West Fertilizer Company

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 23:10:56 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At The New York Times, writers Kim Barker and Russ Buettner report on the labor investigations being conducted at nail salons throughout New York in the wake of a 2015 New York Times article that exposed widespread wage and labor abuses. They report that all but a dozen of the 230 salons whose investigations were closed last year were found violating at least one labor law. More than 40 percent of the salons were violating wage laws. Barker and Buettner write:

But the details of the state inspections are perhaps most revealing about just how challenging it is to regulate a largely immigrant-run industry in which almost everything is done off the books and employers are often unfamiliar with the intricacies of state labor laws.

About 85 percent of the salons failed to maintain adequate payroll records, a violation of state law, making it by far the most common citation, according to The Times’s review. Without records, investigators had to accept whatever employees told them they were paid, usually in front of their bosses. Many workers fear retaliation if they are honest about illegal wages, manicurists and labor officials said. Investigators later found that one owner fired a worker who spoke to an investigator.

The Times article interviewed a number of salon owners, some of whom report difficulty understanding state labor laws. For example, they report that in two-dozen cases, salons paid wages above minimum wage, but still broke labor law by paying daily or weekly rates. Barker and Buettner write:

Labor investigators documented many of the abuses that were highlighted in The Times’s articles. But workers’ fears in speaking with inspectors, along with the fact that the state efforts came at a time of such intense scrutiny of the industry, complicate direct comparisons of the scope of the problems found by the state and by The Times. Among the more than 100 manicurists interviewed by The Times, for example, only about a quarter said they were paid an amount that was the equivalent of minimum wage.

The inspection records reveal another reality: Many owners, even some of those making efforts to pay decent wages, simply failed to grasp the technical details of state labor laws. Many salon owners, for example, seemed unaware that they must pay one full hour of bonus wages when an employee’s shift spans more than 10 hours.

To read the full investigation, visit The New York Times.

In other news:

Reuters: Megan Twohey, Mica Rosenberg and Ryan McNeill investigate labor brokers — middlemen hired by companies to recruit foreign laborers for temporary jobs in the U.S. The reporters examined more than 200 civil and criminal cases filed in federal court that allege a variety of abuses by labor brokers, from wage theft to human trafficking. They write: “The cases illustrate how the absence of government oversight has allegedly enabled some brokers to exploit workers – and how intermediaries can insulate U.S. companies, providing them plausible deniability about the circumstances under which workers were recruited.” The reporters investigate the case of Nestor Molina, who allegedly lied to potential workers with the promise of permanent U.S. residency, while charging vulnerable workers millions in illegal recruitment fees.

NPR: Howard Berkes reports that an Oklahoma law that lets employers opt out of the workers’ compensation system has been declared unconstitutional by state regulators. The state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission described plans that some employers had adopted as an alternative to traditional workers’ comp as "a water mirage on the highway that disappears upon closer inspection." The decision, which is expected to be appealed, stems from the case of a Dillard’s department store worker who was injured lifting boxes and later denied benefits. The worker’s lawyer argued that the “injury would have been covered under the state's workers' comp law and that the rejection by Dillard's constitutes disparate treatment of injured workers,” Berkes reported. Last year, Berkes teamed up with Michael Grabell at ProPublica to author this investigation into the dismantling of the workers’ compensation system.

Houston Chronicle: Matt Dempsey reports that newly proposed chemical safety rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wouldn’t have done much to prevent the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas, three years ago. The finding is somewhat disappointing as the proposed rules are in response to a presidential executive order issued in the aftermath of the West explosion. The EPA’s new rules will require companies to conduct annual safety drills, be subject to third-party audits and improve emergency response. Dempsey reports: “The (Risk Management Plan) regulations will only require companies in three industries – paper, coal and petroleum and chemical manufacturing – to assess whether safer technologies and chemicals are feasible. It doesn't force those companies to make changes. It also doesn't expand the types of facilities covered by (the Risk Management Plan).”

