Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | November 20, 2007The Center for American Progress has been running some new TV ads in Midwestern media markets as part of âa pilot experiment to begin defining progressivism in the publicâs mindâ (hat tip to Common Sense). Here are two that are styled after the Mac/PC ads â but in these, the two guys wear stickers identifying them as âProâ and âConâ:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Ee_WGmMmeTw]
Ad 1:
Pro: Hi, I'm a progressive.
Con: And I'm a conservative.
Pro: I've done things like create Social Security, establish the eight-hour work day and pass civil rights laws.
Con: I was against every single one of…
sb admin | November 20, 2007By Paul D. Blanc
The interconnections among toxic butter flavoring, fatal coal mine "bumps," and tainted Barbie accessories may not be immediately obvious - but they all reflect the failures of an increasingly compromised U. S. regulatory apparatus.
In early September, news broke that the artificial butter flavoring chemical diacetyl had caused severe lung disease in a hapless consumer who liked his popcorn just a bit too much. The resulting publicity spurred the leading industrial user of diacetyl, ConAgra, to remove the chemical from its product line. Thus was accomplished in one day what…
sb admin | November 19, 2007Matthew Indeglia, 20, was in the midst of his second day on the job on November 6 at Dominion's Salem Harbor Power Station (in Salem Harbor, Mass.) when a 10-story boiler exploded, sending steaming-hot water vapor into his work area. Also in the work zone were 19-year company veterans Phillip Robinson, 56, and Mark Mansfield, 41, who were also engulfed in steam. All three men died hours later from severe burn injuries.  Although this story is a week "old," the victims will never be forgotten by their loved ones left behind. I write about them here at The Pump Handle as a…
sb admin | November 19, 2007A few weeks ago, we wrote about an exciting new book, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi by Les Leopold (Chelsea Green 2007). The following is an excerpt from the book, reprinted here with permission of the publisher. For more information, go to www.chelseagreen.com, where you can also watch a short film honoring Tony Mazzocchi.
Mazzocchiâs antiwar organizing did not distract him from his quest for national health and safety legislation.
The workers who had been drawn to Mazzocchiâs road shows across the country had provided poignant congressional…
sb admin | November 15, 2007Molly Selvin of the Los Angeles Times reports that California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued a citation to a Hilton hotel at LAX airport for violations of the State's rules to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. She quotes Len Welsh head of Cal/OSHA:
"'The LAX Hilton 'did not follow policies that other Hilton hotels followed,' Welsh said. He added that other chains had adopted a number of approaches to training housekeepers that could alleviate repetitive motion stress and had given workers leeway to break up tasks with rest time to prevent…
sb admin | November 15, 2007In my post yesterday "OSHA issues PPE rule: what took'em so long?" I forgot to mention that OSHA is giving employers six months to comply with it. Recall that this egregiously tardy rule simply clarifies when employers are supposed to pay for personal protective equipment (PPE). As Asst. Secretary Edwin Foulke repeated in his announcement yesterday, the rule: "only addresses the issue of who pays for PPE, not the types of PPE an employer must provide....the rule does not require employers to provide PPE where none has been required before..."
If the rule is only providing clarification…
sb admin | November 14, 2007OSHA's long-awaited rule on "who pays for personal protective equipment" has finally seen the light of day.  Assistant Secretary of Labor Edwin Foulke made the announcement today in a telephone press conference; workers and employers should be able to read the rule in the Federal Register on November 15. The Agency proposed this rule more than 8 years ago, and in today's statements, officials repeated that the final rule is very similar to the March 1999 proposal.Â
"...clarifications have added several paragraphs to the regulatory text."
Several paragaphs in 8 years???  Well then…
sb admin | November 14, 2007Los Angeles jurors awarded $3.2 million in damages to six Nicaraguan workers who say they were left sterile after being exposed to the pesticide DBCP on Dole Foodsâ banana plantations. DBCP has been banned in most of the world; California banned it in 1977, after DBCP was found to cause sterility in men working at an Occidental Petroleum plant in that state.
The Los Angeles Timesâ John Spano explains some of the broader implications of this case:
The case was widely seen as a test of how the U.S. legal system responds to injuries inflicted through globalization. Because the harm occurred in…
sb admin | November 13, 2007At last week's annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the organization adopted more than a dozen new policy resolutions which will guide its work into the future. Included among them was a call for "Congress to fundamentally restructure the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA)" so that more attention is paid to the toxic and ecotoxic properties of chemicals in commerce.
 APHA's policy resolution on TSCA* describes the limitations of the existing law, echoing assessments made by other groups. In 2005 and 2006, for example, the Government Accountability…
sb admin | November 12, 2007What does it take for MSHA's Richard Stickler and the Solicitor of Labor to do their jobs?
Front-page newspaper stories about MSHA's failures?
A letter from a grieving mother?
A petition signed by other family-member victims of workplace fatalities?
