Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
of Lecturer, Texas State University & Professorial Lecturer Milken Institute School of Public Health.
cmonforton
Posts by this author
November 22, 2010
Turkey Day is on the way. Workers employed in U.S. turkey processing plants are asking for your help to secure safer working conditions. These workers handle about 30 turkeys per minute---30 turkeys per minute---on the production line. The faster the production line moves, the faster the workers…
November 16, 2010
On January 29, OSHA proposed a simple revision to a paper form---called the OSHA 300 log---on which some U.S. employers are required to record work-related injuries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects a sample of these forms annually to estimate national rates of work-related injuries…
November 12, 2010
Steven Lillicrap, 21, started his shift at about 7:30 am on a cold Feb 3, 2009 at a construction site near St. Louis, Missouri. He was an apprentice Operating Engineer and this was his first big assignment. He would be working with more experienced men to dismantle a 100-ton crawler crane. The…
November 3, 2010
For the first time in the agency's history, the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) went to federal court to ask that a dangerous coal mine be shut down until it fixes its safety problems once and for all. In its official complaint to the U.S.district court for the…
November 3, 2010
It's that time of year, when the Secretary of Labor is supposed to outline her rulemaking priorities for next 12 months. This would include new proposal to protect mine workers, like the 64 killed already this year, and the tens of thousands made ill by inadequate OSHA standards on exposure to…
October 29, 2010
I recently logged 1,300 miles in a rented white PT Cruiser traveling on I-94 from Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison, WI, down I-65 and I-74 to Cincinnati and up I-75 to Detroit. Along the way I saw dozens of road construction projects to expand traffic lanes, repair overpasses, and repave the road…
October 26, 2010
Melissa Lee's life changed forever on May 20, 2006 when her husband Jimmy, 33 was killed, along with four other workers, in an explosion at the Kentucky Darby coal mine. Afterwards, she not only had four sons to raise without a dad, but as soon as Melissa started speaking up to demand mine safety…
October 21, 2010
Updated (below) 10/22/2010
Industry trade association are masters of using scare tactics and misinformation about environment, health and safety regulations to recruit and retain members. The latest evidence is the Chamber of Commerce's "This Way to Jobs" propaganda campaign, with the worn out…
October 19, 2010
Estevan R. Benavidez's family says he was a happy-to-lucky, 20 year old. He graduated from Miami (AZ) High School in 2008, was a talented tattoo artist, liked to fish, eat junk food, and spend time with his young daughter. On January 9, 2010 he was working for Ames Construction as a laborer at…
October 14, 2010
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and MSHA asst. secretary Joe Main are proposing new rules to protect U.S. coal mine workers from developing illnesses related to exposure to respirable coal mine dust. The most commonly known adverse health effect is black lung disease, but exposure is also associated…
October 11, 2010
The population of Ann Arbor Michigan swelled this past weekend with football fans. It was the annual Michigan vs. Michigan State football game and I was in town to witness some of the fanfare. The sidewalks, parking lots, porches, lawns and frat house balconies were jam-packed with people.…
October 4, 2010
Ever since the Reagan Administration, the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has been reviewing rules proposed by federal agencies. These regulations might come from the Dept of Energy (DOE) on efficiency…
October 1, 2010
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is preparing to propose new regulations to protect coal mine workers from the respirable dust hazards that cause black lung disease. In May, the Labor Department's regulatory agenda indicated that MSHA would propose a rule in September.…
September 30, 2010
Federal OSHA offered praise for some States, and warnings to others, in its 26 evaluations released this week of State-run worker safety programs. Hawaii's and Utah's programs were identified as having "significant program deficiencies," with evaluators expressing uncertainty about the States' "…
September 25, 2010
Updated below (9/28/2010)
Is anybody else getting tired of hearing Obama Administration officials say "sunlight is the best disinfectant?" It was uttered again on Thursday (9/23) when the President's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, was speaking at an event hosted by the Small Business…
September 21, 2010
MSHA announced today that it will be issuing on September 23 an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to improve a practice to prevent coal dust explosions. The rule addresses "rock dusting"----the decades old practice of generously applying pulverized limestone dust throughout a coal mine to dilute…
September 21, 2010
At today's 2nd annual Distracted Driving Summit, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood laid out the U.S. statistics: "thousands of people are killed or injured every year in accidents caused by distracted drivers" and 500,000 more are injured. Distractions while driving can be new age, such as using…
September 16, 2010
The Center for Public Integrity's Jim Morris reports this week on a civil lawsuit between the chemical manufacturer Rohm and Haas, and the family of Franklin Branham, 63, who died just a month after being diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor. The Branham family is the first of 31 victims who…
September 14, 2010
Following the suffocation death of Wyatt Whitebread, 14 and Alex Pacas, 19, in Haasbach, Inc.'s grain elevator in Mount Carroll, Illinois, OSHA asst. secretary David Michaels sent a personal letter to more than 3,300 grain storage operators. He sternly reminded them of their legal duty under OSHA'…
September 10, 2010
EPA filed a complaint under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) against the world's largest producer of chromium chemicals for failing to inform the agency of findings from an epidemiological study showing a "substantial risk" of injury to health among workers exposed to hexavalent chromium (…
September 9, 2010
In early August OSHA proposed citations and penalties to 17 employers involved in the explosion at the Kleen Energy plant that killed six workers. (See previous post here.) The deadly blast was caused by ignition of natural gas being used to clean out debris from pipes, a process called a "gas…
September 6, 2010
Karen Lubanty recounts:"He kissed me goodbye, told me he'd call me at work later. He kissed Jennifer goodbye. That was it, he never came home."
Her husband, Walter Lubanty, was killed in October 2006 while working at a Tilcon NY Inc. plant in Wharton, NJ. He was crushed by 75 tons of steel. The…
September 3, 2010
Public Citizen, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) and other worker advocates petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a regulation limiting the number of hours worked by medical residents. The petitioners argue that the excessive hours expected by…
August 30, 2010
Just in time for the Labor Day holiday, the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) released a study indicating 85 percent of workers rank safety on the job as their top labor standard. NORC's report, Public Attitudes towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety, assembled…
August 27, 2010
A classic tool used in public relations is a news release. Companies and other organizations craft these statements to announce new products, activities or accomplishments. Well-written news releases offer the what, where, when, who and why, and are often used "as-is" in trade publications and…
August 25, 2010
My temporary home for the last week has been a hotel just off of I-64 at Exit 44 in Beckley, West Virginia. The immediate exit-ramp neighborhood consists of a Hooters, Dairy Queen, IHOP, McDonalds, and several gas stations. When I'm on the road, I try to keep up my daily walking routine, but the…
August 19, 2010
Earlier this month, Labor Secretary Solis proposed more than $16 million in penalties to 17 employers involved in the construction of the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The construction site was the scene of a massive explosion on the morning of February 7 in which…
August 13, 2010
Updated (8/15/10 2:00 pm EST) below
Mine rescue teams continue their search to rescue or recover two workers struck by a "large surge of pressure" as they were being lowered into a mine shaft at Barrick's Meikle mine near Elko, Nevada. As the Associated Press reports, the incident occurred on…
August 2, 2010
"They were rushing because they had to get the equipment to another jobsite," said the widow. "The boss tapped him to do the work because they were short-handed. He wasn't trained to do it" said the grieving mother. "Yeah, I used equipment that I knew was unsafe. You're shunned if you complain…
July 22, 2010
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) are today's version of David, as in David and Goliath. CIW started in 1993 as a small group of southwest Florida farm workers discussing ways to better their lives. CIW has evolved into a 4,000 strong membership organization of Haitian, Mayan and Hispanic…