Workplace Safety
egrossman | October 31, 2013According to a new report from the Center for Effective Government, American workplace health and safety is suffering from – and as a result of – a serious lack of resources. While the number of US workplaces doubled between 1981 and 2011 and the number of US workers increased from 73 million to 129 million during this time, during the same 30 years, the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors has declined. Instead of one inspector for every 1,900 workplaces, there is now only one inspector for every 4,300 workplaces (or, measured in other terms, one…
lborkowski | October 21, 2013This month's issue of EHS Today includes a special section on Bangladesh factory safety, a topic that has continued to attract news coverage following the April collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed more than 1100 workers. Sandy Smith's introductory article summarizes some of the international efforts aimed at improving working condition in Bangladesh, including support of the Bangladeshi National Action Plan for Fire and Building Safety and two different retailer initiatives.
Scott Nova critiques existing factory inspection programs for "their abject failure to provide basic…
cmonforton | October 17, 2013Roger R. King, 62, in West Virginia. Robert Smith, 47, in Illinois. Mark Christopher Stassinos, 44, in Wyoming. Larry Schwartz, 59, in Indiana.
Four coal miners, working in four different States, employed by four different mining companies, all fatally injured on the job during the first eleven days of the government shutdown. King was employed at CONSOL's McElroy mine, Smith at Alliance Resources' Pattiki mine, Stassinos at PacifiCorp's Bridger mine, and Schwartz at Five Star Mining's Prosperity Mine.
I didn’t learn of these deaths from anything posted on the Mine Safety and Health…
cmonforton | October 7, 2013Steven O’Dell, 27, went to work on November 30, 2012 for his “hoot owl” shift at Alpha Natural Resources’ Pocahontas Coal Mine. He never came home. O’Dell was fatally crushed between two pieces of mobile mining equipment. Three weeks after his death, his wife Caitlin gave birth to their son Andrew.
The young widow wants to make sure that another miner’s family doesn’t have to suffer the pain and grief that she’s endured. As reported by The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward, Jr. Caitlin O’Dell spoke last week before the West Virginia Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety, urging them to…
kkrisberg | October 4, 2013While OSHA has never been the most robustly funded federal agency, its efforts and regulatory authority have helped prevent countless deaths, injuries and illnesses on the job. However, recent budget cuts and future budget cut proposals threaten those gains, and it's no stretch to say that worker health and safety hang in the balance.
In a report released in late August by the Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch), author Nick Schwellenbach chronicled what austerity means for OSHA and the workers it protects. To first put the issue and impacts of slashed budgets in broader…
cmonforton | October 2, 2013It's Day #2 of the Tea Party's shutdown of the federal government. Shuttered entrances to national parks and museums are immediate and visible signs of this idiocy. The shutdown's effect on key federal public health programs are probably less obvious, but could have substantially more adverse impact on the U.S. population. Superbug's Maryn McKenna wrote yesterday on just a few ways that interruptions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and USDA, could affect your's (and the world's) health. With just a few examples, McKenna captures the…
egrossman | September 30, 2013The long-time residents of Iron County, Wisconsin who make up the Iron County Joint Impacts Mining Committee say the open-pit iron mine planned for the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin – a range that extends into Michigan where it’s known as the Gogebic Range – will bring much needed good jobs and economic development. Such jobs, the committee told a group of visiting journalists in August, have been lacking since the last Wisconsin iron mines in the area closed in the early and mid-1960s. The jobs the mine would bring are the type needed to keep local communities’ young people from moving…
cmonforton | September 16, 2013A fourth official formerly associated with Massey Energy was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for conspiring to thwart federal mine safety laws. David C. Hughart, 54, appeared this week before U.S. District Judge Irene Baker for his sentencing hearing. Hughart plead guilty in February 2013, following charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
U.S. attorney Booth Goodwin’s staff have been investigating former Massey Energy personnel (the firm was purchased by Alpha Natural Resources in 2011) as part of DOJ's criminal investigation related to the April 2010 Upper Big Branch (…
lborkowski | September 13, 2013Days before the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the New York Times published an article about respirators. This protective equipment was intended to protect response and recovery workers at Ground Zero, but often failed to do so because of discomfort, inadequate training, or unsuitable equipment. Thousands were exposed to airborne contaminants, and many have become sick.
In the years since, federal agencies and equipment manufacturers have been working on developing new certification standards for respirator masks and assuring they can be used by workers responding to…
cmonforton | September 10, 2013Occupational health hazards are often hidden, and may not even be appropriately disclosed to workers who are exposed. They are usually shielded from public view, meaning they don't get the attention needed to ensure protections are put in place to address them. But every once in a while, hazards to workers' health are right in front of you.
