Occupational health
egrossman | December 14, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Charles Levenstein and Dominick Tuminaro
[In press, International Union Rights journal, volume 17(4), due out 20 December; posted with permission]
There is an important intersection between the movements for international trade union rights and worker health and safety. Both recognize that core trade union rights are also human rights.
On April 2, 2010, Ji-Yeon Park, a 23 year old former worker at a Samsung factory in South Korea, was buried, the victim of a blood cancer…
lborkowski | November 24, 2010The most prominent occupational health news this week is the tragic deaths of 29 workers from New Zealand's Pike River coal mine. Celeste has already written about this, so I'll just add my encourgement to visit the New Zealand Herald's photos and short profiles of the 29 miners:
Conrad Adams, Malcolm Campbell, Glen Cruse, Allan Dixon, Zen Drew, Christopher Duggan, Joseph Dunbar, John Hale, Daniel Herk, David Hoggart, Richard Holling, Andrew Hurren, Koos Jonker, William Joynson, Riki Keane, Terry Kitchin, Francis Marden, Samuel Mackie, Michael Monk, Stuart Mudge, Kane Nieper, Peter O'Neill,…
egrossman | November 23, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
At this year's American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting that took place in Denver November 7-11, the APHA's Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety sections proposed new policy statements that recommend proactive strategies for preventing illness and injury by reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals and through design that promotes workplace safety. All five policy statements presented at public hearings on November 7 have now been approved. Two additional policy proposals - one that addresses the public health impact of U.S immigration policy…
lborkowski | November 18, 2010Last week at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Denver, APHA's Occupational Health and Safety section held its awards luncheon - always one of the highlights of the meeting thanks to its combination of stellar awardees and creative musical skit. This year's award winners won well-deserved recognition for the many ways in which they advance occupational health and safety.
Sherry Baron won the 2010 Alice Hamilton Award, which "recognizes the life-long contributions of individuals who have distinguished themselves through a career of hard work and dedication to improve…
egrossman | November 16, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
"We Trust You," says the sign over the entrance to a factory in the Pratama Abadi manufacturing complex that produces Nike footwear in Tangerang, Indonesia, a city of 1.4 million about 12 miles west of Jakarta. Just inside "Factory 1" hangs an enormous banner that reads (in English) "Craftsmanship - No Quality, No Work." It pictures an older man kneeling as he works with a hand tool. Below him, in Indonesian, is the phrase, "There is no work without quality." An image of Winged Victory - the original Nike - hovers above.
The first impressions upon entering Factory 1, a…
lborkowski | November 9, 2010This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, which was passed in response to the problem of healthcare workers being exposed to bloodborne pathogens (HIV, hepatitis, etc.) via sharps injuries. The Act directed OSHA to modify its existing bloodborne pathogen standard to require that employers update their exposure control plans to reflect advances in technology (e.g., needleless systems and sharps with injury protection); maintain sharps injury logs; and solicit input from non-managerial employees potentially exposed to contaminated sharps. (View the…
lborkowski | November 1, 2010Because electronics contain hazardous materials like lead and cadmium, workers who recycle e-waste need to be protected from harmful exposures. All too often, we hear of children in developing countries breaking down old computers with little or no protection. Here in the US, concerns also exist about the health and safety of prison employees and inmate laborers involved with recycling operations. Myron Levin reported for Fair Warning on October 6 that inmates at some federal facilities were demanding hazardous duty pay from Federal Prison Industries (also known as Unicor), a for-profit,…
egrossman | October 29, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
Batam, one of Indonesia's Riau Islands, sits across the smog-choked strait from Singapore, just one degree north of the equator. On October 21 and 22, the days that I'm there, newspaper headlines announce that Singapore is experiencing its worst air pollution since 2006 due to fires, most likely from illegal forest clearing in Sumatra. From a high point above the harbor where we go to see the view, the ship traffic below is mostly obscured by gray haze. A tourist brochure extols the island's natural features, but what's most evident is rampant development. Enormous gaudy…
lborkowski | October 27, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
I'm on my way home from Indonesia, where I spent part of the past week attending the annual meeting of the Asian Network for Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV), an organization that brings together NGOs working on occupational health, safety, and labor issues all across Asia. The meeting was held in Bandung, in West Java -- the most densely populated part of Indonesia -- about a three-hour drive (or six, depending on traffic) east from Jakarta. When, thanks to North American jetlag, I woke before dawn as the day's first motorcycles began to zip along the palm-lined…
lborkowski | October 25, 2010The "Brazilian Blowout" is a popular treatment administered by salons to smooth their clients' hair. The Oregonian's Katy Muldoon explores the experience of one hairstylist who worried about the effects of the chemicals contained in the treatment.
After a few months of administering Brazilian Blowouts, Portland hairstylist Molly Scrutton began experiencing throat and chest pain. When she and salon owner Pauline Steiner called the treatment's distributor, the company refused to tell them what the ingredients were -- so Scrutton decided to stop offering the service. She wrote a memo to her…
lborkowski | October 20, 2010After last week's triumphant rescue of 33 miners from Chile's San José mine, attention has turned to mine safety in Chile and worldwide.
