Occupational Health & Safety
kkrisberg | April 21, 2015Last November, a roof section larger than a football field collapsed at the Woodgrain Millwork in Prineville, Oregon. Luckily, no one was harmed. However, mill workers, who spoke of a variety of workplace hazards, say they had alerted management to the leaky roof long before the collapse, reported Amanda Peacher for Oregon Public Broadcasting.
In 2004, Woodgrain, a global company with manufacturing facilities across the U.S., bought the 14-acre Prineville mill. Noting that each of the 23 former mill workers interviewed for the story described a “roof riddled with leaks,” Peacher writes:
Peggy…
cmonforton | April 17, 2015The AFL-CIO outlined in an April 13 letter the “serious flaws and deficiencies” in a bill introduced by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM) to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The country’s largest labor federation noted its deep involvement in the passage of TSCA in 1976, but its disappointment that the 40 year old law has “failed to provide meaningful and effective regulation” of toxic substances. (Even efforts to ban asbestos failed under the law.)
The labor federation has an important voice and perspective when it comes to chemical hazards. Workers are the…
cmonforton | April 16, 2015Ronald Lee MacKnight, 39, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, April 13, 2015 while working for Awnings and More Inc. in Farr West, Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
the incident happened "when a modular home [MacKnight] was helping to move fell on top of him”
the incident occurred "at the Westwood Village mobile home retirement community at 12:25 pm local time"
ABC4News reports:
MacKnight and a co-worker “had the home up on jacks” and they were underneath it.
"Either the jack failed or it came off of the jacks and it ended up coming down on top of him,” according to Lieutenant…
cmonforton | April 15, 2015(Updated below (5/1/2015))
There’s a lot of griping in Washington DC about businesses being burdened by too many federal regulations. The gripers and their friends on Capitol Hill have introduced legislation with snappy names, such as the SCRUB Act (Searching for and Cutting Regulations that are Unnecessarily Burdensome), the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) and the ALERT Act (All Economic Regulations are Transparent). But there's no doubt these laws are designed to put the skids on the rulemaking process. For some agencies, including OSHA, they’ve already been…
cmonforton | April 8, 2015Imagine a workplace in your town where one of every three employees had the same work-related illness. Better yet, imagine that it was one in three employees in your own workplace. That'd be pretty shocking, right?
Well, that's what the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found among 191 workers at Amick Farms’ poultry processing plant in Hurlock, MD. Thirty-four percent had carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Equally striking, a whopping 76 percent of the workers in the study had evidence of nerve damage in their hands and wrists. The findings of this NIOSH “Health…
kkrisberg | April 7, 2015Americans increasingly want to know that their steaks were humanely raised or their produce was organically grown, but what about the people who picked that produce or cared for those cows? Where’s the concern for the workers behind our food? Reporter Stephen Lurie explored that question in an article published last week in Vox. He writes:
Organic and environmentally sustainable certifications lead consumers to supposedly wholesome products, but they hold no guarantees about the wholesomeness of the companies that produce those goods. Sitting down to a farm-to-table meal at a chic restaurant…
cmonforton | April 6, 2015Jeffrey Shannon, 49 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, March 30, 2015 while working at Sunoco’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex in Delaware County, PA. 6ABC reports:
”It happened around 2:15 p.m. at Blue Ball Avenue and Post Road on the grounds of the refinery.”
NPR’s State Impact Pennsylvania reports:
"The worker died from multiple blunt force injuries after a 1200 foot pylon fell on him."
Mr. Shannon was a contractor at the site and he worked for the engineering firm AECOM.
The facility is being converted from an oil refinery to a natural gas storage and processing plant. "In…
cmonforton | April 2, 2015April 5, 2015 will mark the fifth anniversary of the coal dust explosion that killed 29 miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). It was the worst disaster in 40 years in the US coal industry.
Since then, some things have changed in coal mine safety. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in particular, has focused much of its attention on ways to address failures identified by the UBB disaster. Browse through the agency’s press releases dating back to May 2010 and you’ll see quite a few with some connection to UBB.
You’ll notice, for example, recaps of the agency’s “…
cmonforton | April 1, 2015Marathon Petroleum (MPC) has some glitzy publications explaining its philosophy of “corporate citizenship.” The documents describe the company's "deep involvement in the communities where we are privileged to do business." They cover topics such as "Our People," "Health & Safety," and "Governance and Integrity." But one recent act of disrespect may say more about MPC’s philosophy than their words on glossy paper.
It happened last week on the 10 year anniversary of a catastrophe at its Galveston Bay refinery which killed 15 workers and injured at least 170 people. The refinery was owned at…
kkrisberg | March 31, 2015For years, advocates have been calling on policymakers to reform the nation’s outdated chemical safety laws. Today, two such bills stand before Congress — one that advocates say better protects the public’s health and another that advocates warn is a dangerous step backward.