Yesterday morning, I was driving on FM 1626 in Kyle, TX and passed this scene: Two construction workers standing in a nasty cloud of dust. The men were working at the new campus of Austin Community College in Hays County, TX and were cutting stone…
lborkowski | September 6, 2013As Celeste and I were putting together The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2012 – Summer 2013 (released on Labor Day), we noticed that many of the year’s developments in occupational health and safety occurred in various parts of the food chain. From fields and silos to poultry plants to fast-food restaurants, workers are speaking up about unsafe and unjust conditions, and demanding improvements. Here are some of the highlights:
Agricultural hazards in the news: Investigative reporters have done a terrific job delving into the unsafe conditions agricultural workers face.…
cmonforton | September 5, 2013This week, Liz and I have been highlighting parts of our second annual review of U.S. occupational health and safety. The first two sections of the report summarize key studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and an assessment of activities at the federal level. In section three of the report we present high points---and a few low points---from state and local governments on workers’ rights and safety protections. These include:
New laws in Portland, Oregon and New York City requiring many employers to offer paid sick leave to their employees. With 22 percent of the U.S. workforce in…
cmonforton | September 3, 2013As Liz Borkowski noted yesterday, we are following up on a tradition that we started last year to mark Labor Day. We released our second annual review of U.S. occupational health and safety for Labor Day 2013.
Liz explained in her post our objectives in preparing the report. She also highlighted its first section which profiles some of the best research from the year published in both peer-reviewed journals and by non-profit organizations. Here’s a peek at section two of the report on activities at the federal level:
Sequestration and other budget cuts have affected our worker protection…
lborkowski | September 2, 2013Last year, Celeste Monforton and I started a new Labor Day tradition: publication of a report that highlights some of the important research and activities in occupational health in the US over the past year. The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2012 – Summer 2013, the second edition in the annual series, is now available online. We want it to be a resource for activists, regulators, researchers, and anyone else who values safe and healthy workplaces. Much as the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job report focuses attention on workplace injury and illness statistics each April…
kkrisberg | August 30, 2013For older workers, the most dangerous occupational move may be getting behind the wheel.
Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that among highway transportation incidents, which are the leading cause of occupational death in the country, the highest fatality rates occur among workers ages 65 years old and older. In fact, workers in that age group experienced a fatality rate three times higher than workers ages 18 to 54. The unfortunate trend was seen across industries and occupations and among most demographic groups, according to data published in…
cmonforton | August 28, 2013President Obama's regulatory czar, Howard Shelanski, has been on the job for a month. During his confirmation hearing Shelanski expressed his commitment to transparency. He suggested it was one of his key priorities within the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) which is housed within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As noted, however, by CPR scholar Sidney Shapiro and his colleague James Goodwin, OIRA has a long history of secrecy with respect to its role in the centralized review of agencies' regulatory activities. Many in the open-government…
cmonforton | August 23, 2013After more than 900 days of "review" by the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), OSHA announced it was publishing a proposed rule to protect workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. It's a workplace hazard that causes the irreversible and progressive lung disease silicosis, and is also associated with lung cancer, autoimmune disorders and kidney disease. About 2.2 million workers are exposed to the fine dust in their jobs, many of which are employed in the construction industry. I've been writing here for about two years on the need for a…
kkrisberg | August 16, 2013In their efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers from illegal workplace practices and conditions, worker centers have now attracted the million-dollar ire of formidable anti-union forces. And while advocates say it's a sign of worker centers' success, it's still a worrisome trend that's made it all the way to the halls of Congress.
In late July, a full-page ad ran in the Wall Street Journal accusing worker centers of being fronts for labor unions. The ad was paid for by a group calling itself the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit with a $3 million-plus budget run by industry lobbyist…
cmonforton | August 9, 2013Federal OSHA announced this week a settlement agreement with Wal-Mart for serious safety violations found at its store on Chili Avenue in Rochester, NY. Lots of companies sign settlement agreements with OSHA, but few of them involve making safety corrections at multiple worksites controlled by the same firm. This settlement agreement will apply to 2,857 of Wal-Mart's 4,600 retail establishments in the U.S. The 2,857 stores are all of the stores located in States where federal OSHA has enforcement jurisdiction.
How will OSHA monitor Wal-Mart's compliance with the settlement agreement? In…
cmonforton | August 6, 2013Here we go again. Worker killed on-the-job. The employer decides---after the fact----it would be smart to install a piece of safety equipment that likely would have prevented the death. That's what happened after coal miner John Houston "Hollywood" Myles, 44, was killed on-the-job.
Myles worked at the Metinvest's Affinity Mine in Raleigh County, WV. The veteran of Operation Desert Storm (1991) had worked as a coal miner for a total of four years, one of which at the Affinity mine. On February 19, 2013, Myles was shoveling loose coal and material from the mine floor. In an adjacent entry…