Confined Space @ TPH
sb admin | May 25, 2007Sunday, May 20th, 2007, marked the first anniversary of the Kentucky Darby Mine Explosion, which claimed the lives of five good men: Jimmy Lee, Amon Brock, Roy Middleton, Paris Thomas, Jr., and Bill Petra.
A sixth victim of the tragedy, Paul Ledford, is forever haunted by his memories of that day. Wracked with guilt for being the only one to survive the experience, Paul suffers from chronic anxiety, depression and insomnia resulting from post-traumatic stress. Because of damage to his lungs caused by smoke inhalation, he must get breathing treatments six times a day. "I don't feel like…
sb admin | May 23, 2007Two stories in the news this week draw attention to contract workers, who are sometimes overlooked when it comes to workplace health and safety. Legislation proposed by U.S. Representative Al Green would enable federal prosecutors to pursue criminal cases against employers whose willful violations of safety rules are linked to deaths of contract workers (not only of direct employees, as is currently the case); it was prompted by the death of 15 contract workers in the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery. Meanwhile, New York state Assemblywoman Dana Lupardo is pushing for a federal…
sb admin | May 21, 2007The sub-headline in Andrew Wolfson's story tells it all about the perils of workers' compensation for injured and ill workers:
"It's either meager benefits or nearly impossible suit."Â
The Louisville-Courier Journal reporter's May 19 article describes both the physical and economic challenges faced by William D. "Billy" Parker, who lost both arms four months ago in a drywall shedding machine while working at Six Sigma Inc. in Jeffersontown, KY.  Mr. Parker, 39, is a single father, raising his 15-year old son (who now cooks the meals at home and, every morning, applies deodorant under…
sb admin | May 20, 2007"That mine scared me to death," is the headline for the Charleston Gazette's story by stellar reporter Ken Ward. He relays the experience of MSHA inspector, Minness Justice, who was responsible for inspecting A.T. Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine in the three month's preceding the coal mine fire on January 19, 2006, which killed miners Don Bragg, 33 and Ellery Hatfield, 46. The inspector admits he didn't see a missing ventilation wall which likely would have prevented some of the smoke from the conveyor belt fire from penetrating into the miners' escapeway. Ward's interview reveals…
sb admin | May 18, 2007When MSHA issued its 190-page report last week on the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster, most of the press focused on the agency's conclusion that a lightning strike was the "most likely ignition source" for the explosion. Readers should not forget however, that 29 coal miners were underground at the time of the explosion. Only one (Mr. Terry Helms) was immediately and seriously injured from the powerful blast (an estimated 93 psi) which destroyed, and in some cases pulverized, the seals built to partition an abandoned section of the mine from the active area. The other 28 miners…
sb admin | May 17, 2007Watch a 2-minute video (here) showing one variety of portable chamber designed to provide a safe refuge for underground miners during an emergency. The equipment was displayed on Capitol Hill on May 16, 2007 as part of the House Committee on Education and Labor's oversight of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).Â
The refuge chamber shown in the video is a a compact unit and when deployed, creates a tent-like structure filled with safe breathable air. In Australia and other countries, these units are situated along escapeways, allowing miners to seek refuge during an…
sb admin | May 16, 2007Remember the Capitol tunnel workers whoâve been fighting for safer working conditions after years of being exposed to asbestos on the job? (Theyâve been featured in previous roundups here, here, and here.) They stirred up Congressional interest in the safety hazards in the Capitol tunnels, and Congress put pressure on the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for the operations and maintenance of the U.S. Capitol Complex. Now, the Architect of the Capitol and the Office of Compliance (which addresses workplace safety and employment rights issues for workers in the legislative branch…
sb admin | May 16, 2007By Adam M. Finkel
Two weeks ago, Congress officially asked a question that would have been unutterable during the first six years of the Bush Administration: "Have OSHA Standards Kept up with Workplace Hazards?" I was not surprised to read Assistant Secretary Ed Foulke's testimony, in which he tried mightily to make the molehill of OSHA regulatory activity since 2001 look like a (small) mountain. In my experience as a former OSHA executive, each of the Assistant Secretaries since at least 1997 has assigned a small army of spin-meisters to look for data, any data, that will make the agency…
sb admin | May 15, 2007On the Arizona Star's Clocking-In Blog, reporter Becky Pallack published a letter addressed to her on The Weekly Toll. The letter, written by Javier Morales (whose nephew and Godson, Ian Michael Beal, was killed in a construction accident in late 2003), discussed the unwillingness of the press to report on Workers Memorial Day.
Peter Dooley, MS, CIH, CSP, who works on occupational safety issues for the United Automobile Workers (UAW), gave us permission to post his response to the letter here:
Thanks to Becky Pallack and the Arizona Star for covering the issues of workplace fatalities and the…
sb admin | May 14, 2007In March 2006, a coalition of industry trade groups, led by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), filed suit in federal court challenging OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard. This rule, issued by OSHA in 1983, (48 Federal Register 53280) provides fundamental right-to-know protections to most U.S. workers.  Among other things, the HazCom rule requires employers to give workers access to material safety data sheets (MSDS) which contain information on chemical substances to which the workers may be exposed on the job. The MSDS's are required to include health hazard…
sb admin | May 14, 2007Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups on 41 workplace deaths, including the following:
* Wendall Anderson, 58, of Indianapolis was shot outside the Kroger grocery store where he had worked for 30 years.
