Occupational Health & Safety
cmonforton | October 23, 2014Exclusions, barriers, bans and hurdles describe many injured workers’ experiences with workers’ compensation. A system that was supposed to assist them and provide streamlined procedures to recoup medical costs and lost wages has become a nightmare for individuals who’ve been injured on-the-job. A new policy brief by the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) describes seven destructive trends in workers’ compensation laws which reflect the attitude of many in state legislatures who “see workers’ comp as an unnecessary cost for business rather than a critical health care and…
kkrisberg | October 21, 2014In an amazing three-part investigation, Seattle Times reporters Christine Willmsen, Lewis Kamb and Justin Mayo bring to light an occupational hazard not often heard about: the risk of lead poisoning at the nation’s gun ranges. They write that thousands of people, many of them gun range employees, have been contaminated due to poor ventilation and contact with lead-coated surfaces. Legally, gun range owners are responsible for protecting employees, but the investigation found that officials do little to enforce regulations. The investigative series offers a “first-of-its-kind analysis of…
cmonforton | October 16, 2014John Dunnivant, 57, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, October 7, while working at a Kia Motors manufacturing plant. The facility is located in West Point, Georgia, off of I-85 near the Alabama-state line. WTVM provides some initial information on the worker's death:
Police and fire were called to the plant at 11:10 am local time.
Dunnivant worked in maintenance and was crushed by a stamping machine.
Kia management cancelled the remaining workshifts the day of Dunnivant’s death, but production began again the next day.
Ben Wright of the Ledger-Enquirer reports:
Dunnivant was…
cmonforton | October 15, 2014Earlier this month a federal judge upheld citations issued by OSHA to Murray’s Chicken. The company, located 100 miles north of New York City, was cited by OSHA in June 2012 for repeat and serious violations of worker safety regulations. Among others, Murray’s Chicken failed to provide information and train its workers on the hazardous chemicals used in the plant to disinfect the chicken carcasses. OSHA inspectors found that workers in the “kill, evisceration and other poultry processing areas” were routinely exposed to bleach and Perasafe, an antimicrobial agent containing peracetic acid,…
egrossman | October 13, 2014"If the California Public Health Department had been able to find out that my company was using a chemical that was killing people, I might never have gotten so sick that I had to have a lung transplant," Ricardo Corona told a California Judiciary Committee last April, testifying in favor of California Senate Bill (SB) 193 that Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on September 29th. The law, which amends California's Hazard Evaluation System and Information Service (HESIS), will become the first in the country to require companies that manufacture and distribute toxic chemicals to provide a…
kkrisberg | October 10, 2014“Yes, you can use my name because it doesn’t matter. They have already done everything they can do to me.”
Those are words from Eliceo, a former dairy farm worker in upstate New York. Earlier this year, Eliceo, 36, decided to speak up and share his story with local advocates who are tirelessly working to improve conditions on New York dairy farms and end persistent reports of workplace safety violations, preventable work-related injuries, wage theft, exploitation and in some cases, worker deaths. His story of dangerous farm conditions, inadequate to nonexistent safety training and an employer…
cmonforton | October 8, 2014It was too late for textile workers Grover Hardin and Louis Harrell to be helped by OSHA’s cotton dust standard. By 1978 when the rule was issued, both men suffered from byssinosis (a.k.a., brown lung disease) and would die from it. Harrell’s face and Hardin’s words, however, would have meaning for other textile workers and possibly help them be protected from the consequences of breathing cotton dust.
Harrell and Hardin, along with images of other textile workers taken by photojournalist Earl Dotter, appeared in the OSHA booklet “Cotton Dust: Worker Health Alert.” It was issued in the final…
kkrisberg | October 7, 2014Washington Post reporter Lydia DePillis investigates the factors behind increasing workplace fatality rates among Latinos, even while overall workplace deaths in the U.S. are on the decline. DePillis starts with the story of Abdón Urrutia, a construction worker who injured his back while working on a project in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
On the day of his injury, after Urrutia lifted himself up the floor, he says, the staff at the company where he worked gave him eight ibuprofen, and he was able to go back to work. And he was back at work the next day, too — on lighter duty, without carrying…
cmonforton | October 6, 2014When Sherman Holmes, 55, was killed on-the-job by a felled tree, his employer’s profit on the lumber was more than enough to pay the penalty for the three safety violations identified by Michigan OSHA. That penalty was only $1,525.*
WyoFile’s Dustin Bleizeffer reported last week on one family’s efforts to change how penalties are assessed for safety violations associated with work-related fatal injury. Mary Jane Collins of Sheridan, Wyoming wants tougher consequences for companies that disregard safety standards. Her grandson, Brett Samuel Collins, 20, was killed on-the-job in August 2012…
cmonforton | October 1, 2014William Jeffrey Belk, 29, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, September 26 while working at the Boise Cascade Wood Products plant in Moncure, NC. News reports provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
“The Chatham County Sheriff's Office says a worker at a wood products company died when a piece of machinery fell on him.”