Apparently, it took all this and more for MSHA finally to decide that the November 8, 2005 coal truck accident at the Alliance Resources' Metikki Mine which killed Chad Cook, 25, was work-related.Â
Chad Cook, a contract driver employed by the Utah-based Savage Services, died when his haulage truck, heavy-loaded with coal, ran off…
sb admin | November 12, 2007Today is Veterans Day in the U.S., and the Department of Veterans Affairs reminds us of the purpose:
Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor ALL those who served honorably in the military - in wartime or peacetime. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty.
There are plenty of speeches, parades, and other events marking this holiday. The…
sb admin | November 9, 2007Tyler Kahle, 19, (photo) and Craig Bagley, 27 (photo) were killed four months ago at the NovaGold Resources' Rock Creek mine near Nome, Alaska. MSHA is completing its investigation; so far, all the Kahle family has been told is that the lift basket was 90 feet off the ground and "it tipped over." Sadly, what the Kahle family has learned, is that mothers, fathers and other family-member victims of workplace fatalities have few if any rights, the exclusive liability provision of state workers' compensation laws is a cruel joke, and families are excluded from the fatality…
sb admin | November 7, 2007At the APHA meeting yesterday, the APHAâs Occupational Health & Safety Section held its annual awards luncheon â and the list of honorees included names that are familiar to many Pump Handle readers.
Our own Celeste Monforton won the Lorin Kerr Award, which ârecognizes a younger activist for their sustained and outstanding efforts and dedication to improving the lives of workers.â (Lorin Kerr was a physician and lifelong activist dedicated to improving access to healthcare for coal miners and other workers and to obtaining compensation for and preventing black lung disease.) Celesteâs…
sb admin | November 7, 2007The House Education & Labor Committee has approved a bill (the Supplementary MINER Act) that would speed up deadlines for several mine rescue requirements passed by Congress last year, and require more oversight by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Ken Ward Jr. has the details about the billâs provisions â and MSHA head Richard Sticklerâs criticisms of it â in the Charleston Gazette. In West Virginia, where tougher requirements were adopted after the Sago and Aracoma mine disasters in that state, approvals for wireless communications and tracking systems are already being sent to…
sb admin | November 6, 2007Itâs impossible to attend all of the interesting-sounding sessions at the APHA annual meeting, so now pressed-for-time attendees can catch up on some of what theyâve missed through the APHA Annual Meeting Blog. Kim Krisberg, Bithiah Lafontant, Alyssa Bindman, and Patti Truant are reporting on sessions at the blog; so far, theyâve posted on communicating with reporters,war and public health, how the public health community can address climate change, public health practitionersâ use of new online tools, the lives of child workers, public health preparedness (here, too), and the opening…
sb admin | November 5, 2007Yesterday, at the American Public Health Association annual meeting, I picked up a copy of Les Leopoldâs new biography The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi. Tony is the towering figure in the US occupational safety and health movement. Until his death in 2002, Tony did more than anyone else in the country to shape the way unions and public health professionals work independently and together to prevent occupational injury and illness.
The book is a great read. It kept me up late last night fascinated and exhilarated, inside the passage of the OSHAct,…
sb admin | November 3, 2007The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward, one of the few reporters in the country who writes consistently about worker health and safety issues, is featured on EXPOSE: America's Investigative Reports. The episode entitled "Sustained Outrage" depicts Ward's approach to covering coal mine disasters like the 2006 Sago tragedy:
"When other reporters are zigging, I'm zagging,"
describing his talent for investigating these fatalities well beyond the headline and long after the cameras are turned off.  The 24-minute episode describes how Ken Ward created a database using information from …
sb admin | November 2, 2007Workers dying from asphyxiation in a confined space is a senseless tragedy. When four men lose their lives in this way, with three of them dying in an attempt to rescue the other, it is a genuine disaster.  Yesterday, four men died inside a 12-foot deep sewer line at the Lakehead Blacktop Demolition Landfill in the Village of Superior, Wisconsin. County Sheriff Tom Dalbec said:
"One of the workers was trying to repair a pump or clear a blockage in the sewer line last yesterday when he was overcome by hydrogen sulfide fumes. ...First one goes down and is overcome by gas and drops…
sb admin | November 2, 2007Yesterday's edition of OSHA's "Quick Takes" e-news memo featured an item entitled "BLS Reports Workplace Injury and Illness Overall Rate Lowest on Record." Peter Infante, former Director of the Office of Standards Review for OSHA's Health Standards Program, was not so quick to cheer at this, though. He fired off a response to OSHA, and gave us permission to post it here: Â
Dear OSHA Official:
Could someone please inform the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, that the reporting of injuries and illness data do not include "illnesses." The data are essentially injury data. Illnesses such…
sb admin | November 1, 2007Three young widows of Harlan County are taking a stand against incumbent Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher (R). An op-ed by Claudia Cole, Stella Morris, and Melissa Lee appeared in the Lexington Herald Leader, with harsh words about the Governor's record on mine safety and rights for victims' families.
"Gov. Ernie Fletcher has disrespected our families and has not kept his word. ...[We] urge all Kentucky coal miners and their families to join us in voting against Fletcher in Tuesday's election. ...We refuse to support a politician like Fletcher who stands in the way of protecting…