lborkowski | May 6, 2013This week is Public Service Recognition Week, when we celebrate and thank the many public servants who work to make life better for all of us. Here’s more on this year’s Week from the Partnership for Public Service:
Celebrated the first week of May since 1985, Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) is time set aside to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county and local government employees and ensure that our government is the best in the world.
… Our theme for PSRW 2013 is “Why I Serve.” Throughout the week, we will invite agency leaders and elected officials to…
lborkowski | May 3, 2013by Kim Krisberg
On Feb. 13, 2012, Honey Stecken gave birth to her daughter Maren. Everything appeared perfectly fine — she ate and slept and did all the things a baby does. Even after a couple weeks at home in South Fork. Colo., with her newborn little girl, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
About two weeks after Maren's arrival, while Honey was at a children's birthday party for one of her son's friends, she received a call from a doctor she didn't know. He was calling on a Saturday, never a good sign. With an urgent tone in his voice, he asked if Maren was eating well, if she was vomiting…
lborkowski | May 2, 2013Last week, Workers' Memorial Week events and reports from around the country drew media attention. Dorry Samuels at National COSH has a great writeup of the hugely successful week, including links to several newspapers that covered Worker Memorial Week stories:
California: ABC News/ Univision and La Opinion
Illinois: The Telegraph
Nebraska: Lincoln Journal Star
New York: The Daily Gazette (subscription required)
North Carolina: News & Observer
Massachusetts: The Dedham Transcript, EHS Today, Worcester Mag, MetroWest Daily News (all articles are posted on the MassCOSH site)
Tennessee:…
cmonforton | May 1, 2013Steve McGraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), told members of the Texas legislature that responsibility for informing residents about the chemical hazards in their communities----such as at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas----falls to local officials. The Dallas Morning-News' Brandon Formby reports from the first public hearing to examine the circumstances that led to the catastrophic April 17 explosion. The inquiry was held by the Texas Legislature's House Committee on Homeland Security & Public Safety.
“It’s a local up,” DPS Director Steve McCraw said…
lborkowski | May 1, 2013Yesterday, FDA announced that it has approved Teva Women's Health, Inc.'s application to market its Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptive for women ages 15 and up. The press release notes that this application was pending before a federal judge ordered the agency to make Plan B available without any age restrictions; the 15-and-up change is "independent of that litigation and this decision is not intended to address the judge’s ruling."
(A quick refresher: In December 2011, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg's decision that Plan B should be available…
cmonforton | April 30, 2013I take mine black, but millions of U.S. coffee drinkers love their java beans flavored to taste like hazelnut, buttered toffee, french toast and amaretto. One supplier in Florida boasts of 47 different flavors. Fans of flavored coffee beans pay a premium for them, but some workers in the bean processing plants are paying a steeper price: their health.
This week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes cases of obliterative bronchiolitis diagnosed in two individuals who worked at a Texas coffee-processing company. Bronchiolitis obliterans is a rare and serious obstructive lung…
lborkowski | April 29, 2013by Elizabeth Grossman
On April 24th, hundreds of workers at fast-food restaurants in Chicago staged a one-day walk-out to demonstrate for a raise to $15 an hour and the right to form a union. Striking workers included employees of Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, Subway, Popeyes Chicken, Macy’s, Nordstrom Rack, Sears, Lands’ End, Victoria’s Secret and Whole Foods. Some stores were unable to open or forced to close when all workers who were not management either walked out or did not report to work. Photos from Chicago show lines of striking workers stretching for several blocks.
Among them was…
lborkowski | April 26, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Another day, another study that shows investing in public health interventions can make a serious dent in health care spending.
A new study recently published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that banning smoking in all U.S. subsidized housing could yield cost savings of about $521 million every year. That total includes $341 million in secondhand smoke-related health care expenditures, $108 million in renovation expenses and $72 million in smoking-attributable fire losses. In fact, just prohibiting smoking in public housing alone would result in a savings…
cmonforton | April 25, 2013USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack seems determined to implement a new poultry slaughter inspection system, despite strong calls from the food safety and public health communities for him to withdraw it. At an April 17 congressional hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittees on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA and Related Agencies, Vilsack indicated that the new regulation would be completed soon, according to Congressional Quarterly.
