Occupational Health & Safety
cmonforton | March 28, 2012[Update below (7/14/14)]
In 1991, Dan Quayle was US Vice President, General Norman Schwarzkopf led the 100-hour assault known as Operation Desert Storm, and Phil Collins had the record of the year. It was the last (and only) time that the US Congress amended the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) to update the monetary penalty amounts that could be assessed to employers who violate worker safety regulations. These changes were just a tiny part of the massive Omnibus Budget Reconcilation Act of 1990, but were significant in that they increased OSHA's maximum penalty amounts seven-…
lborkowski | March 27, 2012Earlier this month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration released results of an internal review into the agency's actions leading up to the April 5, 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, which killed 29 miners in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The Executive Summary reports, "While the Internal Review team did not find evidence that the actions of District 4 personnel or inadequacies in MSHA safety and health standards, policies, or procedures caused the explosion, the team found several instances where enforcement efforts at UBB were compromised because MSHA and District 4 did not follow…
cmonforton | March 26, 2012In October 2009, the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) made national headlines when it proposed a record-setting $87 million penalty against BP Products North America Inc. for the company' failure to correct serious safety hazards at its Texas City, Texas refinery. Ten months later, OSHA announced that it reached a settlement with BP regarding some of those violations and penalties, with the firm agreeing to pay $50.6 million.
It's not unusual for the penalty amounts proposed by OSHA to be reduced significantly to a figure eventually paid by the…
cmonforton | March 23, 2012Earlier this week, Lizzie Grossman reported here at The Pump Handle on revisions to OSHA's Hazard Communication standard which align the agency's 30 year old rule with a globally harmonized system for classifying and labeling chemical hazards. In "Moving from Right-to-Know to Right-to-Understand," we learn how the changes stem from a 2002 United Nations resolution and why they should help U.S. workers better protect themselves from chemical hazards in their workplaces.
I spent some time this week reading for myself the 858-page document, and by the time I got to page 20 it was clear that…
egrossman | March 21, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
His job, the Metalworkers Alliance of the Philippines union leader told us, was assembling the electronics - the wire- or cable-harnesses - that go into cars. The work involved soldering, using flux, along with epoxies, and various degreasers or solvents. He and his co-workers didn't know the actual names of the substances they were working with or what was in those products. They also didn't know if it was a coincidence, but two co-workers had become seriously ill and the union leader and other co-workers had begun to worry that these diseases might have been caused by…
cmonforton | March 19, 2012The $109 billion transportation bill passed last week in the Senate has a title that doesn't even mention roads or highways. It's called the ''Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act'' (MAP-21) The 74 Senators who voted in favor of the bill (S. 1813), including 22 Republicans, described their support in terms of its potential to save and create nearly 3 million jobs, many in the construction industry.
One provision of the legislation fits especially well with the bill's title, with real potential to make progress on worker safety while we move ahead with transportation projects…
cmonforton | March 14, 2012To mark Sunshine Week, the annual initiative to promote freedom of information and government openness, I'm examining OSHA's performance in disclosing information about worker fatality cases. My interest in this particular transparency issue stems back to the first year of the Obama Administration, when in October 2009, a new feature appeared front-and-center on federal OSHA's homepage. It read: "Worker Fatalities."
I gave OSHA's new leadership credit for reminding visitors to its website that workers are killed everyday on the job, many from preventable causes. The weekly postings by…
lborkowski | March 13, 2012National Sleep Awareness Week might have been last week, but many of us are feeling the importance of shuteye this week, as we struggle to drag ourselves out of bed at what feels like an inappropriate hour. While Daylight Saving Time may get the blame for sleepiness this week, though, there are important year-round factors that cause fatigue. In honor of National Sleep Awareness Week, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's NIOSH Science Blog published two posts about the impact of work demands on sleep. Claire Caruso and Roger Rosa start off by highlighting the…
lborkowski | March 9, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
Nurses face many hazards on the job, and one that clearly demands more detailed analysis than it's received to date is the effect of occupational chemical exposures on nurses' reproductive health. A recent study by researchers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Harvard School of Public Health, and Brigham and Women's Hospital has found that female nurses exposed to sterilizing agents and chemotherapy drugs at work are at least twice as likely to have miscarriages than those who are not. The study, published in The American Journal of…
lborkowski | March 8, 2012In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics:
In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work, while those who experienced a slip, fall or trip took 7, and those exposed to harmful substances took just 3.
Ergonomics and the impact on workers' compensation claims not only is found in the office or in manufacturing jobs. In 2007, NIOSH reported that of the workers' compensation claims made across…
cmonforton | March 7, 2012I was saddened to read that Congressman Donald Payne (D-NJ) died yesterday from colon cancer. Just a month ago, the 77-year old Member of Congress announced he was undergoing treatment for the disease. An estimated 51,700 individuals in the U.S. will die this year from cancers of the colon and rectum.
