safety
kkrisberg | June 6, 2014Researcher Christopher Wildeman has spent his whole career describing and quantifying the more unpleasant parts of people’s lives and his latest study on the surprising prevalence of childhood maltreatment is no exception. Still, there is a bit of a silver lining, he told me.
“This is the sort of issue that both the right and left shouldn’t have a hard time supporting,” said Wildeman, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University. “It’s the sort of thing that once we become more aware of it, designing interventions that could diminish maltreatment rates is something anyone can get…
cmonforton | June 5, 2014I’m not sure why I’m compelled to write each time the Labor Department releases its Spring and Fall agenda on worker safety regulations. The first time I did so was December 2006 and I’ve commented on all but one of the subsequent 14 agendas. But the ritual is largely disappointing.
On its regulatory agenda, OSHA will indicate its intention to make progress on a proposed or final worker safety rules. It will provide target dates to complete key tasks for each of those rules. But for the majority of the regulatory topics, by the time the next regulatory agenda rolls around six or more months…
egrossman | June 4, 2014Where you live may be hazardous to your health. This is the conclusion of several recent reports and studies, among them a supplement to the most recent examination of health disparities by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and an analysis by the Environmental Justice and Health Alliance for Chemical Reform of those who live in communities most vulnerable to hazardous chemical exposures. Together the two paint a disturbing picture of how the neighborhoods in which Americans live and work play a significant role in determining their residents' health. There should be no…
kkrisberg | June 3, 2014Coal miner turned whistleblower Justin Greenwell is at the center of a Huffington Post article investigating how the mining industry cheats the worker safety system. Greenwell, who’s now in a legal battle to get back his mining job with Armstrong Coal, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Armstrong Energy, tipped off federal mine inspectors that the company was submitting misleading coal dust samples to regulators. The samples are used to determine whether a mine is in compliance with safety and health standards designed to protect miners from black lung disease. According to a 2008 posting from…
kkrisberg | May 30, 2014The heath effects of occupational solvent exposure don’t always fade with time. A new study has found that years — sometimes even decades — down the road from their last workplace exposure, some workers are still experiencing very real cognitive impairments.
“Cognitive problems are pretty common at older ages and even though they are really common, we don’t know much about what causes them or how to prevent them,” said study co-author Erika Sabbath, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health. “There’s a large body of evidence that solvents are this group of occupational chemicals…
cmonforton | May 28, 2014[Update 9/4/14 and 11/20/14 below ]
Juan Carlos Reyes, 35, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Saturday, May 24 while working at a construction site located in Harlingen, Texas. News reports indicate:
A Marriott Hotel is being built at the site.
Reyes was on a [boom] lift moving supplies into a fourth floor window. Reyes fell to his death.
The general contractor of the hotel is Houston-based Matrix Builders.
The firm’s profile lists more than a dozen completed hotel construction projects in southeast Texas, including Comfort Inns, La Quinta Inns, Comfort Inn and Suites, and Candlewood…
kkrisberg | May 20, 2014The Pump Handle’s own Celeste Monforton was quoted in an investigative piece on the tank cleaning industry and the dangerously toxic environments that its workers face. In an investigative article in the Houston Chronicle, reporter Ingrid Lobet found that even though industry workers are coming into contact with extremely toxic and often combustible chemicals, the methods that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uses to track tank and barge cleaning operations is woefully deficient.
Lobet begins her story with the life and death of David Godines, a Houston tank cleaner found…
cmonforton | May 19, 2014
“I got a headache before. It was horrible. It felt like there was something in my head trying to eat it.”
Those are the words of a 12 year-old boy who works in the tobacco fields of eastern North Carolina. His words are just one of many from other young seasonal workers who work on U.S. tobacco farms in KY, NC, TN, and VA. Their experiences are catalogued in Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) "Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming.” The report was released last week.
Credit: Human Rights Watch
The 139-page report was also the subject of editorials appearing on…
kkrisberg | May 16, 2014Two years ago, domestic workers in Houston, Texas, took part in the first national survey documenting the conditions they face on the job. The experience — a process of shedding light on the often isolating and invisible world of domestic work — was so moving that Houston workers decided they didn’t want to stop there. Instead, they decided it was time to put their personal stories to paper.
The result is “We Women, One Woman!: A view of the lived experience of domestic workers,” which was officially released last month. The anthology features the stories of 15 nannies, house cleaners and…
egrossman | May 14, 2014In 2012, the most recent year for which US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures are available, 375 people died on the job in California – an average occupational fatality rate of more than one person every day. At the same time, research by Worksafe and other California labor advocates shows that while California’s workforce has grown by about 22 percent in the last 20 years, the number of safety inspectors for the 17 million people employed in the state’s 1.34 million workplaces has decreased by about 11 percent. This leaves California – which has the largest workforce of any US state…
cmonforton | May 13, 2014[Update below]
Ricardo Ramos, 49 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Saturday May 10 while working at a meat processing plant located near Zeeland, Michigan. Garrett Ellison with MLive provides some initial information on Ramos’ death.
