OSHA

In a news release issued today by OSHA, the agency announced an award of $5.4 million for a former Wells Fargo manager who was terminated after alerting superiors to potential fraud. The individual was dismissed from his job in 2010. He filed his complaint with OSHA in 2011 --- justice is not often swift. The case was handled out of OSHA's regional office in San Francisco. I spoke to the top official in that office, Barbara Goto, who confirmed the award is the "single largest individual award" in OSHA history for a whistleblower case. The anti-retaliation protections for this individual are…
My favorite line from today’s Senate hearing on the nomination of Alex Acosta to be Labor Secretary came from Senator Elizabeth Warren: “The test for Secretary of Labor is not: are you better than Andrew Puzder.” Puzder was Trump’s first pick for the job. He had a long list of problems that made him unfit for the position. So instead of Puzder, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is considering the nomination of Alex Acosta. The 48-year old is currently dean of the College of Law at Florida International University. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern…
At the Sacramento Bee, Ryan Lillis and Jose Luis Villegas report on the effects that Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on California farms, writing that fear of deportation is spreading throughout the state’s farming communities. While many farmworkers believe immigration raids are inevitable, farm operators, many who voted for Trump, hope the president will bring more water to the region and keep immigration officials off their fields. Lillis and Villegas write: Fear is everywhere. The night before, the local school board became one of the first in California to declare its campuses a…
Labor Secretary nominee Alex Acosta is schedule to appear next week before a Senate Committee for his confirmation hearing. Senators should formulate their questions for him by reviewing a just released platform on worker safety. Protecting Workers' Lives & Limbs: An Agenda for Action makes dozens of recommendations to improve occupational health and safety policies and practices, including many for the future Labor Secretary. They include: Commit to protecting workers’ health and safety on the job with strong and fair enforcement, promulgation of common sense standards, and outreach and…
Kentucky’s Labor Secretary Derrick Ramsey announced this week that his department would be issuing a “Monthly Workplace Safety Report.” The report will provide a recap of the previous month’s safety consultation services, which are offered to employers at no charge by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety & Health Education & Training. The Labor Secretary says he wants to change the public's perceptions about the Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s work. “For years, employers across Kentucky viewed the issuance of penalties and citations as the cornerstone of the…
At the Atlantic Monthly, Alana Semuels interviews David Weil, who served as administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division under President Obama, on his time at DOL and the future of labor under Trump. On Obama’s effect, Weil told Semuels: Semuels: What specifically changed in the Department of Labor under Obama? Weil: One of the things Obama did from the beginning was to fight hard to get resources for his enforcement agencies. He came in and the number of investigators in the Wage and Hour Division was barely 700 nationally—and it is responsible for 7.3 million workplaces…
Cirilo Banuelos Reyes, 50, fell to his death on February 14 at a demolition site in Lanett, Alabama. Roy Granger, his employer and owner of Regeneration LLC told WRBL: “It was a very sad, sad situation and accident.  ….This was just a freak accident that happened here.“ Reyes was working on the fourth floor of the abandoned, 100-year old West Point Stevens Mill. Lanett police report that Reyes was removing wood floor boards when a section of flooring gave way. The worker fell four stories and later succumb to his severe injuries. Granger described Reyes as a “great worker.  …he had worked for…
At Reveal, Jennifer Gollan reports on how the Navy and other federal agencies give lucrative contracts to shipbuilders with troublesome worker safety records. In fact, Gollan reports that since 2008, the Navy and Coast Guard’s seven major shipbuilders have received more than $100 billion in public funds despite serious — and sometimes fatal — safety gaps. She noted that in his first days in office, President Trump announced plans for a massive Navy fleet expansion, which could mean even more workers will be at risk. Gollan writes: With extra business comes more risks for workers. But there is…
Seven years ago this week, six workers were killed in a massive explosion at the site construction site for the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown, CT.  Congressman Joe Courtney (D-CT), along with Democratic colleagues from the House Education and the Workforce Committee, marked the occasion by introducing the Protecting America’s Workers Act. Courtney's friend, Ron Crabb, was one victim of the blast, whom he remembered during his announcement about the bill.  “As the 2010 incident in Middletown and the catastrophic explosion in 2013 at the West Fertilizer plant in Texas demonstrate, the…
By Garrett Brown, MPH, CIH and Deeg Gold, MPH CIH In late January, Donald Trump’s press secretary described his immigration and refugee Executive Order as “ripping off the Band-Aid” to get at immigrants.  The next week, Trump issued another Executive Order on regulations and is preparing other measures to “rip off the Band-Aid” to get at worker health and safety.  Our strategic response has to be more than simply defending the status quo ante; we have to rebuild the social movement that was powerful enough 50 years ago to force another right-wing Republican president, Richard Nixon, to…