Opponents say the proposal will do little to improve food safety, at the same time reducing USDA's ranks of poultry inspectors and shifting their food-…
lborkowski | April 25, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Mike Elk in the Washington Post: The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten
Laurie Garrett in Foreign Policy: The Big One? Is China covering up another flu pandemic -- or getting it right this time? (About the H7N9 flu, which has been confirmed in 108 patients in China)
Kari Lyderson at Reporting on Health: 'That Feeling Doesn't Go Away': Mental Health and Undocumented Children
David Schultz in Kaiser Health News: Nurses Fighting State by State for Minimum Staffing Laws
Emily Badger at Atlantic Cities: New Chicago Plan: Pedestrians Come…
lborkowski | April 24, 2013For this Workers' Memorial Week, the National Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has released "Preventable Deaths: The Tragedy of Workplace Fatalities," a report that tells the stories of six workers killed on the job and promotes solutions to prevent other workers from sharing similar fates. The report notes that in 2011, 4,609 workers were killed, and construction was the deadliest industry sector, with 721 worker fatalities. The report tells the story of one construction worker killed on the job:
One day in April 2009, Orestes Martinez (29) and two co-workers…
cmonforton | April 23, 2013The funeral services are beginning this week for the 10 volunteer firefighters and the five other individuals who were fatally injured by the horrific explosion at West Fertilizer. The initial call about the fire at the plant was made to the West Volunteer fire department at 8:30 pm. The explosion occurred 21 minutes later. The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the firefighters knew the plant stored chemicals used in explosives, "but whether that knowledge factored into the attempts to put out the fatal blaze near the plant remained unclear." The Texas State Fire Marshall's Office…
lborkowski | April 22, 2013This week is Workers' Memorial Week, when we remember the thousands of men and women who die on the job each year and work to prevent future deaths by improving workplace health and safety. Workers' Memorial Day is recognized worldwide on April 28, and more than a dozen US communities are holding local Workers' Memorial Week events. In the US, nearly 5,000 workers are killed on the job each year and, as the AFL-CIO notes in its annual Death on the Job report, an estimated 50,000 die from occupational diseases.
This week begins in the shadow of a tragedy in Texas, where a massive fire and…
lborkowski | April 19, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Eric Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Latino Union of Chicago quite literally meet workers where they're at — on the city's street corners. Many of the day laborers who gather there during the morning hours are hired to work construction at residential housing sites. Work arrangements are hardly formal, to say the least, and day laborers are frequently subjected to unnecessary and illegal dangers on the job. Unfortunately, worker safety is often kicked to the curb in the street corner marketplace.
For years, Rodriguez, who started as an organizer and is now the union's…
US industrial sand production increases dramatically, yet industry says worker protection too costly
egrossman | April 18, 2013By Elizabeth Grossman
Since the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) began reviewing the Labor Department’s proposed rule to reduce by one-half the permissible workplace exposure to respirable crystalline silica more than two year ago, the US has seen a dramatic increase in industrial sand mining, a major route of workers’ exposure to silica dust. As Celeste Monforton reported for The Pump Handle on March 20th, OIRA’s review of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) draft proposed rule crystalline silica…
lborkowski | April 18, 2013The New Yorker's News Desk blog features an excellent piece by Atul Gawande called "Why Boston's Hospitals Were Ready." It's a riveting read about how emergency medical teams, the city's emergency command center, and hospital staff all responded immediately and with admirable coordination to the needs of those injured in the bomb blast at the Boston Marathon:
The explosions took place at 2:50 P.M., twelve seconds apart. Medical personnel manning the runners’ first-aid tent swiftly converted it into a mass-casualty triage unit. Emergency medical teams mobilized en masse from around the city,…
cmonforton | April 17, 2013A comprehensive, bi-partisan immigration reform bill was filed today by the "gang of eight" U.S. Senators. We've written previously about the abuses endured by many workers under the existing guest worker programs (here, here, here, here) and I am particularly curious to see the remedies proposed in the bill. It will take me a few weeks to digest the 844-page bill, but I took a quick peek for provisions related to labor' rights and workplace safety. Here is some of what I read:
(1) The bill would create a new visa program (a W-visa) for low-skilled immigrant workers. (See Subtitle G at…
cmonforton | April 16, 2013An analysis by Mine Safety and Health News (MSHN) finds that nearly $70 million in delinquent penalties are owed to the U.S. Treasury by mining companies for violations of federal mine safety and health regulations. One of the top offenders is James C. Justice II, the owner of the Greenbriar Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. He owes more than $1.33 million in delinquent penalties.
MSHN notes that his net worth is estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1.7 billion. MSHN's analysis shows 60 mine operators have racked up more than $100,000 in delinquent penalties, and there are seven who each…
Cracking down on deadbeat bosses: Wage theft victory a milestone in Chicago's worker center movement
lborkowski | April 15, 2013by Kim Krisberg
For Angel Nava, Chicago's newly adopted wage theft ordinance is particularly personal.
Until recently, Nava had worked at the same car wash business in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood for 14 years. The 55-year-old employee did it all — washing, detailing, buffing — for about 50 hours each week. Then, his boss decided to stop paying overtime.
In fact, Nava didn't receive the overtime he was owed for the last four years he worked at the car wash. He told me (though a translator) that none of his co-workers were receiving overtime either — "everyone was very upset." Nava said he…
lborkowski | April 12, 2013Yesterday, the Philadelphia City Council fell one vote short of overriding Mayor Michael Nutter's veto of legislation that would have required businesses with more than five employees to let workers earn paid sick leave. This was the second time the Council had passed a paid sick leave bill, only to have it vetoed.
The news for workers was better in New York City late last month, when legislators reached a compromise: a paid sick leave law that will only apply to businesses with at least 15 employees, but that nonetheless will provide this important benefit to an estimated one million workers…