Workplace Safety
lborkowski | March 8, 2012In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics:
In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work, while those who experienced a slip, fall or trip took 7, and those exposed to harmful substances took just 3.
Ergonomics and the impact on workers' compensation claims not only is found in the office or in manufacturing jobs. In 2007, NIOSH reported that of the workers' compensation claims made across…
lborkowski | November 29, 2011Although the news of a shopper using pepper spray was disturbing, I was glad that Black Friday 2011 passed without the kind of tragedy that happened in 2008, when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was killed by a stampede of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island. OSHA cited Wal-Mart for a serious violation of the General Duty clause, and Chief Administrative Law Judge Covette Rooney upheld the citation and $7,000 penalty (which Wal-Mart challenged at an estimated cost of $2 million), issuing her decision on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Since Damour's…
lborkowski | November 17, 2011By Elizabeth Grossman
We have learned from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request and released by the Center for Public Integrity earlier this month that there are currently about 465 United States industrial facilities on what the EPA calls its "watch list." The list is made up of businesses EPA considers chronic violators of the Clean Air Act - but against which the agency has taken no formal enforcement action. An examination of these same companies' occupational health and safety records reveals them also to be chronic violators…
cmonforton | October 4, 2011I'm eager to listen in on tomorrow's congressional hearing about workplace safety. It's being conducted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, with the title "Workplace Safety: Ensuring a Responsible Regulatory Environment." That's a heading that probably means different things to different people, and those of us watching would probably benefit if Members define the phrase, "responsible regulatory environment" and explained responsible to whom?
The subcommittee chairman, Tim Walberg (R-MI), has noted previously the "creative tension"…
lborkowski | September 5, 2011The Department of Labor's Labor Day 2011 website features some interesting historical info on this holiday, and an address from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis that focuses on job creation. What I found particularly interesting was an op-ed by Secretary Solis - one of many linked from the site's News page - published Friday in The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. It begins:
On Labor Day, we honor the contributions working men and women have made throughout history to the strength and prosperity of our nation. There are many, and they deserve the tribute.
But throughout our nation's history, there…
lborkowski | August 16, 2011I somehow missed this when it first happened, but the state of Connecticut made history last month when Governor Dan Malloy signed legislation requiring up to five paid sick days per year for service workers at businesses with 50 or more employees. Christopher Keating gave these details in the Hartford Courant after the state's House of Representative passed the measure:
Manufacturing firms and nationally chartered nonprofit organizations like the YMCA would be exempt, and the bill also would not cover day laborers, independent contractors, salaried workers, and temporary workers.
Unlike in…
lborkowski | July 27, 2011Though the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant has faded from the headlines, cleanup work continues amid high radiation levels. TIME's Krista Mahr reports that Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has just released a document that includes an April estimate that 1600 workers will be exposed to high levels of radiation while working to stabilize the plant. Japan's government raised the exposure limit from 100 millisieverts per year to 250 after this disaster occurred; the just-released document expresses concern that if too many workers reach this limit working at…
cmonforton | July 22, 2011What do Kraft Foods Global, Tyson Foods, Sea World and Lucas Oil Production Studio have in common? They are four of the 147 employers identified by OSHA as "severe violators" of worker health and safety standards. Earlier this month, federal OSHA posted on its website a document listing employers in 30 States who meet the agency's criteria as a
"recalcitrant employers who endanger workers by demonstrating indifference to their responsibilities under the law."
The OSHA document is a 4-page PDF and for your convenience, I've converted it into a spreadsheet in MS-Excel to make it easier to…
lborkowski | July 15, 2011Yan Jie of China Daily reports that four mine disasters have occurred in China during July alone - and we don't yet know how many miners and rescuers will survive. Three rescuers have died already, and hope dims for the remaining miners the longer they remain trapped by high water and collapsed walls. Here is what I've been able to gather on the various cases, although the articles are all from earlier this week and there may be more up-to-date information elsewhere:
Flooded iron ore mine in Weifang, Shandong province: AFP reports 21 workers remain trapped underground
Fire in a coal mine in…
lborkowski | June 15, 2011Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine was, as an independent investigation team documented in the report released last month, a dangerous place to work. In the immediate aftermath of the massive explosion on April 5, 2010, which killed 29 miners, it was also a dangerous place for rescue operations. A scathing editorial in the Charleston Gazette highlights disturbing statements in testimony from mine rescuers. These teams are highly trained in a range of skills, including assessing whether conditions make it advisable to enter mines where disasters have just occurred. Yet, as the Gazette…
lborkowski | August 18, 2010Before BP's name was linked in everyone's mind to the Gulf oil disaster, the company was infamous for its unsafe Texas City refinery, where a March 2005 explosion killed 15 workers and injured 170. In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for $21 million, and BP paid the fine and entered into an agreement with OSHA under which the company would identify and correct safety problems. But when OSHA conducted a follow-up investigation in 2009, it found that the company "failed to live up to several extremely important terms of that agreement." OSHA issued failure-to-abate citations to the tune of $50.6…