Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | April 14, 2008One of the nation's top advocates for miners' health and safety, Tony Oppegard, sent a scathing letter last week to the Deputy Solicitor of Labor (SOL), Ronald G. Whiting, mincing no words about their pitiful performance. Oppegard's letter concerned a particular case involving a worker who was fired for complaining about safety, but its content speaks volumes about SOL's "consistent and undistinguished record" of turning its back on workers who exercise their statutory rights. As Oppegard foretells:
"If SOL is going to continue to insist that a discrimination case be a clear-cut…
sb admin | April 11, 2008The first story about the death of Mr. Ricky "Mud Puddle" Collins came on Thursday afternoon (3/27) in an AP story Massey Miner Killed in Logan County. The short news clip mentioned a miner employed at Massey Energy's Freeze Fork Surface Mine in Logan County, who we later learned was Mr. Collins, 43, of Dan's Branch, WV. The article said he:
"died while working on a trailer at a railroad crossing near Stollings in Logan County Thursday,"Â but
"MSHA is not investigating the accident because it did not occur on mine property."
An article the next day said the trailer "saddle-bagged" over the…
sb admin | April 9, 2008A new UK law now in force should make it easier to prosecute companies accused of causing death because of negligence. BBC News explains:
Under the new offence of corporate manslaughter, employers may face large fines if it is proved they failed to take proper safety precautions.
The old law was criticised for making it too hard to bring prosecutions.
Proof is no longer needed that a single senior official was to blame, only that senior management played a role.
It also lifts government bodiesâ immunity to prosecution. Some worker advocates say it doesnât go far enough, though, and predict…
sb admin | April 8, 2008The winners of the 92nd annual Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday, and reporting on veteransâ care and on drug and product safety scored top honors in the journalism category:
The Public Service prize went âto the Washington Post for the work of Dana Priest, Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille in exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials.â The Postâs Walter Reed and Beyond website includes the original stories and slideshows, as well as reporting on the federal response.
The…
sb admin | April 4, 2008No, not V-8 the vegetable drink, but C8, the common name for ammonium perfluorooctanoate, an ingredient in Teflon and other non-stick products. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports today on the levels of perfluorooctanoic acid in the blood of about 69,000 residents living near the DuPont Co.'s Parkersburg, WV plant where C8 was manufactured. The results are posted on the West Virginia University's Health Science's center website.  The median C8 blood-level was
"more than five times the U.S. general population."
The highest median blood-concentration levels (i.e., 132 ppb…
sb admin | April 2, 2008On March 27th, South Africaâs Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism announced a prohibition on the use, processing or manufacturing, of any asbestos or asbestos containing products. The regulationâs objectives are:
To prohibit the use, processing or manufacturing, of any asbestos or asbestos containing product unless it can be proven that no suitable alternative exists, in which case a phase-out plan may be approved.
To prohibit the import or export of any asbestos or asbestos containing product provided that the importation is purely for transit through the country. Any person…
sb admin | April 1, 2008The Department of Labor's Inspector General (IG) issued a report yesterday about the Utah Crandall Canyon mine, saying:
"MSHA was negligent in carrying out its responsibilities to protect the safety of miners."
The investigation was carried out in response to a request from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and documented in an 80-page report entitled: "MSHA Could Not Show it Made the Right Decision in Approving the Roof Control Plan at Crandall Canyon Mine."Â Â The August 2007 underground mine disaster killed nine men, including Mr. Gary Jensen a federal…
sb admin | April 1, 2008This was one of the first-class quotes from former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) during today's hearing on workers' safety and health before the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. His comment came in response to discussions about OSHA's and the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office's practices of reducing penalties, even in cases of serious violations. Mr. Scannell said he often felt pressure from inside and outside the agency to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using "discount factors" to reduce monetary…
sb admin | March 31, 2008The breakneck pace of high-rise construction on Las Vegasâ famed Strip comes at a terrible price: Since the end of 2006, nine construction workers have died in workplace accidents. In a special two-part series, the Las Vegas Sunâs Alexandra Berzon explores why these deaths are happening and what the state OSHAâs response has been.