"I am heartbroken to learn of Congressman Payne's passing," said Congressman George Miller (D-CA) in a statement. The two served together for several years on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Miller's statement continues:
"Donald served his constituents and this nation…
lborkowski | March 6, 2012Back in December, the Department of Labor's Wage & Hour Division published a proposed rule that would extend minimum-wage and overtime pay protections to the home care workers who assist elderly and disabled patients with their daily needs. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that nonexempt workers be paid minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) and 1.5 times their pay for hours worked above 40 hours in a week. (It also prohibits most forms of child labor, but allows children to work in agriculture, as Celeste has discussed.) Many of us are exempt from these requirements because we're…
cmonforton | March 5, 2012The Center for Public integrity's Jim Morris was the first to report that two long awaited cancer mortality studies of US workers exposed to diesel exhaust finds significantly elevated levels of lung cancer. Researchers with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) proposed the studies two decades ago, going great lengths to address methodological limitations identified in previous epidemiological studies of diesel exhaust-exposed workers. The bottom line, and with now stronger evidence than ever, there should be no question…
cmonforton | March 1, 2012Federal OSHA proposed a $283,000 penalty against an employer responsible for staffing a Hershey's chocolate packaging facilty in Palmyra, Pennsylvania for willfully violating workplace safety regulations. The agency's action followed a formal complaint lodged by workers at the plant, many of whom were foreign students employed under the State Department's J-1 visa program. A few hundred of them walked off the job last summer to protest the poor working conditions in the Hershey plant. The New York Times' Julie Preston reported at the time about workers' injuries related to heavy lifting,…
cmonforton | February 29, 2012The topics for my blog posts sometimes come from unusual places. This post is one of these. It popped in my head as I watched Natalie Portman announce the nominees for best actor during Sunday night's Academy Award broadcast. The snippet featuring Demián Bichir in "A Better Life" reminded me of a worker-fatality report that I bookmarked a few weeks ago, but never got around to reading. Like Bichir's character Carlos Galindo, I recall the report's abstract mentioned a day laborer who might have worked as a gardener.
I opened the bookmark yesterday to the report released in January 2012 by…
cmonforton | February 24, 2012On July 27, 2011, just a few miles from my home in San Marcos, TX, Mr. Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, and Mr. Nelson Pineda were working together to erect a pre-engineered steel building frame on property owned by Thermon Manufacturing. The workers were employed by Jetka Steel Erectors of Katy, TX, a firm hired by Bailey Elliot Construction of Austin, TX, to perform certain aspects of the project. Just before noon on July 27, 2011 the metal structure collapsed, killing Mr. Resinos and injurying Mr. Pineda.
Federal OSHA safety officers investigated the fatal incident and issued citations…
cmonforton | February 23, 2012Agricultural exceptionalism is a term used to describe the special status awarded to employers and firms involved in agriculture. Proponents argue that the special status is necessary because (1) agricultural products contribute to broad national goals (e.g., providing safe and affordable food, preventing hunger); and (2) farming is inherently risky because of the uncertainty of weather and pests.
This exceptionalism allows employers, for example, to provide lesser protection and benefits to their workers compared to what is given to workers employed in non-agriculture industries.…
lborkowski | February 22, 2012Earlier today, US Attorney Booth Goodwin charged Upper Big Branch mine superintendent Gary May with "conspiring to impede the Mine Safety and Health Administration's enforcement efforts" at that mine. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia was the site of numerous health and safety violations leading up to the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners. The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. has the details on the charges against May:
May, 43, of Bloomingrose, is accused of taking part in a scheme to provide advance warning of government inspections and then…
cmonforton | February 17, 2012"What's taking so long?" might be uttered by a youngster waiting for a parent to assemble a swing set, or an art patron waiting for a conservator to restore a masterpiece. When the wait is finally over and the eager child or art lover see the final product, they realize the time was well spent.
Public health and worker safety advocates have been asking "what's taking so long?" for the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to complete a review of a draft occupational health standard. A 1993 Executive Order gives OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) authority…
lborkowski | February 16, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
What's being called the first-ever such criminal conviction, an Italian court has returned a guilty verdict against owners of Eternit, the Switzerland-based building materials company. Two weeks ago, W.R. Grace announced its bankruptcy case settlement for the residents of Libby, Montana where the company's vermiculite plant exposed residents to deadly asbestos fibers for decades. While more than 40 countries, including Italy, have banned asbestos use, it remains legal in the US. An effort by the US Department of Justice hold W.R. Grace criminally liable for the Libby…