Jury acquits driver who killed worker
A Macomb County jury found Stacey Ann Bettcher not guilty of killing a 26-year-old civil engineer on May 2 in the first test of the state's tough new law designed to protect road workers.

Bettcher, 31, was the first person tried under a state law adopted in October 2001 that makes killing a road worker punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Michigan was the first state in the nation to adopt such a stiff penalty for killing a road worker.

Published reports say the case hinged on the jury believing Bettcher, who claimed that the construction project on I-94 was poorly marked. Bettcher's lawyer said she swerved onto the shoulder - and into victims Tanya Loewen (killed) and William Hattan (severely injured) - in order to avoid a truck that had abruptly slowed ahead of her.

"If the jury didn't believe that was a work zone, I don't know how many more signs have to be put up, how many orange barrels we have to put out before it becomes one," said Gary Naeyaert, a spokesman for the Michigan Road Builders Association, to the Detroit News. "That jury declared open season on highway workers in Macomb County."

Lawmakers say there needs to be more than a single test case before changes are made in the law.

Unions urge final protection standard
Labor unions and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are urging U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to finalize an OSHA rule requiring employers to pay for workers' personal protective equipment.

The AFL-CIO and the Building and Construction Trades Department are among several unions that urged Chao to finalize the rule, which has stalled since it was first proposed under the Clinton Administration, the Construction Labor Report said.

The unions and the Hispanic caucus said the lack of a final rule affects the most vulnerable workers - especially immigrants and Spanish-speaking workers.

Under the rule proposed March 31, 1999, employers would have to pay for all "OSHA-required" personal protective equipment, with the exception of safety-toe shoes, prescription eyewear, and logging boots.

Georgine ousted at ULLICO
Robert Georgine, former president of the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department, has quit as chairman, president and chief executive of ULLICO rather than be forced out after a stock scandal at the union-controlled insurance company.

The Union Labor Life Insurance Co.'s new board of directors elected Laborers President Terrence O'Sullivan to succeed him.

Georgine and other board members were ousted in the wake of a stock insider trading scandal. Some on the ULLICO board used insider information to sell their personal shares in a failing stock owned by ULLICO - before the company failed.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, a leading critic of Georgine, said unions "must be just as willing to expose and remedy conflicts at ULLICO as we have been at other companies in corporate America."