The facility is operated by Hillshire Brands. Workers there make Jimmy Dean sausage.
Ramos was working on the overnight shift. He was part of the crew that cleans and sanitizes the facility, including the equipment and conveyors. A co-worker said Ramos was pulled into a piece of machinery.
Ramos’ wife said her husband was working overtime to pay the household…
kkrisberg | May 9, 2014In New York, construction is the deadliest industry, with immigrant workers experiencing half of all occupational-related fatalities. Across the country in California in 2012, transportation incidents took the unenviable top spot as the leading cause of workplace fatalities. In Massachusetts in 2013, it’s estimated that upward of 500 workers died from occupational disease, at least 1,800 were diagnosed with cancers associated with workplace exposures and 50,000 workers experienced serious injury. In Wyoming, workplace deaths climbed to a five-year high in 2012, from 29 in 2011 to 35 in 2012.…
kkrisberg | May 6, 2014The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has garnered praise from the White House to the United Nations for its innovative strategies to improve working conditions among farmworkers in Florida. The program, which began in 2010, works by getting big buyers to agree to only purchase tomatoes from farms that adhere to worker protection rules and ensure that workers are educated on their rights and responsibilities. Businesses that have signed on include Taco Bell, Chipotle and, recently, Wal-Mart, which according to a New York Times article chronicling progress on Florida farms,…
kkrisberg | April 30, 2014Climbing the corporate ladder is usually associated with promotions, salary raises and executive offices. But for many workers, the common metaphor is part of a real-life job description with real-life risks.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on occupational ladder falls, finding that a fifth — or 20 percent — of all fall injuries among workers involve a ladder. Among construction workers, 81 percent of all fall injuries treated in an emergency department involved a ladder (overall, falls are a leading cause of death in construction). In 2011, CDC…
cmonforton | April 29, 2014“When workers get hurt in poultry plants, many employers try to just throw them away,” explained Tom Fritzsche a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). “Companies assume workers won’t stand up for themselves. We are proud to represent a group of brave workers who want to keep these dangerous conditions from harming even more people.”
Fritzsche’s comment came after SPLC filed a complaint last week with the Labor Department on behalf of nine poultry workers from Wayne Farms’ facility in Jack, Alabama. The complaint alleges the firm violated a slew of OSHA standards---from…
cmonforton | April 15, 2014I often find myself trying to reconcile a company’s description of its safety program with what I hear from workers. One worker I met summed it up this way:
“Yeah, we have safety talks, but a talk is where it ends. It’s all talk, not real action on safety problems.”
Two recent incidents brought his remark back to life for me. It started with a recent news release from OSHA. The agency announced a proposed penalty of $50,600 to Grede Wisconsin Subsidiaries LLC at the firm’s Browntown, Wisconsin iron foundry. Funny thing is, the firm was touting its safety record last month at OSHA’s public…
cmonforton | April 8, 2014The photos rolled across the screen. Photos of construction workers tuck-pointing the cement grout on a building, sawing brick, jack hammering a sidewalk, sanding drywall. Each photo, showing workers in clouds of dust, illustrated the multitude of ways they are exposed, and why they are at risk of silica-related diseases.
The scrolling photo exhibit was the backdrop for testimony provided by representatives of the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America (LHSFNA) on the final day of OSHA’s public hearing on its proposed silica regulation. The LHSFNA is a joint labor-management…
cmonforton | April 3, 2014You’d think the man responsible for the death of 29 coal miners would show remorse and not subject us to his opinions. Nope. That’s not what we should ever expect from Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy.
Four years ago this coming Saturday, April 5, will mark the 4th anniversary of the coal dust explosion that killed 29 workers at the Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine. Blankenship thinks it is appropriate to mark the anniversary with his propaganda. Blankenship hired Adroit Films of Chesapeake, VA to produce a documentary called “Upper Big Branch – Never Again.” It…
egrossman | March 31, 2014In a February 11th news bulletin, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) expressed concern “about the alarming increase in preventable injuries and fatalities at communication tower worksites,” and announced it was “increasing its focus on tower safety.” At that point, five weeks into 2014, cell tower work had caused four occupational fatalities for the year – the deaths of three cell tower workers and of one fire fighter. Now, just over a month later, three more cell tower workers have died on the job. On March 19th, a 21-year old from Maryland was killed while working…
kkrisberg | March 28, 2014This year’s County Health Rankings once again illustrate why geography and good health go hand-in-hand. They’re also a poignant reminder that there may be no better way to improve health for all than by focusing on the social determinants of health.
Released earlier this week, the 2014 County Health Rankings compare each state’s counties on 29 factors that impact health, from tobacco use to high school graduation rates to access to healthy food choices. In examining the differences between counties, the report found that the least healthy counties were home to twice the premature death rate,…