Berzonâs first article, âPace is the new peril,â begins with the story of 46-year-old Harold Billingsley, who worked on the CityCenter development, a casino and six adjacent high-rises that together amount to the most expensive private commercial development in this…
sb admin | March 28, 2008In response to a recommendation from the Department of Labor's Inspector General, MSHA released data on 40 additional deaths which occurred (mostly) in 2007 at U.S. mining operations but were deemed not "chargeable" to the mining industry. The information, which includes 5 deaths in late 2006 and 35 in 2007, involved miners, contract workers, a mine owner, children of mine operators, and trespassers onto mine property. Of the 40 deaths, 30 were classified as "natural causes," based on autopsy reports with notations such as "acute cardiac dysrhthmia," "acute myocardial infarction," "…
sb admin | March 27, 2008The Senate HELP Committee's Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety announced that former OSHA Assistant Secretary, Mr. Gerard Scannell, will testify at next week's hearing on workplace safety. He was the OSHA chief during the George H.W. Bush administration, and a long-time officer with the National Safety Council.Â
The hearing (previous post here) about serious and repeat violators of worker safety protections will also feature testimony by Mr. Eric Frumin, Director of OHS for Unite!Here, who will likely discuss corporate bad actors, link Cintas (post here).  I'm so…
sb admin | March 26, 2008Workers repairing the Qarmat Ali water injection plant in Iraq were told that the orange substance strewn around the facility was only a mild irritant â but after two-and-a-half months of exposure to it, many workers felt ill. Farah Stockman reports in the Boston Globe:
But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure,…
sb admin | March 26, 2008The Palm Beach (Florida) Post is reporting that Ag-Mart has settled a civil suit filed by a migrant farmworker family who alleged their son's serious birth defects were associated with the company's improper handling of pesticides. Earlier reporting in March 2005 by the PB Post exposed the working and living conditions of this family and other farmworkers, and birth defects among some of their children. Â
At the same time this settlement was reported, another Florida newspaper wrote that violations against Ag-Mart for failure to comply with the State's pesticide use rules had…
sb admin | March 26, 2008I recently started a new job, and since I donât know the surrounding neighborhood well yet, Iâve been taking different routes through it every morning on my way to the office. Yesterday, steps from the White House, I approached a small construction site, shuffling to escape the unmistakable roar of a jackhammer on concrete. But then something stopped me in my tracks. The morning sunlight shining brightly down on the workers revealed the swirling clouds of dust emanating from the trembling sidewalk.
My âworker safetyâ radar on full alert, I crossed the street to get a better look at what was…
sb admin | March 25, 2008The Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 entitled "Serious OSHA Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Patterns." The subcomittee has not yet released a witness list, but I'd expect to hear something about some of the bad actors profiled in the "Dirty Dozen" report, prepared in 2006 by the National COSH.
sb admin | March 24, 2008With the six-month deadline approaching for issuing citations and monetary penalties, OSHA announced today 13 willful and 25 serious violations against RPI Coatings, the employer of five workers who died in early October at the Excel Energy Cabin Creek Station hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colorado. The penalty amount proposed by OSHA against RPI Coatings is $845,100.
The deceased workers were part of a contract maintenance crew who were applying a specialized epoxy coating onto the inside of a 3,000 foot-long (and 4 foot-wide) pipe.  A fire erupted inside the pipe, starving…
sb admin | March 24, 2008By Adam Finkel
I am always on the lookout for examples of how laypeople and/or experts fail to appreciate the enormity of the risks workers face. As someone who came to OSHA from a background in environmental health policy, where an excess lifetime fatality risk greater than one chance per million is often seen as unacceptably high, I am still amazed at the unfinished business on the occupational agenda. I sent the letter below to the New York Times on March 14th, and it was not printed amid a group of other letters focusing on more lurid aspects of Eliot Spitzer's downfall. I…
sb admin | March 21, 2008A coal miner from eastern Kentucky filed a law suit yesterday requesting a federal court judge to compel MSHA to issue a health standard to prevent miners from developing black lung disease. The Petition for Writ of Mandamus (Howard v. Chao) argues that Congress intended, through the Federal Coal Mine Health & Safety Act of 1969 (amended 1977), MSHA to promulgate regulations to prevent new cases of coal workers pnuemoconiosis, progressive massive fibrosis and other illnesses related to miners' exposure to respirable coal mine dust. Despite evidence over the last 12 years that…
sb admin | March 21, 2008It's national Sunshine Week---an effort "to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger."  A great way to celebrate the public's right-to-know what its government is doing, is by sending a FOIA request to your favorite local, state or federal agency. In that spirit, I faxed a FOIA request to OSHA today.Â
My request stems from an exchange of comments on work-related motor vehicle fatalities following my March 7 post "When the Road is Your…
sb admin | March 20, 2008Back in December, Andrew Schneider reported in the Seattle PI that the use of diacetyl-containing cooking oils could be putting professional cooks at risk for the same severe lung disease thatâs struck workers in microwave-popcorn and flavor factories. After his article came out, the Unite-Here union requested an investigation from NIOSH (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), and the unionâs local Seattle chapter requested one from Washington stateâs Safety and Health Assessment and Research for Prevention.
Schneider now reports that both of these investigations are…