regulation
kkrisberg | July 28, 2015Thousands of foreign workers in the U.S. — workers here legally through a visa program that allows employers to import workers from abroad — are abused, imprisoned and exploited. And the government does little to stop it, according to an investigation by BuzzFeed News. Reporters Jessica Garrison and Ken Besinger and data editor Jeremy Singer-Vine began their investigation with the story of Marisela Valdez and Isy Gonzalez, two H-2 visa workers who peeled crawfish at L.T. West Inc. in Louisiana, where they say their employer took away their passports, sexually harassed them, forced them to…
cmonforton | July 27, 2015[Updated below (8/3/15)]
The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.
For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship in Beckley’s Register-Herald written two years ago profiled Dr. Rasmussen’s career.
“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in…
cmonforton | July 23, 2015[Updated 7/24/15 below]
I heard very troubling remarks yesterday from a member of the Chemical Safety Board. Mr. Manny Ehrlich said that he has a “fundamental philosophical disagreement” with the staff about making recommendations for new safety regulations. Mr. Ehrlich accepted a job and was confirmed by the Senate to make recommendations to prevent catastrophic chemical incidents. Now he tells us that he is taking an entire category of fixes off the table?
The Chemical Safety Board is modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). I know I’d be concerned if I heard members…
kkrisberg | July 21, 2015Because there can never be enough research to illustrate the positive impact of public health policy on people’s health, here’s another one. This one found that comprehensive smoke-free indoor air laws resulted in a lower risk of asthma symptoms and fewer asthma-related doctor’s visits.
Based on 2007–2011 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, researchers set out to evaluate whether comprehensive statewide indoor smoking bans are effective in reducing secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmoking U.S. adults. (Comprehensive smoking bans are defined as eliminating smoking in…
kkrisberg | July 17, 2015Every day in the U.S., more than 40 people die after overdosing on prescription painkillers. Deaths from a more notorious form of opiates — heroin — increased five-fold between 2001 and 2013. Addressing this problem — one that’s often described as a public health crisis — requires action on many fronts, from preventing abuse in the first place to getting those addicted into treatment. But when it comes to overdoses, there’s one answer we know works: naloxone.
Naloxone is a safe prescription medicine that’s highly effective in reversing an otherwise deadly opioid overdose. Typically, emergency…
cmonforton | July 16, 2015Jason Strycharz’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of federal OSHA in the agency's citations against his employer Kloeckner Metals. The 40 year-old was working in January 2015 at the company’s warehouse in Middletown, CT. The initial press reports indicated that Strycharz was struck by a piece of steel swinging from a crane. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
OSHA inspectors conducted an inspection at the facility following Jason Strycharz’s death. The agency recently issued a citation to the firm. The agency…
cmonforton | July 15, 2015The safety consulting firm, Compliance Professionals, Inc. needs to revise its website. The firm boasts of its skill at developing workplace safety policies and manuals, and its ability to help a company deal with an OSHA inspection.
“OSHA just showed up...” they tease. We can make "this go away for less cost than a part-time, minimum wage file clerk.” Big bold letters on its website say:
We’ve NEVER had an existing client successfully sued or fined…and we don’t intend on starting with you!
That’s the part they need to revise---about never being fined.
A federal judge fined both Compliance…
kkrisberg | July 14, 2015At The Nation, leaders in the domestic workers movement write about what’s next in their efforts to improve conditions for the thousands who work in people’s homes, often with no rights or recourse.
Authored by Ai-jen Poo and Andrea Cristina Mercado, both with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the article chronicles the “legacy of exclusion” that domestic workers have experienced, such as their exemption from federal labor protections, as well as the day-to-day conditions they often face in people’s homes — conditions that can result in serious and long-term injuries. The authors write…
cmonforton | July 9, 2015Gerald Lyle Thompson, 51, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, June 30, 2015 while working in Lakeville, Minnesota for DSM Excavating.
KSTP reports:
His employer, DSM Excavating was hired by Ryland Homes for the excavation project. The trench in which Thompson was working caved in on him.
The Star-Tribune reports:
Thompson and his brother were “installing drain tile on the perimeter of a lot…when the trench collapsed ...”
The trench was 6 to 8 feet deep and Thompson was trapped at the bottom of it when the soil collapsed onto him.
The Dakota County Special Operations team recovered…
kkrisberg | July 7, 2015Recycling our garbage is good for the planet, but a new report finds that the workers who process our recyclable materials often face dangerous and unnecessary conditions that put their health and safety at serious risk.