The Associated Press reports that President Sebastian Piñera fired the top regulators from Chile's mine safety agency and promised to triple its budget. In the weeks following the San José collapse, at least 18 small mines were shut down for safety violations. Piñera has promised that in the coming days he'll unveil a proposal for more effectively protecting Chilean workers, and a commission is investigating the San José disaster and will recommend…
lborkowski | October 13, 2010All 33 of the miners who were trapped in Chile's San José mine have been safely lifted to the surface, as have the six rescuers who descended into the mine during the operation. Shift supervisor Luis Urzua was the last miner lifted to safety in the specially designed capsule that traversed the more than 2,000 feet between the miners' refuge and the surface.
The miners' survival for 69 days underground and their triumphant rescue is a story of fortitude, ingenuity, and teamwork. Chileans have much to be proud of and celebrate today. Audiences around the world have been watching the rescue…
lborkowski | October 6, 2010After 29 miners were killed by an explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine on April 5, the Mine Safety and Health Administration stepped up inspections at 89 coal mines that had poor safety records. Even so, nine workers have been killed working inside mines, and another four using machinery near mine entrances, in the six months since that disaster. The Washington Post's David Farhrenthold and Kimberly Kindy describe several of the mineworkers' deaths and explore reasons why increased enforcement hasn't translated into safer mines:
Trying to explain why repeated federal citations…
lborkowski | October 4, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Madeline Kangsen Scammell
The following poem was written by Genevieve K. Howe, MPH, a former student and colleague of Professor Richard W. Clapp, DSc, MPH, to honor him upon his retirement from the faculty of the Boston University School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Health. Dr. Clapp is a world-renowned cancer epidemiologist. The following poem addresses only one of the countless issues he has worked on.
The poem refers to the struggles of IBM electronics…
lborkowski | September 29, 2010Becoming a mayor or a journalist might not seem like a particularly life-threatening career choice, but in parts of Mexico wracked by drug violence these have become dangerous jobs. Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers reports:
As if Mexicans needed more evidence that criminal groups are trying to hijack the political life of the nation, it came with a ferocious triple-whammy punch in the past 24 hours.
Assailants shot and seriously wounded the mayor-elect of a town in the border state of Chihuahua Friday afternoon, less than a day after commandos in Nuevo Leon state executed a sitting mayor…
lborkowski | September 22, 201044-year-old Iraq veteran Tim Wymore suffers from brain lesions, a blood disorder, and other health problems that leave him unable to walk unassisted. His wife, Shanna, quit her job to be his full-time caregiver. Wymore is one of several hundred veterans who've fired lawsuits related to exposure to open-air burn pits at US miliatry installations. Yet he's struggling to get benefits for himself and his family. Phillip O'Connor reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledges that Wymore's health problems are war-related.
But the VA believes his condition…
lborkowski | September 10, 2010Another oil platform caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, but this time the crew - 13 workers - was able to escape, and no injuries were reported. No oil spill was detected, either. The Mariner Energy platform was involved in both oil and natural gas production.
A Washington Post article on the fire notes that last year there were 133 fires or explosions on oil rigs in the Gulf. We're just paying attention to them this year because of the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster.
In other news:
Washington Post: Luis Uriza was the shift foreman in the San Jose mine in Copiapó, Chile when a mine collapse…
egrossman | September 8, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
"What kind of uproar do you think there would be if CEOs were dying at the same rate as workers, whatever the data?" asked Steve Mitchell UAW Local 974 Health & Safety Representative, just before Labor Day in an online discussion about current U.S. occupational health and safety statistics.
As David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Labor for Safety and Health, pointed out in his July 19th letter to colleagues marking the 40th anniversary of OSHA, "Fourteen workers die on the job each day, far from the headlines... [and] Every year, more than four million workers are…
lborkowski | August 31, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Anne Fischel and Lin Nelson
We write to you as teachers and researchers concerned about the environmental and occupational health hazards impacting communities living and working in mining sites across North America and the world.
Through our project, "No Borders: Communities Living and Working with Asarco," we have spent the last 5 years looking at those affected by and affecting the work of the Asarco corporation, one of the oldest and largest mining, smelting and…
lborkowski | August 26, 2010Last week, a jury in Chicago awarded $30.4 million to chemical-flavoring plant worker Gerardo Solis, 45, who suffers from the disabling lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans. Solis had worked at the Flavorchem Corp plant from 1998 to 2006 and was exposed to the butter-flavoring chemical diacetyl, which is associated with severe respiratory illnesses. Solis's attorney, Ken McClain, told the jury that Solis is totally disabled, with 25% of normal lung capcity; he will likely need a lung transplant within the next 10 years. The jury awarded the verdict against diacetyl supplier BASF Corp. Jeff…