Men at work endure the cold

I spent the entire day Monday doing something I really didn't want to do — standing in a freezing wind while helping build a wheelchair ramp. I was one of a five-man work crew of volunteers, and all of us complained about the cold, even as we sawed, aligned and screwed together the boards that would make up the ramp. There was also the digging in the rocky soil of trenches into which the 2x6 supports for the ramp/boardwalk would fit.

The temperature was in the 20s when we began, and it didn't rise a lot throughout the day. The biting wind seared our faces like a fire and made every bump or misstep painful.

Still, we labored on to try to complete the job because the ramp was needed. It would provide mobility to a man whose infirmities confined him. Had the task been a backyard project at home, I would have postponed it until a warmer day. But when four other people are struggling and enduring with you, you're willing to endure more.

At the end of the day, I was grateful for any amount of warmth as I sought relief for sore muscles unaccustomed to chopping rocks out of the ground or twisting 2-inch screws into treated wood. The effort expended during that long day exceeded any aerobic exercise or weight training I have pushed my aging body through these past few years, and it strained muscles not used in bench presses or abdominal crunches or running. The invigorating feeling at the end of a good workout was missing as I drove home last night, replaced with the lingering shivers and a cloak of overall fatigue.

Even after all that, the job is not complete. I'll be back again today, hoping for less wind and more warmth. And at the end, the satisfaction of a job completed.

Legislators waste no time playing politics

State legislators have been in Raleigh only one day and already they're playing politics while real problems fester.

On the first day of the legislative session, Sen. Doug Berger, a Youngsville Democrat, introduced a bill to take enforcement of occupational safety and health laws from the commissioner of labor and hand it over to the Employment Security Commission. It will come as no surprise that the labor commissioner is Cherie Berry, one of two Republicans on the Council of State. Berger, who has support from several key Democratic legislators, says the commissioner is not doing a good job of enforcing the laws. The state is responsible for enforcing federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules. A Charlotte Observer investigation had found that North Carolina's fines for workplace violations are much lower than other states'. But this bill is more about partisan politics than it is about worker safety. Make a note that Berger had run against and been defeated by Berry.

The commissioner of labor is a constitutional officer. The General Assembly can't eliminate the position without a constitutional amendment, but it can emasculate the powers of the office. Legislators are good at that. When a Republican was elected lieutenant governor in the 1980s, legislators stripped the lieutenant governor of nearly all powers except the one specified in the constitution, to preside over the state Senate. Another Council of State member, the superintendent of public instruction, has been reduced to a figurehead, but a figurehead elected statewide.

Shifting OSHA responsibility to ESC sounds like a disaster in the making, especially at this time, when ESC is so overworked by the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are unemployed and applying for jobless benefits. ESC needs to concentrate its resources on providing services to the unemployed and helping them find jobs. That's a huge responsibility these days.

While legislative leaders toy with Council of State members' authority, the state faces a $2 billion or larger deficit. You'd think legislators would be hard at work trying to find places to cut spending. That should be top priority. In the long term, legislators might want to seriously consider changes to the way the government is organized. The state could save money by reducing the number of departments and divisions, by electing fewer executives (most states appoint heads of agriculture, state, labor, education, insurance, etc.) and by merging redundant programs (such as Smart Start and More at Four). Some of these changes would require a constitutional amendment, but the public, shown the cost savings available and the potential for greater efficiency, would go for it.