cmonforton | January 8, 2015Timothy Todd Winding, 50, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Tuesday, December 30 while working at Ford Motor Company’s Kansas City assembly plant located in Claycomo, MO. Fox4KC reports:
He was part of a crew of contractors who were working to retool the plant for a new line of Ford trucks.
While working on a body marriage machine, "a safety rod broke on the decker and crushed the worker.”
“Several of the workers FOX 4 spoke to Tuesday say that this is not the first time that machine has broken, and say they were worried something like this was going to happen."
KCTV5 says Winding's…
cmonforton | January 7, 2015Standing in her wedding gown, Courtney Davis held this sign:
"Message2Congress: If you had banned asbestos, maybe my dad would have been here to give me away."
Her father, Larry W. Davis, 66, died in July 2012 of pleural mesothelioma---a cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
Stephanie Harper was a daddy's girl. She told reporter David McCumber, her father was a jack of all trades--repairing vehicles, fixing HVAC--and when he came home at night, "I'd sit on his feet and grab his pants leg." The 37 year-old mother from Texas now suffers from mesothelioma and agonizing pain that goes along with it…
kkrisberg | January 6, 2015A new analysis of data from the world’s largest and longest-running study of women’s health finds that rotating night shift work is associated with higher mortality rates. The new findings add to a growing awareness that long-term night shift work comes with serious occupational health risks.
Published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study found that all-cause and cardiovascular disease-related mortality were significantly increased among women who worked more than five years of rotating night shifts when compared to those who never worked the night shift. In…
cmonforton | January 5, 2015Elbert C. Woods’ work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Federal OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Cleveland Track Material. The 45-year-old was working in August 2014 at the company’s Cleveland plant when he was pulled into machinery. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
Inspectors with OSHA conducted an inspection at Cleveland Track following Woods’ death. The agency recently issued citations to the firm for six serious violations and proposed a $49,000 penalty. The violations all involved gross…
Fatal work injury that killed Stanley Thomas Wright was preventable, Nevada OSHA cites Rebel Oil Co.
cmonforton | January 1, 2015Stanley Thomas Wright’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Nevada OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer, Rebel Oil Company. The 47-year-old was working in August 2014 at a railyard in North Las Vegas, NV. Wright was asphyxiated while working inside a tank car. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
Inspectors with Nevada OSHA conducted an inspection at the railyard following Wright’s death. The agency recently issued citations to Rebel Oil for three serious violations and proposed a $11,475 penalty.…
cmonforton | December 31, 2014Individuals with chronic occupational exposure to lead have an 80 percent higher odds of developing Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) than individuals who do not have the exposure. Those are the findings of a recently published meta-analysis of 13 studies of individuals with “Lou Gehrig’s disease" (ALS). The authors, funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada for its National Population Health Study of Neurological Disease in Canada, note:
“Epidemiological studies investigating the association between prior exposure to lead and ALS began about five decades ago, after a series of ALS cases…
kkrisberg | December 30, 2014With the new year just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to celebrate worker victories of 2014. At In These Times, reporter Amien Essif gathered a list of the nine most important victories of 2014, writing:
Much has been made of the incredibly hostile climate for labor over the past few decades. Yet this past year, workers still organized on shop floors, went out on strike, marched in the street and shuffled into courthouses to hold their employers accountable, and campaigned hard for those who earned (or, often enough, didn’t earn) their vote. Legislators, meanwhile, tarried on with…
cmonforton | December 30, 2014While we take a breather during this holiday season, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on January 6, 2014.
by Liz Borkowski, MPH
Now that it’s 2014, millions more people in the US have health insurance coverage (either Medicaid or private insurance), thanks to the Affordable Care Act. In the weeks ahead, many of the newly insured will be visiting healthcare providers to address ongoing health concerns. The Washington Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar and Karen Tumulty highlighted one person with a pent-up demand for healthcare, Sharon Kelly of…
lborkowski | December 29, 2014by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPH
When my colleagues here at The Pump Handle asked me if I would like to comment on the recent demise of "Single Payer" health insurance in Vermont, I hesitated because my Vermont hands-on experience is so dated. I moved on from being Vermont State Health Commissioner almost 40 years ago. But on second thought, I may have learned some things during my time in Vermont (and from 1970 to 1972 in Quebec) that can contribute to understanding health insurance in Vermont and in the US more generally.
