Occupational Health & Safety
sb admin | April 11, 2007If you only read one article on the issue of occupational health and safety this week, make it Ray Ring's "Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields," published last week in High Country News. "The core of the story can be classified as straightforward investigative coup," editor John Mecklin explains in an accompanying piece . "In six months of amassing documents, scouring lawsuits and prodding databases, Ring was able to map out the general scope of a little-noticed reality: Since the start of the second Bush presidency, as skyrocketing energy prices drove a wild increase in oil and…
sb admin | April 9, 2007In continuation of the tradition begun at Jordan Barabâs Confined Space blog, Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. (It was posted on April 1; my apologies for not linking to it sooner.) It gives short writeups on 59 workplace deaths, including the following:
Daniel Contreras, a 32-year-old construction worker from Oxnard, California, died when the trench he was working in collapsed.
Jeffrey Lowenthal, 53, was fatally shot during a robbery in the Maywood, Illinois hardware store he managed.
Anthony Shands, a 72-year-old…
sb admin | April 4, 2007This week, health advocates are drawing attention to some important safety hazards.
The Senate just passed a resolution proclaiming the first week in April National Asbestos Awarenss Week and urging the Surgeon General, as a public health issue, to warn and educate people that asbestos exposure may be hazardous to their health. Meanwhile, EPA released a new pamphlet educating mechanics about how to minimize their asbestos exposure (many cars' brake systems contain asbestos), and the Minnesota Health Department announced that it will study whether an unexpected number of mesothelioma…
sb admin | March 30, 2007By David Michaels
Every month, more workers exposed to artificial butter flavor are being diagnosed with lung disease. Last July, two unions, with the help of the Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy Project, petitioned OSHA for an Emergency Temporary Standards to protect workers from exposure to diacetyl, a flavoring chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating and sometimes fatal lung disease.
Nine months have passed, several workers have died, and, as far as I can tell, OSHA has done NOTHING. This continues to be a case study in regulatory failure.
Meanwhile, things are…
sb admin | March 29, 2007The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced a record $1.5 million penalty against Massey Energy Company for violations related to the January 19, 2006 deaths of Ellery Hatfield, 46 and Don Bragg, 33 at the Aracoma Alma #1 Mine in Stollings, WV. The investigators, led by MSHA district manager Kenny Murray of Pikeville, KY, found more than two dozen violations of MSHA standards. Twenty-one of the 25 violations were classified as "reckless disregard," the most severe category of negligence under MSHA's penalty structure. In a prepared statement, the company said…
sb admin | March 28, 2007Hearings, proposed legislation, and lawsuits have followed the the Chemical Safety Board's release of its 2005 Texas City refinery blast report, which faulted BP's broken safety culture and criticized OSHA for lax inspections and enforcement:
Houston Chronicle: At a House of Representatives hearing on the disaster, lawmakers blasted OSHA for its lax enforcement of safety rules.
AP: OSHA announced that it will nearly double the number of workers trained to perform the advanced inspections called for in the CSB report.
Houston Chronicle: On the anniversary of the blast, families of the 15…
sb admin | March 27, 2007By Eula BinghamÂ
It was 30 years ago this month that I was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.  I vividly remember my visits to Capitol Hill and the questions of lawmakers regarding my vision for worker health and safety. Perhaps it was because I had been a teacher for 20 years; or had accompanied members of the United Auto Workers to Sweden to witness first-hand a model worker training program; or perhaps it was the influence of Selikoff, Mazzocchi and Samuels (who all knew the value of providing workers with information) that caused me to…
sb admin | March 23, 2007By David Michaels
It seems to happen almost by instinct. When a worker dies in a workplace accident, the employer responds by expressing sadness but making it clear it was the worker's own damn fault (and the employer is faultless, of course). The management of BP initially blamed worker mistakes for the Texas City refinery blast that killed 15 and injured 170 workers. (Numerous investigations have proved that to be incorrect, of course.)
Hereâs the latest example: On March 6th, At a Oklahoma City commercial laundry run by Cintas, the national laundry company, Eleazar Torres-Gomez, was killed…
sb admin | March 21, 2007The death toll from the tragic mine disaster in Siberia has reached 107, the Associated Press reports today. About 200 mineworkers were underground when a methane gas explosion occurred nearly 900 feet below the surface. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared today a national day of mourning for the victims of this disaster and a deadly nursing home fire that claimed 62 lives in the city of Kamyshevatskaya.
Houston Chronicle: At a hearing last night, residents and refinery workers praised the Chemical Safety Board's report on the deadly explosion at BP's Texas City refinery; the…
sb admin | March 20, 2007By David Michaels
The Chemical Safety Board isnât pulling its punches. Its report on the March 2005 BP refinery explosion which killed 15 workers is scathing in its criticism of BP, concluding that âorganizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporationâ caused the explosion.