* Duane Tirrell, a 53-year-old farmer from Charlotte, Michigan, was struck by a semi-tanker while driving his tractor.
* Juan Amedano, a 30-year-old construction worker from Brooklyn, New York, was killed in a trench collapse.
Read the full descriptions of these and other workplace deaths here.…
sb admin | May 14, 2007By David Michaels
OSHA has been taking a beating in the press recently and now they've started a small campaign to respond. It began with a blistering article (based in part on SKAPPâs work) by Steven Labaton in the New York Times, an article that was then reprinted in several newspapers around the country. Now, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Edwin G. Foulke Jr. is out there defending OSHAâs record issuing standards that protect worker health and safety.
Unfortunately, Mr. Foulke's arguments are reminiscent of the climate change deniers who oppose government…
sb admin | May 11, 2007By David Michaels
In the din of the recent press attention and Senate and House hearings on about OSHAâs failings, itâs easy to forget that OSHA has saved many lives, too. Some evidence on that score comes from a new paper three colleagues and I have just published in Chest (Welch LS, Haile E, Dement J, Michaels D. Change in prevalence of asbestos-related disease among sheet metal workers 1986 to 2004. Chest. 2007;131:863-9).
Before the newly formed OSHA issued its first asbestos standard in 1971, uncontrolled asbestos exposure occurred in numerous workplaces across the country. OSHA…
sb admin | May 10, 2007By David Michaels
Matt Madia at Reg Watch has tipped us off to an article about the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs head Susan Dudley (in the subscription-only BNA), in she which gives us a preview of what we can expect from this part of the executive branch during the remainder of the Bush administration.
OIRA (part of the White Houseâs Office of Management and Budget) oversees all of the Administrationâs regulatory policies, and is the office from which the White House exercises tight control over regulatory policy. Dudleyâs nomination didnât make it out of the Senate…
sb admin | May 9, 2007New reports on past disasters are in the news this week. Today, the Mine Safety and Health Administration released its report on the Sago Mine Disaster, which killed 12 mine workers; the report cites lightning for sparking the explosion that trapped the miners underground. A clinical study clearly linking World Trade Center dust to serious diseases - including sarcoidosis, a rare lung-scarring condition - was published in the medical journal Chest. And an internal report by BP about the deadly 2005 blast at its Texas City refinery recommends that four executives and managers be fired for…
sb admin | May 9, 2007By David Michaels
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has just released a study examining lung disease and exposure to flavor chemicals among workers at the Carmi Flavor and Fragrance Company factory in Commerce, California. One or possibly two cases of bronchiolitis obliterans had been known to public health authorities before the investigation. Of the thirty-four workers studied, three were found to have severe obstructive lung disease; NIOSH reports the expected prevalence of this condition in a group of relatively young workers is about one in a…
sb admin | May 8, 2007The Department of Labor recently published its semi-annual regulatory agenda with revised (again) target dates for OSHA and MSHA rules. The Department goes through this exercise twice a year, but it is a rare occasion when the "Timetable for Action" dates are actually met. After just a few moments comparing this agenda to the one published in December (71 Fed Reg 73539), one sees the same historical pattern of slipping target dates for much needed worker protections, including rules to prevent workers from developing cancer, silicosis, chronic beryllium disease, asbestosis among other…
sb admin | May 6, 2007By David Michaels
In the last few days, the national media has finally focused on the failure of OSHA to protect workers from devastating lung disease caused by exposure to artificial butter flavor. (The problem goes well beyond microwave popcorn factories, to the flavor industry and other snack food plants.) Articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times and The National Journal all compare OSHAâs inaction with the activities the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (or CalOSHA), which is moving toward a rule forcing employers to protect workers in the food industry…
sb admin | May 3, 2007During the April 24, 2007 House Workforce Protection Subcommittee hearing, â"Have OSHA Standards Kept up with Workplace Hazards?", the Bush administrationâs record in promulgating occupational safety and health standards was a hot topic. (âWith all of those [rules] that have been cast aside,â asked an indignant Congressman Hare (D-IL)â âwhatâs OSHA been doing?â)
         Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) stated: âTo date, the Bush administration has implemented 22 standards, with more than year left in the term,â and that therefore, âthe pace of regulatory rulemaking has not changedâ…
sb admin | May 2, 2007This edition of Occupational Health News Roundup is dedicated to Workersâ Memorial Day, which was observed around the world on April 28th.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: A ceremony commemorated the 100th anniversary of The Pittsburgh Survey (1907-1908), âthe pioneering work of Crystal Eastman and others which investigated the horrendous living conditions of Pittsburgh's working class as the 19th century began.â
Decatur, Illinois: Children held crosses bearing the names of workers who died on the job at a gathering to remember fallen workers.
Prince George, British Columbia: A new memorial to…