Season 3, Episode 7: Essential, Not Expendable--Protecting Workers from COVID-19

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Member Scholars Michael Duff and Thomas McGarity about worker safety in the era of the coronavirus – the gaps in law, regulation, and enforcement that leave workers exposed to the virus while permitting employers to escape accountability for putting workers and the public in danger. The conversation touches on the difficulty of creating foolproof physical transmission barriers, the Trump administration's scuttling of an Obama-initiated rule to prevent transmission of dangerous pathogens in the workplace, and efforts to deny essential employees or their surviving family members the right to recover damages for infection. 

 

Duff is a Professor of Law at the University of Wyoming College of Law in Laramie. McGarity holds the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Administrative Law at the University of Texas in Austin. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform and a past president of the organization.