Occupational Health & Safety
cmonforton | October 25, 2017Celebrity chef John Besh has joined Harvey Weinstein and Bill O’Reilly in news headlines about sexual harassment in the workplace. The New Orleans-based Besh has received numerous James Beard awards and has appeared on the Bravo TV network’s show Top Chef. His offenses were reported this week by Brett Anderson at The Times-Picayune. The reporter’s eight-month long investigation included interviews with 25 current and former employees of the Besh Restaurant Group.
Brett Anderson’s story includes a copy of one of the EEOC complaints filed by a former employee. That employee says:
"Vulgar and…
cmonforton | October 20, 2017The headlines are grabbing people's attention:
CBC News: "Pollution causing more deaths worldwide than war or smoking"; CNN: "Pollution linked to 9 million deaths worldwide in 2015, study says"; BBC: "Pollution linked to one in six deaths"; Associated Press: "Pollution killing more people every year than wars, disaster and hunger, study says"; The Independent: "Pollution is killing millions of people a year and the world is reaching 'crisis point', experts warn."
News outlets are referring to a report released yesterday by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. The report’s authors…
cmonforton | October 14, 2017OSHA took the long road to adopt a standard to address respirable crystalline silica. Although the final rule was issued in March 2016, it is being challenged by both industry and labor groups. The first says OSHA went too far, the other says OSHA didn’t go far enough.
The long road, however may be coming close to end. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments last week from parties that are challenging the rule. Judges Merrick Garland, David Tatel and Karen LeCraft Henderson spent more than two hours listening to arguments from the National Stone,…
cmonforton | October 11, 2017The U.S. Supreme Court is not interested in hearing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's claim that he didn't get a fair trial. On October 10, the court denied Blankenship's petition to review his criminal conviction. (here (see page 3))
In December 2015 a jury found Blankenship guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety standards. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine was the site of the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years when 29 miners were killed by a massive coal dust explosion. Blankenship micromanaged his coal mines so much so that he demanded production reports every hour.…
kkrisberg | October 10, 2017At Reveal, Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter investigate an increasing criminal justice trend in which defendants are sent to rehab, instead of prison. On its face, the idea is a good one, especially for people struggling with addiction. However, the reporters find that many so-called rehab centers are little more than labor camps funneling unpaid workers into private industry.
The story focused on one particular center, Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery (CAAIR) in Oklahoma. Started by chicken company executives, CAAIR’s court-ordered residents work full-time at Simmons Foods…
cmonforton | October 4, 2017President Trump’s nominee to head the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) appeared today before a Senate committee for a confirmation hearing. David Zatezalo answered questions about the epidemic of black lung cases, an increase in mine worker fatalities, the need for safety assistance for small mine operators, and more. Zatezalo began his career in 1974 as a UMWA coal miner and most recently served as chairman of Rhino Resources.
I watched the webcast of Zatezalo's confirmation hearing. The nominee noted his experience managing 39 different coal mines in the U.S.…
cmonforton | September 29, 2017West Virginia’s senior U.S. senator will not be supporting President Trump’s nominee to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) issued a statement on Wednesday which said:
“While I appreciate Mr. Zatezalo’s willingness to serve, I cannot support his confirmation to lead MSHA. After reviewing his qualifications and record of safety during his time in the coal industry, I am not convinced that Mr. Zatezalo is suited to oversee the federal agency that implements and enforces mine safety laws and standards.”
Ken Ward at the Charleston (WV) Gazette was…
kkrisberg | September 27, 2017At the Toronto Star, reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh went undercover as a temp worker at Fiera Foods, an industrial bakery, to investigate why temp workers are more likely to get hurt on the job. Earlier this year, Canadian occupational health and safety officials brought charges against the company, whose clients include Dunkin’ Donuts, Costco and Walmart, for the death of 23-year-old Amina Diaby, who was strangled to death after her hijab got caught in a machine.
Mojtehedzadeh, along with Brendan Kennedy, write:
I get about five minutes of training in a factory packed with industrial equipment…
cmonforton | September 15, 2017The Trump Administration is proposing to scrap a requirement for mine operators to conduct safety checks before miners begin their work. Identifying hazards and fixing them is key to preventing work-related injuries and deaths.
The requirement on Trump's chopping block applies to more than 11,000 mining operations that extract metals and aggregates, such as underground gold and salt mines and rock quarries. Similar requirements for coal mines are not part of the administration’s announcement, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see this proposal lead to similar changes at coal mines.
The rule “…
garrettbrown | September 14, 2017Starting in July 2015, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) was authorized to hire several dozen more field compliance officers to protect the state’s 19 million workers. Because Cal/OSHA’s hiring has not filled all new positions or kept up with retirements, there has been an average of 34 vacancies of these fully-funded positions since then, resulting in $11 million in unused resources through August 2017. Not only is this a missed worker protection opportunity, no one knows what’s happened to these funds and where they are.
