VPP
cmonforton | September 3, 2013As Liz Borkowski noted yesterday, we are following up on a tradition that we started last year to mark Labor Day. We released our second annual review of U.S. occupational health and safety for Labor Day 2013.
Liz explained in her post our objectives in preparing the report. She also highlighted its first section which profiles some of the best research from the year published in both peer-reviewed journals and by non-profit organizations. Here’s a peek at section two of the report on activities at the federal level:
Sequestration and other budget cuts have affected our worker protection…
cmonforton | June 20, 2013[Updated below (July 12, 2013)]
[Updated below (June 21, 2013)]
"His skin was on fire," is the lead sentence in a story that I knew wouldn't have a happy ending. Dianna Wray of the Houston Press writes about the July 2012 incident at Dow Chemical/Rohm & Haas plant in Deer Park, TX which took the life of Brian Johns, 45.
"July 17, 2012, was another ordinary day for Johns. He pulled up in his pickup truck to the chemical plant he'd worked at as an operator for more than a decade and started his shift on the dot at 5 p.m. He moved through the massive construction of interconnected pipes…
cmonforton | November 7, 2012Hurray! The Presidential election is over. Let's hope this means that Obama Administration officials will come out from under their beds and embrace their regulatory authority to issue some strong public health and environmental regulations. At the Labor Department (DOL) there's much work to do to expand workers' rights, ensure workers' lives and health are protected, and improve the information provided by its agencies. Leave a comment with your ideas for immediate action by the Labor Department.
Here's my short version of my wish list for major DOL activities for the next 6 months:
MSHA…
cmonforton | August 22, 2012As first reported yesterday by Chris Hamby at the Center for Public Integrity's IWatch, an internal report on the agency's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP), submitted in November 2011 to OSHA chief David Michaels is now public.
Over the months, I'd made my own inquiries to OSHA's public affairs office wondering when the public might be able to read this report. I never received a response, but understand it appeared on OSHA's website on Friday, August 17. Thanks to Hamby for bringing it to our attention.
OSHA's VPP dates back to 1983, and recognizes worksites that, in OSHA's words "…
cmonforton | July 11, 2012When the deal was made five years ago, officials were proud to announce it was the first refinery expansion project in the U.S. in 30 years. Motiva Enterprises' CEO Bill Welte called it a "momentous occasion" for his firm and its owners Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco. The final product would be the largest refinery in U.S. It was projected to produce more than 12 million gallons of gasoline per day from crude oil shipped initially by tankers from Saudi Arabia to the Port Arthur, TX site.
Fast forward to the grand opening ceremony on May 31, 2012 where five executives including Shell's…
cmonforton | April 19, 2012Beau Griffing remembers how proud his mom Kristine, 52, was of the work she did at the Eaton Corporation's Kearney, Nebraska facility. He told a local reporter how she loved taking him and his siblings to the plant to show them where she worked.
"She provided so much for us," Beau Griffing said. "She wanted us to be able to be whatever we wanted to be," added his brother, Christopher Griffing, 20.
Not quite five months ago, Kristine Griffing was working on a Bliss 150 ton shear press at the Eaton Corp plant, making valves and gears for the auto companies. Neither the press itself nor the…
cmonforton | April 9, 2012The US Chamber of Commerce had a quaint little game on its website last month, complete with a YouTube video with fake sportscasters. The PR campaign called "Regulatory Madness" keyed off the annual NCAA's basketball tournament we know as March Madness. The cutesy idea was for business people to use the Chamber's pick of the 16 most "maddening" Obama Administration regulations, and fill in brackets to ultimately chose the most "maddening" one of all. They called it their "not-so-pretty Sweet Sixteen."
Their "top picks" included financial, health care and environmental regulations, such…