Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | October 31, 2007Firefighters have been doing amazing work in California, where destructive wildfires are now largely under control. In the San Deigo Union-Tribune, Tony Manolatos describes daring rescue work by helicopter pilot Mike Wagstaff, while the LA Timesâ Janet Wilson relates rookie firefighter Jason Carlâs harrowing experience of being trapped by a wall of flame. CBS reports on the more than 3,000 prison inmates whoâve been fighting the fires for $1 an hour, and Raja Jagadeesan and Dan Childs of ABC highlight the long-term health effects that firefighters can face.
In other news:
Observer (UK):…
sb admin | October 31, 2007The OSHA Fairness Coalition weighed in with some fightin' words yesterday, expressing "unequivocal opposition" to a mine safety bill scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee. This is the same group that opposed the "Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act" when it successfully moved through Congress in September. At that time, we wondered what the Messenger Courier Association of the Americas, or the Independent Electrical Contractors, or the Roofing Contractors Association had to do with butter-flavoring agents, but whatever, the Chamber of Commerce and…
sb admin | October 30, 2007Working a weekend shift has been particularly dangerous for West Virginia coal miners this year. All seven coal-mining related fatalities in the State have occurred on weekend shifts. The latest victim was Mr. Charles Jason Keeney, 34, who died on Sunday while working underground at the Long Branch Energy's Mine No. 23 in Boone County, WV. The miner was killed by a piece of falling coal or rock, according to the WV Office of Miners' Health, Safety & Training (WVMHST)
The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward writes that the day after this last fatality, Mr. Ron Wooten, the director of…
sb admin | October 29, 2007The US Dept of Justice (DOJ) announced last week an agreement with British Petroleum (BP) on three outstanding criminal cases, with monetary penalities totaling more than $370 million. Included among the settlement were violations of the Clean Air Act associated with the March 2005 explosion at the firm's Texas City refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.  BP agreed to pay a $50 million fine---the largest ever assessed under the CAA---for failing to ensure the mechanical integrity of the "blowdown stack," which resulted in the release of hydrocarbon liquid and…
sb admin | October 26, 2007[Updated (10/30/07) below]
Representatives from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Chamber of Commerce met this week with White House Office of Management and Budget in a last-ditch effort to influence OSHAâs rule clarifying employersâ obligation to pay for workers' personal protective equipment (e.g., safety goggles, metatarsal boots, gloves). They likely repeated their claims that OSHAâs PPE payment rule is a case of
"â¦economic transference, not employee safety and health. â¦employers already pay for the majority of personal protective equipment used in the workplace…
sb admin | October 24, 2007Flight crews from the UK and Australia are warning that engine-oil fumes can contaminate cabin air in certain types of planes. The BBC reports that after two incidents this year in which flight crews experienced problems with fumes, some flight crew members from the Exeter-based Flybe airline are refusing to work on the companyâs British Aerospace 146 fleet (which is generally used on domestic flights). Employees also reported two incidents on Qantas flights (on a 747 and 767); Matthew Benns from the Sydney Morning Herald explains:
The problem stems from a cost-cutting design in jet aircraft…
sb admin | October 23, 2007This week, the Salt Lake Tribune is running a must-read series of reports by Loretta Tofani about the human cost of the cheap goods we get from China. Tofani begins with the story of Wei Chaihua, a 44-year-old former farmer who sought factory work in order to give his children education and a better future. Wei didnât know that such a thing as an outdoor gas oven existed until he got a job sanding and polishing steel in a factory that manufactured them, and he didnât know about the disease silicosis until he was diagnosed with it.
Wei is hardly an isolated case, Tofani explains:
With each new…
sb admin | October 22, 2007Shawn Boone was only 33 years old in 2003 when he was fatally burned from several violent explosions at the Hayes Lemmerz plant in Huntington, Indiana. The plant manufactured cast aluminum automotive wheels.  These firey blasts, which also severely burned two other workers, were fueled by aluminum dust which had accumulated in the plant. That same year, chemical dust-fueled explosions at CTA Acoustics in Corbin, Kentucky and at West Pharmaceuticals in Kinston, NC took the lives of 13 workers and injured dozens of others. The death toll from these workplace disasters compelled…
sb admin | October 19, 2007Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao announced that workplace injury and illness rates for 2006 were the "lowest ever recorded" and noted it was the fourth consecutive year of a rate decline for private sector employers.
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, showing the lowest rates since the Labor Department began collecting data in 1972, confirms that OSHA's consistent emphasis on prevention is paying off with lower on-the-job injuries and illnesses. This report encourages us to continue our balanced strategy of fair and effective enforcement..."
Before we allow the Bush Administration…
sb admin | October 18, 2007The demand for coal is going through the roof. Do giant U.S. energy companies really need a handout?
