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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Janice Shell who wrote (13408)	4/11/1998 8:38:00 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

There's an answer. Not a good one. Rights to privacy just as any of the rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not absolute. Even the rights which are clearly enumerated in those documents have their limits. For instance, the old saw is that despite the right to free speech no one may yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. Sometimes individual rights yield in compelling circumstances, such as investigating whether the highest official in the land who is charged to uphold and defend the Constitution has instead made a mockery of that document and that office. "Rights" are not absolute. They were never intended to be so by the gentlemen who wrote the document you so vigorously defend (when it is not interpreted as you would prefer). JLA

To: Janice Shell who wrote (13408)	4/12/1998 12:43:00 AM
From: Michael Sphar	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

I've been avoiding this thread as it seems to have gone down the toilet some time back and continues to drag on and on... However this timely bit of news flashed before my consciousness today and it made me think of you, I know not why. I just know its grand to live in a country that seeks to attend to such seminal issues in our time: THE FOLLOWING REBROADCAST IS INTENDED FOR THE PRIVATE USE OF THE VIEWING AUDIENCE... US Workplace Toilet Policy: Let Workers Go Fri, 10 Apr 1998 6:01:01 PDT Story from Reuters / Peter Szekely Copyright 1998 by Reuters (via ClariNet) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To clear the air on a pressing workplace issue, the government this week restated its policy on employer-provided toilets and concluded: ''Timely access is the goal of the standard.'' Responding to requests for a clarification of its sanitation standard, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said employers must not only provide toilet facilities, but must make them available to their workers. ''Toilets that employees are not allowed to use for extended periods cannot be said to be 'available' to those employees,'' wrote John Miles, director of OSHA's Directorate of Compliance Programs, in an April 6 memo to the agency's regional offices. ''Restrictions on access must be reasonable, and may not cause extended delays,'' the memo said. Peg Seminario, director of safety and health at AFL-CIO, said there have been numerous complaints, particularly in the poultry and meat processing industries, of employers denying workers adequate access to toilets. ''It's certainly not a policy, or requirement, that's being observed by many employers,'' said Seminario. In determining whether or not employers should be cited for restricting access to toilets, the memo instructs inspectors to evaluate complaints on a case-by-case basis. ''Careful consideration must be given to the nature of the restriction, including the length of time that employees are required to delay bathroom use, and the employer's explanation for the restriction,'' the memo said. Management attorney Baruch Fellner of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher in Washington said that in issuing its toilet policy, the government agency may have exceeded its authority. ''I'm not going to defend any employer, or any employer policy, that doesn't give employees adequate time to go to the bathroom,'' said Fellner. ''The question is whether this is an appropriate issue for OSHA.'' Since there is no national policy on toilet time as there is, for example on a minimum wage, Fellner said the agency should stick to regulating the numbers of toilets that employers must provide and leave the issue of access to them to collective bargaining between employers and their workers.