worker fatality

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Workers in Travis County, Texas, are celebrating what advocates are calling a landmark victory, after local leaders voted to ensure that economic incentive deals benefit both big business and workers.

Seven worker safety rules remain stuck, stalled, “under review” in Obama White House

Seven new worker safety regulations–both proposed and final rules—are stuck in the Obama White House. One proposed rule has been “under review” for 645 days.

Explosion in January at Oklahoma oil rig hospitalized four workers, employer pays $6,700 OSHA penalty

Several workers were injured when a January explosion rocked El Dorado Drilling’s Logan Rig #7 in Logan County, Oklahoma. The company said “these things happen,” but accident investigators know otherwise.

The year in worker health & safety: action (and not) on the federal scene

In our new report “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” we devote one section to key activities by the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.

It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.

No shortage of ideas from OSHA staff to improve oversight of agency’s Voluntary Protection Program

An internal OSHA report on the agency’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) was submitted to agency leadership nine months ago, and released to the public this week. The group made 34 recommendations to improve the program, including several addressing fatalities occurring at VPP sites.

On memorializing miners

The newly unveiled granite memorial in Whitesville, WV is a visible reminder of the 29 miners who were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine, but the truest measure of our recognition of their sacrifice is what we do in their memory to protect the living.

Worker falls 70+ feet to his death at ConAgra mill, another at a Pepisco plant, manlifts involved in both cases

Three multi-national corporations. Three workers dead from manlift incidents. Preventing more deaths from manlifts requires comprehensive fatality investigations.

“We were in shock. We only wanted to bury our son.”

The Washington Post’s article “Meaningless millions” captures some of the heartbreak experienced when your loved one is killed on the job, but like most things, there’s more to the story.

House Republicans say ‘nay’ to new mine safety reforms, no questions left about which side they’re on

Not a single Republican member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee voted in support of a resolution calling for the Committee to “consider and report legislation to improve safety and whistleblower protections for miners, and increase accountability for dangerous mine operators.” The 29 families of the Upper Big Branch miners now know who is standing with them and who is against them.