safety
sb admin | May 22, 2008For the third time in eight months, workers from the Getchell gold mine* near Winnemuca, NV have seen a co-worker killed on-the-job. First was Mr. Curtis L. Johnson, 36, a roof-bolter, who was killed on August 28, 2007, when part of the mine collapsed on him.  Next was Mike Millican, 43, who was killed on January 26, 2008 when a haulage truck backed over him. Then, Kenny Barbosa, 28, was killed on April 21, in another fall of ground. Thanks to the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Alan Maimon** for drawing my attention to these workers' deaths.  Sadly, and as usual, all of them were…
sb admin | May 20, 2008At a recent Senate hearing, former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) described the pressure he often felt, especially from lawyers inside and outside the agency, to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using âdiscount factorsâ to reduce monetary penalties. He recalled wondering, âWhat are we, a discount house?â  Reporter Andy Pierrotti with WSPA-TV (Spartanburg/Greenville, SC) has found exactly the same "discount house" mentality through his investigation of SC-OSHA. His story is entitled "Discounted Lives."
Pierrotti assembled record from…
sb admin | May 19, 2008A fair number of people have "Ah-ha!" moments, but how many actually take those nuggets of brilliance and pursue them?Â
One man --an inventor of sorts who I came to know because of the Sago disaster---has done just that. While watching the rescue efforts at the WV Sago mine unfold on television in early January 2006, this man used his knowledge as a former Navy submariner to design and develop a tracking system for underground miners. His "Ah-ha!" moment and now application was recognized this month by Popular Science magazine as one of the top-ten inventions for 2008! (PopSci…
sb admin | April 27, 2008On the eve of international Workers' Memorial Day (4/28), Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette displays again his journalist acumen, particularly on health and safety issues for workers. Thirty years ago today, at the construction of the cooling towers at the Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island, West Virginia, workers were hoisting up a massive bucket of concrete. As Ward writes:
"The cable hoisting that bucket of concrete went slack. The crane that was pulling it up fell toward the inside of the tower. Scaffolding followed. The previous day's concrete, Lift 28, started to collapse.Â…
sb admin | April 18, 2008Pork plant in illness probe wins worker safety award
Safety award to Massey mine where two miners were killed Â
First, I thought these were bad April Fools' jokes or maybe an article from the ONION.  But no, these headlines are no joke. A pork packing house in Austin, MN, a worksite where at least 12 workers have developed an autoimmune disorder, is receiving the Award of Honor from the American Meat Institute for its worker safety and health program. (This is the plant with the "blowing brains" table," where workers used compressed air on pig skulls to harvest the…
sb admin | April 11, 2008The first story about the death of Mr. Ricky "Mud Puddle" Collins came on Thursday afternoon (3/27) in an AP story Massey Miner Killed in Logan County. The short news clip mentioned a miner employed at Massey Energy's Freeze Fork Surface Mine in Logan County, who we later learned was Mr. Collins, 43, of Dan's Branch, WV. The article said he:
"died while working on a trailer at a railroad crossing near Stollings in Logan County Thursday,"Â but
"MSHA is not investigating the accident because it did not occur on mine property."
An article the next day said the trailer "saddle-bagged" over the…
sb admin | April 1, 2008This was one of the first-class quotes from former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) during today's hearing on workers' safety and health before the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. His comment came in response to discussions about OSHA's and the Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office's practices of reducing penalties, even in cases of serious violations. Mr. Scannell said he often felt pressure from inside and outside the agency to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using "discount factors" to reduce monetary…
sb admin | March 27, 2008The Senate HELP Committee's Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety announced that former OSHA Assistant Secretary, Mr. Gerard Scannell, will testify at next week's hearing on workplace safety. He was the OSHA chief during the George H.W. Bush administration, and a long-time officer with the National Safety Council.Â
The hearing (previous post here) about serious and repeat violators of worker safety protections will also feature testimony by Mr. Eric Frumin, Director of OHS for Unite!Here, who will likely discuss corporate bad actors, link Cintas (post here).  I'm so…
sb admin | March 26, 2008The Palm Beach (Florida) Post is reporting that Ag-Mart has settled a civil suit filed by a migrant farmworker family who alleged their son's serious birth defects were associated with the company's improper handling of pesticides. Earlier reporting in March 2005 by the PB Post exposed the working and living conditions of this family and other farmworkers, and birth defects among some of their children. Â
At the same time this settlement was reported, another Florida newspaper wrote that violations against Ag-Mart for failure to comply with the State's pesticide use rules had…
sb admin | March 25, 2008The Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 entitled "Serious OSHA Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Patterns." The subcomittee has not yet released a witness list, but I'd expect to hear something about some of the bad actors profiled in the "Dirty Dozen" report, prepared in 2006 by the National COSH.