John Sahlberg, senior vice president of Human Resources at Boise Cascade, told The Sanford Herald: "The equipment had a C-clamp, and somehow or another, the C-clamp was up and came down on him. We don't have details as to what he was doing or why the…
egrossman | September 29, 2014There’s been a lot going on this past week so it’s likely that National Farm Safety Week, announced by Presidential Proclamation on September 19th may have escaped notice of those not working in agriculture. “America,” said President Obama in the proclamation, “depends on our farmers and ranchers to clothe our families, feed our people, and fuel our cars and trucks.” And he continued:
“While our farmers and ranchers are the best in the world, agriculture remains one of our country's most hazardous industries. Producers and their families are exposed to numerous safety and health dangers --…
kkrisberg | September 26, 2014A recent study has uncovered another possible risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes: working long hours in low-paying jobs.
In a study published this week in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, researchers found that people who work more than 55 hours per week performing manual work or other low socioeconomic status jobs face a 30 percent greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes when compared to those working between 35 and 40 hours per week. The association remained even after researchers accounted for risk factors such as smoking, physical activity levels, age, sex and…
lborkowski | September 24, 2014by Michael Lax, MD, MPH
The news that almost one third of NFL football players can expect to suffer the effects of brain trauma made headlines in major media. While it is not surprising that large men, often leading with their heads, bashing each other week after week suffer some consequences, what was unexpected was how many players are likely to be injured, and that the NFL actually acknowledged this reality.
Obviously, the findings lead to the question of what to do about it besides compensate the injured. In the context of workplace injuries the injury rate in this industry is…
kkrisberg | September 23, 2014Today in Mother Jones, reporter Stephanie Mencimer writes a great piece previewing an upcoming Supreme Court case that could transform how pregnant women are treated in the workplace. In fact, the case has attracted the attention and support of some very strange bedfellows. Mencimer writes:
It's a rare day when pro-choice activists, anti-abortion diehards, and evangelical Christians all file briefs on the same side of a Supreme Court case. But that's what happened recently when the National Association of Evangelicals, Americans United for Life, Democrats for Life of America, and the National…
egrossman | September 22, 2014“Shift work refers to work that takes place outside of traditional 9-to-5 daytime hours. If you work nights or rotating shifts, you are a shift worker. Many people who work shifts are at risk for developing shift work disorder (SWD) and may experience excessive sleepiness (ES) on the job.” So says the website designed to market the drug known as Nuvigil, sold by Cephalon, a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2007 to treat narcolepsy and obstructive sleep apnea and the excessive sleepiness that may come with working a…
cmonforton | September 18, 2014Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, September 10 while working at an oil rig site in southern Oklahoma. Local news reports provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
The incident occurred at an XTO Energy well near Mannsville, OK (about 2 hours north of Dallas, TX). Rodriguez was employed by Mercer Well Service. The company’s headquarters is in Gainseville, TX, which was also Rodriguez’s hometown.
Sheriff John Smith reported “that a pipe was somehow forced out of a well hole and struck Rodriguez.”
“Rodriguez was operating a workover rig…
cmonforton | September 15, 2014“OSHA nunca llego.” [Translation: "OSHA never came."] That was the disappointed phrase I heard from a worker who told me about his on-the-job injury. He was a temp worker hired by a moving company to relocate a small manufacturing company. The worker’s shoe got caught in a faulty industrial dumbwaiter and his toes were smashed. He was patched up at a local urgent care clinic, but developed a serious infection a couple of weeks later. Gangrene set in and his toes had to be amputated. He still suffers pain and walks with a limp.
The fact that “OSHA nunca llego” surprised this worker. Like the…
kkrisberg | September 12, 2014For eight years, Dora worked at a frozen pizza factory in Romeoville, Illinois, called Great Kitchens. For eight hours a day — sometimes seven days a week — she assembled pizza boxes or arranged cheese and other toppings on pizzas. The consequences of years of such repetitive work surfaced in October 2012, when her hands would go numb and a painful cyst formed on her left wrist. She told her supervisor about the problem, but he said he couldn’t do anything about it — Dora was a temporary worker hired through a staffing agency and so Great Kitchens wasn’t responsible for addressing her injury…
cmonforton | September 10, 2014The public health community is mourning the loss of Andrea Kidd-Taylor, DrPH, MSPH, 59, who died on September 1 from cancer. Celebrations of her life were held on September 8-9 in Randallstown, MD.
I first met Andrea Kidd-Taylor in 1994 when she was a member of OSHA’s 12-person National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH). With her masters and doctoral degrees in public health, and her training as an industrial hygienist, Andrea held the NACOSH slot designated for an occupational health expert. At the time, she was with the Health and Safety Department of the United…
kkrisberg | September 9, 2014Across the country, roughly 10 million construction workers spend each day in a dangerous and fickle industry. They hang drywall, lay carpet, shingle roofs. Yet in the eyes of their bosses, they aren't employees due the benefits the government requires.
That’s the intro to an extensive series of articles that McClatchy DC recently published called “Contract to Cheat,” which chronicles a year-long investigation into the consequences of misclassifying workers as independent contractors and how government regulators are doing nothing to stop it. The in-depth series offers investigations from…