Apparently, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opporunity thinks so. Yesterday, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich announced the awarding of millions of dollars in economic development aid to some of the biggest coal mining companies in the country.Â
Illinois is subsidizing the coal mining activities of Murray Energy (owner of the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah), Peabody Energy (self-proclaimed "world's largest private-sector coal company"), Wilbur Ross' International Coal…
sb admin | October 17, 2007Gold mining is in the news this week after a makeshift gold mine in Colombia collapsed and killed 22. The dead were mostly women, many of them single mothers digging for a few grams of gold that would allow them to feed their families. The Guardianâs Rory Carroll explains, âAn informal agreement with the site's owner allowed them to try their luck over the weekends when the company's earth-movers were inactive.â
In South Africa, The Cape Argus reports, hundreds of laborers mining illegally put themselves at serious risk and also endanger official workers, because their haphazard digging…
sb admin | October 16, 2007Just before the House passed legislation last month requiring OSHA to regulate diacetyl, OSHAâs press office went into high gear, announcing the agency was getting to work on just that issue. Two days before the vote, OSHA announced it was initiating rulemaking under section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In other words, it was finally going to start the process of issuing a standard to protect workers exposed to hazardous flavor chemicals. As part of that process, it announced a stakeholder meeting, scheduled for October 17, 2007. (I'll be attending the meeting, and have…
sb admin | October 15, 2007After reviewing previously undisclosed documents*, the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward writes how a group of notable occupational health scientists and epidemiologists felt DuPont misrepresented the scientific evidence to-date about the health risks associated with PFOA (ammonium perfluorooctanoate, a.k.a. C8).  Ward writes about concerns expressed in private email exchanges among scientists on the firm's Epidemiology Review Board (ERB), an independent and external committee, when DuPont made a big public announcement (and to its employees at the Washington Works plant (near…
sb admin | October 12, 2007The United Kingdom's Department of Health announced last week that it was providing an additional £97 million ($198 million US) to its National Health Service for programs to protect healthcare workers from violence and abuse. The Health Secretary noted:
"Over 58,000 NHS staff were physically assaulted by patients and relatives in England in 2005-06. This is completely unacceptable. NHS staff working alone and in the community are particularly at risk.  NHS staff dedicate their lives to caring for the sick and in return they deserve respect. Anybody who abuses our staff must face…
sb admin | October 10, 2007Why do people assault those who are trying to help them (or their family members)? Alcohol, drugs, and dementia are among the causes, and the result is that health care workers and social workers face a high risk of on-the-job injury. The Edmonton Journal reports that nearly 20 percent of the Workers Compensation Board of Alberta claims are for violence aimed at health care workers (thanks to Tasha for the link). At The Doctorâs Office online WSJ column, Dr. Benjamin Brewer reports that a study at a large Florida hospital found 74% of the nurses reported being physically assaulted during…
sb admin | October 9, 2007Are the political appointees who run OSHA delusional or merely mendacious? In her column in todayâs Washington Post, Cindy Skrzycki reviews the efforts by members of Congress to require OSHA to issue standards protecting workers from diacetyl, the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes irreversible lung disease. One statement jumped out:
"I would characterize us as proactive," said Jonathan Snare, acting solicitor at the Labor Department, which oversees OSHA.
The facts show this is simply false. The statement is so ludicrous that it should be an embarrassment even to the political…
sb admin | October 8, 2007Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups of 134 workplace deaths, including the following:
Fernando Jimenez Gonzalez, 18, drowned in a vat of sulfuric acid at the Redwood City, California circuit board manufacturing facility where he worked; he is believed to have fallen into the vat after having been overcome by fumes.
Morris W. Moore, an 80-year-old farmer from Humboldt, Tennessee, died from injuries sustained when a tractor fell on him.
Dianne Freeman-Green, 47, was shot during an attempted…
sb admin | October 8, 2007At the request of the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (which is part of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health), an Institute of Medicine committee studied personal protective equipment that healthcare workers would need in the event of an influenza pandemic. They conclude that we're not adequately prepared. But they have some ideas about how to remedy that.
There are 13 million healthcare workers in the U.S. who will need protection if a pandemic strikes. Personal protective equipment, or PPE, is designed to protect the wearer from exposure to hazardous…
sb admin | October 7, 2007Carolynn Dejaynes had visited the tunnel at the Xcel Energy's Cabin Creek hydro-electric plant the day before it claimed her husband's life and that of four other employees of Robison-Prezioso Inc. (RPI). Mrs. Dejaynes says:
"It shouldn't have happened. There were things that could have been done to prevent it."
According to Kirk Mitchell of The Denver Post (here) the new widow has talked with some of the men who survived the tunnel fire and
"wants to know exactly what happened to her husband, in part because he took her to see the tunnel the day before the fire and told her it was…
sb admin | October 5, 2007MSHA announces '100 percent' plan
From The Onion? No. MSHA (seriously) just announced "a new initiative to complete 100 percent of mandated regular inspections of all coal mines in the country." Huh? A "new initiative" to do something that you are already required by statute to do?
Perhaps the Secretary of Labor Chao and Asst. Secretary Richard Stickler are a little irked at Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette for publishing a number of stories in recent weeks, documenting that MSHA has failed to conduct its required inspections. Two of the stories (here and here) followed accidents…