sb admin | March 21, 2008It's national Sunshine Week---an effort "to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger."  A great way to celebrate the public's right-to-know what its government is doing, is by sending a FOIA request to your favorite local, state or federal agency. In that spirit, I faxed a FOIA request to OSHA today.Â
My request stems from an exchange of comments on work-related motor vehicle fatalities following my March 7 post "When the Road is Your…
sb admin | March 8, 2008That's the word from Georgia's Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, John Oxendine, during his announcement that the State will impose new safety requirements to prevent combustible dust explosions. The Commissioner's new rule comes one month after a deadly explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which killed 12 and severely injured scores of other workers, including 11 who remain in critical condition from the severe burns they suffered in the blast. (More on the burn victims and the long recover ahead for them here.)
The new safety requirement which were…
sb admin | March 6, 2008(Updated 3/7/08)Â
OSHA announced yesterday that it sent letters to about 14,000 employers across the country, letting them know that their work-related injury rates are higher than the national average. The Agency's news release does not mention any company names, but an OSHA spokesperson told me that the list of employers will be posted on OSHA's website tomorrow. (Update 3/7: here's the link to the zip file.)
Around this time last year, OSHA made a similar announcement and sent letters to employers (about 14,000). I did a little examination of that data and identified some familiar…
sb admin | February 24, 2008That's the headline from an editorial in today's Savannah Morning News, laying responsibility for the broken workplace safety regulatory system on the Secretary of Labor's desk. The words of editorial page editor, Tom Barton, sound like those I've heard before when a workplace disaster strikes a town. Journalists, community leaders, and family member victims are appalled to learn that OSHA and MSHA don't work as well as our civics books would lead us to believe. It's not until the deaths, injuries and heartbreaks hit your own backyard, do people care enough to figure it out.
I don't…
sb admin | February 20, 2008OSHA's Regional Office in New York announced the successful resolution of a retaliation case filed by a worker who was discharged by his employer after he expressed concerns about entering a workspace which had just been "bombed" with an insecticide. The case began more than two years ago at a residential housing complex in Flushing, NY, called Second Housing Co. Inc., and was resolved under a consent order in which the employer agreed to pay more than $66,000 in back wages to the worker.
Under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act:
"No person shall discharge or in any manner discriminate…
sb admin | February 18, 2008Kudos! to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for providing an update on their investigation of the devastating explosion at the Imperial Sugar/Dixie Crystals refinery near Port Wentworth, Georgia. As I've noted in previous posts, because the CSB makes it part of their business to provide regular update for the publicâeven if they don't have much at all to reportâtheir effort increases the likelihood that worker and environmental safety and health issues will be covered by the press. In turn, it means that these critical public health topics stay in the publicâs and…
sb admin | January 26, 2008The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released new information concerning the massive explosion on December 19 at the T2 Laboratories plant in Jacksonville, Florida. The disaster killed four men out of the nine total who were working at the time. In their announcement, the CSB investigators indicated that 33 people---more than double the number originally reported---suffered lacerations, contusions and temporary hearing loss from flying and falling debris. The majority of the injured were individuals working in other facilities in the same industrial complex.This is the 3rd time in about a…
sb admin | January 24, 2008A group of state legislators in West Virginia introduced a bill to strengthen the State's laws to protect mine workers who raise concerns about unsafe working conditions. The lead sponsor is Delegate Bill Hamilton (R) who represents the region where the now-abandoned Sago mine is located.* He's been a strong champion for mine safety improvements and also known for reprimanding Massey Energy's Don Blankenship when the CEO asserted that mining disasters, like Sago and Aracoma Alma, were rare and insignificant.  Mine-worker advocates, like Nathan Fetty at the WV Mine Safety Project…
sb admin | January 17, 2008Howard A. Heit, MD and a pain management specialist at Georgetown University offers an informed perspective on "painkiller abuse" among coal miners, in response to the Washington Post's article "A Dark Addiction."Â He writes:
"I don't believe the majority of these miners have the disease of addiction....[instead they] are seeking medications appropriately or inappropriately as a result of significant undertreatment of pain."
Dr. Heit's letter to the editor reads:
 "'A Dark Addicition' [front page, Jan 13] documented the experience of miners in western Virginia who work under conditions…
sb admin | January 16, 2008The U.S. House of Representatives debated today the Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (S-MINER, H.R. 2768) which would require, among other things, closer review of retreat mining plans, allow independent investigations (outside of MSHA) for multiple fatalities, and update permissible exposure limits. The White House issued a veto threat, saying the bill would "place in jeopardy meaningful achievements and efforts currently underway"..."weaken several existing regulations" and "impose burdensome and unrealistic time requirements." Likewise, the National Mining…