven't faced up to the implications of it yet. This is not speculation on my part. This is the result of the research I did for my two articles on China trade earlier this year.

You may want to see an article I just wrote about that. It's 5500 words -- make sure you have some spare time.

It's in the September issue of Machining. I suspect it will be up on the website within a couple of weeks, if not already.

Ed Huntress

To reply to Deep Diver who has munged things so badly that google posting can't find his posting, Bullshit in large quantities with a conservative syrup on it. The reason those factories are there is that the people that use them, importers and other middlemen, have only greed on their minds. Profits are good, unemployment is good, or that's what the GWeeB and his pack of morons are trying to tell us.

As far as OSHA, I suppose you'd rather see working people torn apart by open belts, machines without guards on moving parts, or fork trucks with bad brakes, it goes right along with your small mental ability. Doesn't interfere with someone's right to kill for profit. (May you be the next victim)

BTW, Hows come when business asswipes join together, you're all for it, but when working stiffs do the same thing, you call us socialist? Permanent malfunction of the brain? Or permanent lack of one?

I saw the April article. Was the June one yours too? I didn't see any atribution so I thought it was a staff editorial.

I don't know about that. I got an MSDS with a box of carbide inserts the other day. It didn't say anything about mangling your fingers or putting your eyes out. ;-)

Hmm. Last week I had to look up tri-methyl silane.

It was kind of nice to know that OSHA required my employer to keep all the MSDS sheets on site so I can find out what the researchers are using.

All the complaints about OSHA are getting a bit silly. Pretty soon they're gonna be down to a broom closet for a headquarters, and two guys working there.

Basically you have to machine-gun your workers before OSHA shows up to investigate.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Yes, I wrote that one too, but it was signed by "the editors" so we decided not to run it with a byline.

Ed Huntress

FWIW -- in a hospital emergency room (when my wife had a gallstone), I saw several sealed bottles labeled:

"Distilled Water" "Federal Law prohibits dispensing with a prescription"

And I believe that there *are* MSDS sheets for distilled water -- simply to comply with the requirements that every chemical used have one on file.

Enjoy, DoN.

No one is wearing safety glasses.

Well, yeah.

Rumor has it those have the funny bits in them, like "in case of accidental injestion, dilute with.... water." "in case of fire, put out fire with... water." "in case of accidental spill, dilute with... water."

The MSDS for chemi-sorb say that in case of accidental spill, sprinkle chemi-sorb on the spill.

That sort of thing.

I have the shipping hazard lable for water on my door at work. You know, the one with the three catagories, flammability, reactivity, toxicitiy.

zero, zero, zero....

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:13:26 GMT, "DeepDiver" wrote something ......and in reply I say!:

OSHA is probably bloated and self-serving, and filled with many get-a-life bureaucrats, whose only purpose is to make themselves feel tough. But it would not be necessary to have such entities as OSHA if most employers were not greedy users and abusers of fellow humans in order to maximise profits.

And nobody would jump up and down if OSHA did _not_ have that stupid MSDS, and something went wrong?

Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email !!

Like an engine or heavy machine..there is generally lots of room for improvement or tuning it up for better and more efficient performance.

Most governmental organizations are like a clunky overweight 13 cylinder engine, with piss poor fuel consumption and greatly overweight for the task at hand.

Gunner

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Here's some:

I always got a kick out of the MSDS for talcum powder. Our planned maintenance procedures required us to dust the inside of our rubber gloves (the big, black, electrical safety type) after each use and also at some fixed periodicity. They PM also required us to review all pertinent MSDS. The MSDS first aid procedures for skin contact were to wash with soap and water.

Every time I performed that particular PM I'd get a mental picture of some poor (literal-minded) slob entering into an infinite loop - putting the gloves on, yanking them off to wash his hands, putting the gloves on, . . ..

Note - talc _can_ be hazardous, particularly when inhaled (talcosis) or ingested.

R, Tom Q

But what does the MSDS for the soap say?

I work with this hypochondriac guy who wears a respirator most of the time. We are a trophy shop and use very small amounts of some oxidizing chemicals. Maybe about 4 ounces lasts 3 months. He will not use this product because he says he can feel it in his bloodstream. I asked him how it was possible for him to put gas in his car, drive to work on the freeway, and still be worried about a chemical with the toxicity of vinegar. The guy is clearly crazy with fear of everything and will only eat mostly rotten fruit and drinks distilled water and hydrogen peroxide. Oh yeah, he draws his blood everynite and looks at it under a microscope. He also installed tachyon particle focusing discs on the ceiling of his work area. I need an MSDS just to be around this guy.