At the American Prospect, Justin Miller interviews Obama-era Labor Department officials on the future of worker protections under President Trump. Miller takes a behind-the-scenes peek at what it took to pass some of the Obama administration’s key labor rules, discusses the nomination of Andy Puzder to become the nation’s next labor secretary, and addresses rumors that the new administration might be gunning to abolish some Labor Department divisions entirely. Miller writes: Not surprisingly, Obama’s top labor alums express pride in the many worker protections they were able to put in place…
Not violating federal labor law seems like a commonsense precursor for being awarded lucrative federal contracts. House Republicans, however, disagree. Last week, majority members in the House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution to get rid of federal disclosure requirements included in President Barack Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which he originally signed in 2014. Those disclosure requirements directed businesses bidding for federal contracts of $500,000 or more to report any violations of 14 labor laws within the prior three years. Among those 14…
I can thank the Trump Administration for one thing. I now have a new phrase to describe how the poultry industry distorts information about working conditions for its employees: alternative facts. Last fall, the National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association made a wild pronouncement about their industry’s work-related injury rate. They asserted their injury rates are at an all-time low and have declined by 81% since 1994. The trade associations' news release said: “Perhaps more than any other industry, the poultry industry has focused its energies…
Chronic beryllium disease is a horrible illness, as is lung cancer. Both diseases are the rationale for a new health standard issued by OSHA on January 9. The rule is designed to protect the health of an estimated 60,000 workers in the U.S. who are exposed to the light-weight, super-strong metal: beryllium. This includes about 10,000 workers involved in electric-power generation; 9,000 workers in dental laboratories and dental offices; 8,400 in specialty construction trades; 5,600 in motor vehicle parts manufacturing; and 3,000 in the maritime industry who are welders and abrasive blasters.…
At the Toronto Star, Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on the “lethal legacy” of a General Electric plant in the Canadian city of Peterborough, Ontario, where hundreds of compensation claims have been filed for illnesses that workers say were caused by occupational chemical exposures. In fact, one occupational health expert described the plant as a “cancer generator.” Mojtehedzadeh reports that a study commissioned by General Electric and that the Star obtained found that male workers at the plant were up to 57 percent more likely to die of lung cancer than the general population, while female…
The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on May 23, is one of our favorite posts from 2016. by Kim Krisberg Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His tragic and entirely preventable death marked a turning point in advocacy efforts to pass a rest break ordinance for local construction workers. About five months after Granillo’s death, the Dallas City Council voted 10-5 to approve such an ordinance, which requires that construction workers be given a…
At the Center for Public Integrity, Jim Morris reports on working conditions at the nation’s oil refineries, writing that more than 500 refinery incidents have been reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 1994, calling into question the adequacy of EPA and federal labor rules designed to protect workers as well as the public. Morris begins the story with John Moore, who in 2010 was working at a Tesoro Corporation oil refinery north of Seattle — he writes: Up the hill from Moore, in the Naphtha Hydrotreater unit, seven workers were restoring to service a bank of heat…
Bud Wesley, 65, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, November 30, while working at Spectrum Industries in Belding, Michigan. The Daily News reports: The incident occurred at about 5 a.m. The city’s police chief said that Mr. Wesley “was a part of the night maintenance crew at the facility. They were doing some high-level work and he fell from his working position.” The company’s president said that Mr. Wesley was employed by the firm since 1998. Spectrum Industries is a privately-held firm with 400 employees. Its business involves “the application of functional and decorative…
More than 2 million U.S. adults may be living with workplace-related asthma, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published this week in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the study is based on data from the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) industry and occupational module, which gathered information from 21 states for adults ages 18 and older who were employed or had been out of work for one year or less. Among the survey respondents, 7.7 percent had asthma, with researchers estimating that upward of 2.7 million adults…
At In These Times, Elizabeth Grossman writes about whether workplace safety will survive a Trump presidency, noting that “Trump’s transition team has said he will introduce a moratorium on new regulations and cancel executive orders and regulations ‘that kill jobs and bloat government.’” In interviewing labor, health and safety advocates, Grossman writes that a number of federal protections could land on the chopping block, including the new overtime rule, proposed beryllium rule and fall protections. Grossman writes: How does Trump’s promise to reduce and eliminate regulations square with…