Another mystery is the whereabouts…
kkrisberg | September 12, 2017At the Huffington Post, Dave Jamieson reports that labor unions are stepping up to help protect increasingly vulnerable immigrant workers from deportation. In fact, Jamieson writes that in many instances, labor unions have become “de facto immigrants rights groups,” educating workers on their rights and teaching immigrants how to best handle encounters with immigration officials.
Jamieson’s story begins:
Yahaira Burgos was fearing the worst when her husband, Juan Vivares, reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in lower Manhattan in March. Vivares, who fled Colombia and…
kkrisberg | September 8, 2017Typically, we like to end the annual “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety” on an uplifting note. But this time around — to be honest — that was a hard sell.
Take a quick look through the 2017 yearbook and you’ll quickly glean that worker health and safety is very much at risk under the new administration and from lawmakers in the states. From the attempted rollback of a new federal beryllium exposure standard to state efforts to weaken workers’ compensation systems, the view from 2017 does not seem terribly promising. On the other hand, the fight for workers’ rights has never…
cmonforton | September 7, 2017Researchers who investigate the impact of the work environment on health contributed dozens of papers to the peer-reviewed literature over the past 12 months. Scholars and advocates with non-profit organizations also published reports on various topics related to worker rights and safety. The final section of "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety" highlights some of this important and impressive research.
A particularly prominent topic in scientific journals addressed the heat-exposure experiences of farm workers. We profile two papers that report on the feasibility of using an…
cmonforton | September 6, 2017Investigative journalists play an important role in raising public awareness about worker health and safety issues. The number and quality of stories over the last 12 months was exceptional so "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety" includes a full section which highlights our picks for top-notch reporting.
The stories that Kim and I profile in Section III of the yearbook include the following:
A three-part investigation by NBC Bay Area that examined the workers’ compensation system in California. In one city, the medical claims of nearly 70 firefighters were denied and the…
cmonforton | September 5, 2017Kim Krisberg and I published yesterday---Labor Day 2017---the sixth edition of "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety." It’s our effort to record the key events which advanced (or degraded) worker safety protections in the last 12 months. Kim's blog post yesterday provided an overview of the yearbook. I offer today a snapshot of the yearbook’s first section which addresses high points and low points of actions at the federal level.
Last year the OHS community bid farewell to Joe Main and David Michaels, the assistant secretaries of labor for MSHA and OSHA, respectively. We…
kkrisberg | September 4, 2017For the sixth year in a row, we present “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” our attempt to document the year’s highs and lows as well as the challenges ahead.
Like previous editions, the 2017 yearbook highlights policies, appointments and activities at the federal, state and local levels; outstanding news reporting on workers’ rights, safety and health; and the latest research from public health agencies and worker groups on the ground. Of course, you can’t ignore the giant elephant (no pun intended) in the room in 2017 — a new president and a Republican-controlled Congress…
kkrisberg | September 1, 2017Across the country, federally qualified health centers provide a critical safety net, delivering needed medical care regardless of a person’s ability to pay. And so it’s worrisome when researchers document a sharp increase in dissatisfaction among the clinicians and staff who make those centers run.
“We’re not sure why we saw things getting worse in the centers,” said Mark Friedberg, a senior natural scientist at Rand Corporation and director of their Boston office. “The best takeaway from this study is we need to track this. We need to get to the bottom of it because it is alarming.”…
cmonforton | August 31, 2017Massive “clean-up” projects are underway in Houston and the surrounding region. As the waters brought by Hurricane Harvey recede, individuals seeking work---day laborers---will be assembling in damaged neighborhoods and offering their skills. It was a commonplace scene following Superstorm Sandy's destruction in 2012, and in Harvey’s disaster zone, day laborers are already on street corners and in parking lots offering to work.
I hope the workers’ experiences from Superstorm Sandy are lessons being reviewed by officials, leaders, and funders in Houston. It would be time well spent if they…
cmonforton | August 30, 2017Drivers honked and waved. They gave thumbs up to the 30 people on the sidewalk. The group was holding signs outside a North Carolina poultry plant. “El baño” – the bathroom – was the word catching the drivers’ attention.
The scene on August 14 was a demonstration in front of the Case Farms poultry plant in Morganton, NC. The company supplies chicken to KFC, Popeyes, and Taco Bell.
Alisa Olvera outside of Case Farms poultry plant in Morganton, NC.
The reason for the peaceful protest?
The Case Farms plant has a sanitation problem. Workers don’t have access to the bathroom when they need to…
kkrisberg | August 25, 2017At the Tampa Bay Times, Neil Bedi, Jonathan Capriel, Anastasia Dawson and Kathleen McGrory investigate a June 29 incident at Tampa Electric in which molten ash — commonly referred to as “slag” — escaped from a boiler and poured downed on workers below. Five workers died.
A similar incident occurred at Tampa Electric two decades earlier. If the company had followed the guidelines it devised after that 1997 incident, the five men who died in June would still be alive, the newspaper reported. In particular, the five deaths could have been avoided if the boiler had been turned off before workers…