Huffington Post: Dave Jamieson reports that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will pursue its first lawsuits based on a worker’s sexual orientation. The two lawsuits involve a man employed at a Pennsylvania medical center and a women employed at a Maryland pallet manufacturer. In both cases, the workers endured anti-gay taunts and harassment. The commission has never before filed suit on behalf of a gay worker. Noting that the commission had previously determined that sexual orientation discrimination is inherently discrimination based on sex, Jamieson reports: “In an amicus brief it filed in a separate case last month, the (commission) argued that ‘sexual orientation discrimination necessarily involves sex stereotyping.’ In such cases, the agency wrote, workers are treated differently ‘because their orientation does not conform to heterosexually defined gender norms.’”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 03/01/2016 - 18:10

“An empty feeling” following CSB’s report on West Fertilizer disaster, and eating my words

cmonforton — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 14:57:30 +0000

“An empty feeling” following CSB’s report on West Fertilizer disaster, and eating my words

A host of failures led to the explosion of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate (FGAN) at the West Fertilizer Company on April 17, 2013. This disaster led to the death of 15 people. That’s what I heard during the Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) public meeting on January 28 at which their investigation report was released. I also heard sadness tinted with frustration from a victim of the disaster. She lost someone who was very close in the blast. She sat quietly behind me at the meeting. Her demeanor was private. I’ll call her Theresa.

Like me, Theresa was taking notes on the investigators' presentations while also skimming the pages of the CSB’s 250-page report. As the meeting progressed, we helped each to find the relevant pages in the report to match them up with the investigators’ PowerPoint slides.

Despite the CSB’s thorough report, Theresa felt unsatisfied. She glanced around the room looking for familiar faces. She turned around repeatedly to do this. She wondered why so many of her neighbors from West were not present. Did they not expect to learn anything new? Did they already have the answers they needed?

We both paid close attention to the 18 recommendations made by the CSB. The recommendations are directed at 10 different entities. One, for example, calls on the El Dorado Chemical Company---a Texas manufacturer and supplier of FGAN---to encourage its customers to use industry standards to audit the locations where FGAN will be stored. Another recommendation calls on the State Firefighter’ and Fire Marshalls’ Association of Texas to develop training-certification criteria for fire departments that may be called on to respond to incidents at FGAN facilities.

These were not, however, the recommendations that resonated with Theresa. Despite the CSB investigators’ explanation of “inherently safer technology,” none of the recommendations linked directly to that concept. That's the type that would have really satisfied Theresa. The closest alternative was a recommendation to OSHA for a modest update to an existing regulation. The CSB is offering OSHA two options to fulfill the recommendation:

Modify its Process Safety Management standard (1910.119) by adding FGAN to its list of highly hazardous chemicals.

Revise its Explosives and Blasting Agents standard (1910.109) to ensure its title and/or scope make clear that it applies to facilities that store bulk quantities of FGAN. The standard should include requirements for FGAN to be stored in noncombustible containers, and in a building with fire detection and suppression systems.

Theresa thought this requirement made sense. She asked me: “When will that happen?”

That’s when I got had a sinking feeling. How do I tell her that OSHA doesn’t have a good track record of responding to the CSB’s recommendations?

By my count, the CSB has made 45 recommendations to OSHA since 1998. OSHA has responded to the satisfaction of the CSB for 26 of the 45. But what Theresa really wanted to know was OSHA's track record on recommendations for regulatory changes.

I broke the news to Theresa: of the CSB recommendations to OSHA which would require a change to an existing regulation or issuing a new regulation, OSHA has only addressed one of 13 such recommendations.

Wanting to quell her empty feeling, Theresa said things might be different this time. She referred to President Obama's particular interest in the West disaster. Afterall, he spoke at the memorial service and established a special committee of top EPA and OSHA officials to address chemical plant safety.

I said, "not likely. Even when an agency says it is doing something, it may not be."

I explained something that I'd noticed in a status report about that special committee, which is the working group established by President Obama under his Executive Order 13650. In its June 2015 status report, OSHA said it had

"initiated a Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Review Act (SBREFA) panel to get feedback from small businesses" on possible improvements to its PSM standard.

Although OSHA said it had initiated the SBREFA panel, I informed Theresa that the agency never did so.

My advice to Theresa was to stay in touch regularly with members of the CSB. Let them know that you think their recommendations are important. Tell them to press the recipients to adopt the CSB's recommendations.

About OSHA, I said: "don't hold your breath."

A couple weeks have passed since that CSB public meeting and now I need to eat my words. OSHA's website indicates it is planning to convene a SBREFA panel to discuss proposed changes to its PSM standard. The meetings will take place in March. Although only the designated small business representatives will be able to participate in the discussion, the public will be allowed to listen in. Perhaps Theresa will do so. I'm happy to eat my words, if she finds a little solace knowing that OSHA may be on its way to improving its PSM standard.

cmonforton Mon, 02/15/2016 - 09:57