Released in late June, “Sustainable and Safe Recycling: Protecting Workers Who Protect the Planet” chronicles the many hazards that recycling workers encounter on the job as well as ways the recycling industry and local officials can collaborate to improve and ensure worker safety. The report — a collaboration between the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, the…
cmonforton | July 3, 2015The work-related death of drill rig operator Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, did not result in any OSHA citations against his employer Complete Energy Services dba Mercer Well Services. I wrote about Rodriguez’s death on-the-job shortly after it was reported by local press.
The incident occurred on September 10, 2014 at an XTO Energy (ExxonMobil) well near Mannsville, OK. OSHA commenced its investigation on September 11 and closed the case on April 9, 2015. This is the only information on OSHA’s website about the fatality involving Ernesto Rodriguez. To find out more, I sent a FOIA request to the…
kkrisberg | June 30, 2015This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than 2 million workers and that OSHA has been struggling to regulate for 40 years. The bricklayer, Chris Johnson, is just 40 years old and can expect to survive less than five years. Reporters Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maryam Jameel write:
An 18-month investigation by the Center for Public…
cmonforton | June 22, 2015Will calls for humanely-treated poultry workers supersede commentaries (e.g., here, here) about mistreatment of chickens?
OSHA’s action last week may help us move in that direction. The agency issued penalties to a Delaware poultry processing facility for serious safety hazards. Allen Harim Foods received citations for two harmful working conditions that I've heard poultry workers complain about most strongly: The fast-paced repetitive motion of cutting chicken parts which cripples their hands, and restrictions on using the bathroom which strains (and worse) their bladders.
The…
kkrisberg | June 16, 2015A recent agreement between striking farmworkers and big agribusiness in Baja California could be the “most significant achievement by a farm labor movement in recent Mexican history,” reports Richard Marosi in the Los Angeles Times.
Among the settlement details, daily wages for workers will go up by as much as 50 percent and workers will receive the required government benefits often denied by their employers. Marosi reports:
“This is a watershed moment,” said Sara Lara, a farm labor researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In decades of studying farm issues, Lara said she…
cmonforton | June 15, 2015Richard Johnson’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH) in the agency’s citations against his employer, Southwest Fabrication. The 31 year-old was working in January 2015 at the company’s facility in Phoenix, Arizona. The initial press reports indicated that his clothes got entangled in a metal fabrication machine. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
Inspectors with ADOSH conducted an inspection at the facility following the fatal incident. The agency…
kkrisberg | June 12, 2015The science on the health effects of fracking is still very much emerging. Oftentimes, the growing body of research can’t make a conclusive link between the drilling technique and negative health impacts, but it certainly makes the case that more research is needed. Earlier this month, another study joined the pack.
Published June 3 in the journal PLOS ONE, the study found that women who lived closer to a high density of fracking activity were more likely to have babies with lower birth weights than women living farther away from such drilling activity. The study is the first of its kind to…
cmonforton | June 11, 2015John Dunnivant’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of federal OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Kia Motors. The 57-year old was working in October 2014 at the company’s plant in West Point, Georgia. The initial press reports indicated that Dunnivant was crushed by a stamping machine in the steel-press section of the facility. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
Inspectors with federal OSHA conducted an inspection at the facility following the fatal incident. The agency recently issued citations…
lborkowski | June 9, 2015By Dan Neal
Ensuring that U.S. workers return home from work healthy and in one piece requires pushing OSHA and other agencies to do more at the state and national levels to improve standards and aggressively enforce them. Meanwhile, health and safety advocates and workers must speak out loudly for worker rights, especially to protect workers who simply report safety problems at their jobs and to protect whistleblowers who reveal criminal behavior.
Those points were discussed last week in Baltimore at the 2015 National Conference on Worker Safety and Health. More than 280 workplace safety and…
kkrisberg | June 5, 2015Back in 1970 when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was established, local policymakers could choose whether or not to extend OSHA protections to state employees. Unfortunately, Massachusetts took a pass. But decades later — and after years of advocacy, organizing and research on the part of worker advocates — employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can now look forward to safer and healthier workplaces.
In June 2014, then-Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation that expanded OSHA protections to executive branch employees — that’s more than 150,000…
cmonforton | May 29, 2015The Labor Department released last week its semi-annual regulatory agenda and it’s full of disappointment for those expecting new worker safety regulations from the Obama Administration. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) doesn't expect to publish a proposed rule to protect mine workers from respirable silica until April 2016. Six months ago, the agency suggested the proposal was imminent. OSHA doesn't expect to convene a panel of small businesses to review a draft proposed rule to address combustible dust until February 2016. A year ago the agency said it would be ready for…