More surprisingly, CSB also went after OSHA for falling down on the job. OSHA, according to the CSB didnât have enough trained inspectors, didnât make enough inspections, and didnât bother enforcing the Process Safety Management (PSM) standard aimed at preventing explosions of this sort:
only 0.2% of…
sb admin | March 20, 2007By David Michaels
The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is holding a public meeting tonight in Texas City, Texas, to release the final report of its investigation into the explosion at the BP refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170 more in March, 2005. Thursday, the House Education and Labor Committee will be holding a hearing on the disaster.
Both these events will focus on ways to prevent more explosions in the future. There are many lessons to be learned from the explosion, but its clear to me that the one lesson managers of other firms will take home from the BP disaster is that…
sb admin | March 19, 2007More than 14,000 workplaces received unwelcome letters in the mail last week from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The agency used data from a survey of 80,000 workplaces to identify those sites with injury rates that were more than twice the national average, and notified them with a personal letter.  Recipients of the OSHA letter include: Loweâs, Home Depot, United Parcel Service, Wal-Mart, Harley-Davidson, and two Jelly Belly candy factories, with the highest percentage of letters (23 percent) sent to residential nursing care facilities.Â
More than 3…
sb admin | March 19, 2007In continuation of the tradition begun at Jordan Barabâs Confined Space blog, Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups on 73 workplace deaths, including the following:
Alejandro Gonzalez, 25, who was working on hurricane-damaged homes in New Orleans and was killed when a home being raised and shifted fell and trapped him beneath it.
Tom Kreinbrink, 64, a farmer in Leipsic, Ohio who was pulled into a grain auger when his pant leg got caught in the machine.
Jacquelynn Devney, 18, who was struck by a…
sb admin | March 16, 2007Hotel workers in Boston voted 1,013 to 27 to authorize a boycott and strike at the Sheraton Boston, Boston Park Plaza, Westin Waterfront Hotel, and Westin Copley Place.  The housekeepers, bellmen and other hotel workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 26 and they've been in talks with Starwood Hotels since last November to negotiate a new contract. Key issues in dispute are annual wage increases, a pension plan, and workload, which currently requires housekeepers to clean 16 rooms per shift. (See here and here for more on hazards for housekeepers.) Â
sb admin | March 15, 2007Congressman George Miller, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, will hold on hearing on March 22 on the explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, TX which killed 15 workers and injured 180 others.Â
"The BP-Texas City Disaster and Worker Safety"Â hearing will feature testimony from:
Eva Rowe, 22, who lost both of her parents in the disaster
Carolyn W. Merrit, chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board
Kim Nibarger, safety specialists, United Steelworkers
Admiral Frank Bowman, member, BP Refineries Independent Review Panel
Two days before the hearing, the U.S. Chemical Safety…
sb admin | March 15, 2007Diacetyl is a commonly used food additive made to give a buttery flavor to breads, cookies, candy and other goods. For decades, the chemical has been classified as "GRAS" (generally recognized as safe) by the US Food and Drug Administration. But for workers exposed to the chemical in food production factories, there is compelling scientific evidence that exposure to diacetyl is associated with a range of respiratory conditions, including the bronchiolitis obliterans.
The most publicized cases of this occupational illness have been among workers in microwave popcorn packing plants. (SKAPP…
sb admin | March 14, 2007The United Mineworkers of America (UMWA) will be issuing tomorrow (March 15) a report on the January 2006 Sago Mine disaster. West Virginia Senators Byrd and Rockefeller are expected to join UMWA President Cecil Roberts in the Senate Dirksen Building at 11:00 am (EST) for a news conference releasing the report. The UMWA will likely offer their own theory for the cause of the explosion.
Based on previous statements and testimony offered by UMWA officials, I expect the union to reject the theory that the explosion was related to a lightning strike.  Instead, they will probably …
sb admin | March 14, 2007Kristin Collins of The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) reports that some produce growers in North Carolina aren no longer content with the Mexican farmworkers who come to the the U.S. on temporary visas. Some of these workers have unionized and begun demanding better wages and work schedules. So, when a labor contracting company began offering "workers so indebted that they would abide almost any working conditions," some companies took them up on the offer. The workers came from Thailand and other South Asian countries, and some of them are now suing the labor contractor for stealing…
sb admin | March 12, 2007Several months ago, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao published the Departmentâs regulatory agenda. This document lists all of the regulations the Department âexpects to have under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review during the coming 1-year period.â The notice published in the December 12, 2006 Federal Register (71 FR 73539) stated that the âagencies have carefully assessed their available resourcesâ and the agenda reflects âwhat they can accomplish in the next 12 months.âÂ
Does this mean that OSHA's list is more realistic than previous year's agendas? If so, the…
sb admin | March 8, 2007by Les Boden
For the past several years, Nevada employers and insurers could avoid paying workersâ compensation benefits to workers who had positive drug tests. According to an article in Occupational Hazards, this led to the denial of 10%-12% of claims filed in Nevada. But thereâs a loophole that the Nevada legislature is considering closing. Workers have the right to refuse drug testing. The Insurance Journal reports that proposed legislation would require all injured workers to submit to drug tests if they apply for workersâ compensation.
What a good idea!
No matter that Ken Rosenman and…