Introduced in the Senate earlier this month within just days of each other, each bill takes aim at the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which was enacted in 1976 and hasn’t been updated since. Under TSCA, which doesn’t require chemicals undergo health impact testing before being released into the marketplace,…
kkrisberg | March 25, 2015In a joint investigation from the Texas Tribune and Houston Chronicle, reporters looked into workplace safety at oil refineries 10 years after an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, left 15 workers dead and injured another 180. Unfortunately, reporters found that “though no single incident has matched the 2005 devastation, a two-month investigation finds the industry’s overall death toll barely slowed.”
In the four-part series, reporters chronicle what went wrong at the Texas City refinery, explore the aftermath and talk with survivors, and analyze data showing where and how…
cmonforton | March 24, 2015James “Rusty Shake-Down” Harrison, 35, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 while working at a drilling operation in southeastern, New Mexico. KCBD reports:
The incident happened around 3:30 p.m.
According to the Lea County Sheriff's Office “workers were loading oil field related materials into perforated pipe, which was being installed into the drilling pipe when an explosion occurred.”
“The oil field site belonged to Mesquite SWD.”
Mr. Harrison, and another worker who was seriously injured in the incident, were employed by Warrior Wireline.
Sarah Matott of the…
cmonforton | March 20, 2015Jose Alfredo Isagirrez-Mejia work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Federal OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Structural Prestressed Industries.
The 29-year-old was working in July 2014 at one of the company’s construction sites in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The initial press reports indicated that workers were lowering a steel beam into place when it “came crashing down.” I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
Inspectors with federal OSHA conducted an inspection at the construction site following the…
cmonforton | March 19, 2015Employees of the fast-food giant McDonald’s recently filed 28 complaints with federal OSHA about health and safety problems at their workplaces. The complaints involved McDonald’s locations in 19 cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Kansas City. The complaints were announced on Monday in a press event organized by the Fight for $15 and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.
I wondered, how often does OSHA get safety complaints for or on behalf of fast food workers? Looking at data for 2014, here’s some of what I found:
Federal OSHA and the States that run their…
kkrisberg | March 18, 2015Workplace suicides took a sharp upward turn in 2008, with workers in the protective services, such as police officers and firefighters, at greatest risk, a new study finds. Researchers say the findings point to the workplace as a prime location for reaching those at risk with potentially life-saving information and help.
According to the study, which was published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 1,719 people died by suicide in U.S. workplaces between 2003 and 2010, with an overall rate of 1.5 per 1 million workers. Workplace suicide rates had been on the decrease,…
cmonforton | March 12, 2015Cronyism, retaliation, and abuse of power are just a few of the many unsavory terms and themes on full display at last week’s congressional hearing about the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB). It was the second time in less than 10 months that CSB chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso, PhD and board members have been called before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Committee).
For me, and others in the worker health and safety community, it was disappointing and discouraging to watch the four-hour spectacle. Congress pays too little attention to the causes and toll of work-related…
cmonforton | March 11, 2015Alejandro Anguiana, 41, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, March 6, 2015 while working at Markman Peat Corp. in Kingsbury, Indiana. ABC57 reports:
Mr. Anguiana was a payload/forklift operator. A co-worker found Mr. Anguiana trapped in a running piece of machinery. EMS was called to the scene at 6:20 am.
WISHTV says the machinery was a “peat-loading conveyor belt.”
WSBT.com reports:
“Sheriff John Boyd said the man was pulled in when his sweatshirt got wrapped around the power takeoff shaft that turns to operate the machine. “
“Several employees were involved in turning off the…
kkrisberg | March 10, 2015The same day that NPR and ProPublica published their investigation into the dismantling of the workers’ compensation system, OSHA released its own report, “Adding Inequality to Injury: The Cost of Failing to Protect Workers on the Job.” The agency writes that the failure of employers to prevent millions of work-related injuries and illnesses each year coupled with changes to workers’ compensation systems is exacerbating income inequality and pushing many workers into poverty. The report states:
For many injured workers and their families, a workplace injury creates a trap which leaves them…
kkrisberg | March 6, 2015In Boston, you’re never too far away from a Dunkin’ Donuts. In fact, the Massachusetts-based company inspires a fiery sense of loyalty in many Bostonians. It’s kind of hard to give up the city's ubiquitous fast food staple, but Paul Drake is committed.
“As somebody who’s pretty poor at fasting, it’s been hard,” said Drake, executive director and lead organizer at Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice. “Here in Boston, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner…it’s easy to see the convenience that is fast food. But it’s actually been a really good teaching moment for me — I do this work every…
kkrisberg | March 3, 2015The public health literature is pretty clear when it comes to income status and poverty and their profound effects on health, disability, disease and life expectancy. But what about income inequality? Does a rising gap in wealth and resource distribution affect people’s health too?
In a commentary published last week in the American Journal of Public Health, two researchers posit that growing income inequality is a contributing factor to poorer health among American workers. In “Squeezing Blood from a Stone: How Income Inequality Affects the Health of the American Workforce,” authors Jessica…