How did I happen to move to Montreal? Canada had just authorized…
cmonforton | December 26, 2014While we take a breather during this holiday season, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on May 6, 2014.
by Kim Krisberg
Two 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…
cmonforton | December 24, 2014While we take a breather during this holiday season, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on June 30, 2014.
by Liz Borkowski, MPH
Last week’s White House Summit on Working Families – hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Department of Labor, and the Center for American Progress – served both as a pitch to employers to adopt more family-friendly policies, and as a push for policies that require all employers to evolve for 21st-century realities. Wages, paid leave, flexibility, and caregiving were major topics in the day-long…
cmonforton | December 24, 2014Chandler Warren’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Tennessee OSHA in the agency’s citations against his employer Federal Express. The 19-year-old was working in July 2014 on the night shift at the company’s World Hub in Memphis, TN. News reports indicated that the equipment used to load containers onto an aircraft crashed down on him.
Inspectors with Tennessee OSHA conducted an inspection at FedEx's Memphis World Hub following Warren’s death. The agency recently issued citations to the firm including for one serious violation with a proposed $4,…
kkrisberg | December 23, 2014With the second round of open enrollment now underway, the Affordable Care Act is expected to help narrow racial and ethnic disparities in insurance coverage, a new report finds. However, not all communities are predicted to benefit equally. Because nearly half of the country’s legislatures decided against expanding Medicaid eligibility, black Americans may continue to face difficulties finding quality, affordable health coverage.
This month, the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center released a new report detailing racial and ethnic differences in insurance rates under the ACA. Using data…
cmonforton | December 22, 2014They may have a green logo and they may have written environmental stewardship policies, but the work environment at Dollar Tree is dangerous. This month their employees may be wearing Christmas hats and jingle bells, but those will do little good protecting them from falling boxes and blocked fire exits.
Last week OSHA announced worker safety citations against Dollar Tree for repeated and willful violations at its store in New Castle, Delaware. The agency has proposed a $103,000 penalty, and noted:
“As of October 2014, OSHA has issued more than $800,000 in fines to Dollar Tree Stores for the…
cmonforton | December 19, 2014Gary Keenen, 26, and Kelsey Bellah, 27 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, December 19 while working on a drilling rig two miles west of Colgate, OK. News reports provide some initial information on the workers’ deaths:
The explosion and fire occurred at a rig owned by Pablo Energy.
A representative of the State Fire Marshall’s office indicated that three other workers were injured. “Two were transported to trauma centers in critical condition, while another sustained burns to his hands."
Current reporting does not indicate whether the deceased and injured victims worked for Pablo…
egrossman | December 17, 2014As last week’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing made abundantly clear, communities throughout the United States are at ongoing risk from potentially disastrous incidents involving hazardous chemicals. A new Congressional Research Service report released concurrently by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA), details how thousands of facilities across the country that store and use hazardous chemicals are located in communities, putting millions of Americans at risk. Yet this list of facilities, Senator Markey’s office points out, may not be complete. The report analyzes US…
cmonforton | December 17, 2014[Updated below (March 13, 2015)]
In September 2013, fifteen civil rights and labor organizations sent a 72-page petition to OSHA. The groups were urging the agency to develop a regulation to protect poultry and meatpacking workers from repetitive motion injuries. More than 16 months later, OSHA has yet to send the petitioners a single piece of paper in response to their rulemaking request. You’d think a thoughtful letter, written by pro-worker groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Interfaith Worker Justice and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, would be…
kkrisberg | December 17, 2014When compared with gasoline-powered cars, vehicles fueled with electricity from renewable sources could cut air pollution-related deaths by 70 percent, according to a new study, which noted that air pollution is the country’s greatest environmental health threat.
Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study’s researchers examined the impact of various vehicle energy sources on the concentrations of two types of air pollutants known to affect human health: particulate matter and ground-level ozone. Previous research has found that air pollution causes…
kkrisberg | December 16, 2014America’s petrochemical industry has spent millions trying to discredit the science on benzene, a known human carcinogen linked to leukemia and other cancers, according to an investigative piece from reporter Kristen Lombardi at the Center for Public Integrity. Lombardi begins her story with the life of John Thompson, who spent much of his life working for the petrochemical industry in Texas. She writes:
Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, he often encountered benzene, stored on job sites in 55-gallon drums, which he used as a cleaning solvent. He dipped hammers and cutters into buckets…
lborkowski | December 15, 2014The latest issue of the journal Health Affairs focuses on children's health, and one of the major topics is health insurance for children. A look at the Kaiser Family Foundation's coverage statistics shows that in 2013, 49% of children ages 0 - 18 had employer-sponsored coverage, 39% were covered by Medicaid or another public program, 5% had other private coverage, and 8% were uninsured. There are three main ways US children get health insurance coverage:
Medicaid: The federal government pays a portion of healthcare costs for Medicaid beneficiaries, and in exchange requires that states extend…