hester lipscomb

You’ve probably seen on-line the grim photos showing a construction nail embedded in a person’s skull or hand. The culprit: nail guns. In particular, those with “contact actuation triggers.” An estimated 37,000 pneumatic nail-gun related injuries are treated in US emergency rooms every year, with slightly more than half being work-related. Nail guns are the leading cause of tool-related injuries in the US construction industry that result in hospitalization. As researchers who study nail gun safety wrote in the March 2015 issue of Professional Safety: “Before pneumatic nail guns were…
Last week, my home State of Michigan became the 24th one to enact "right-to-work" legislation.   I'm sure the great labor leader Walter Reuther (1907-1970) rolled over in his grave when Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed the anti-union bill into law. Workers coming together to negotiate for better wages, benefits and working conditions created the middle class in America.  Belonging to a union means workers can be more secure that they won't be fired arbitrarily, and have more power to receive skills training and guard against unsafe working conditions.  This latter point is an underlying…