In a news release issued today by OSHA, the agency announced an award of $5.4 million for a former Wells Fargo manager who was terminated after alerting superiors to potential fraud. The individual was dismissed from his job in 2010. He filed his complaint with OSHA in 2011 --- justice is not often swift. The case was handled out of OSHA's regional office in San Francisco. I spoke to the top official in that office, Barbara Goto, who confirmed the award is the "single largest individual award" in OSHA history for a whistleblower case. The anti-retaliation protections for this individual are…
In the 18 days between House Republicans’ introduction of the American Health Care Act and its withdrawal, women’s health was in the spotlight. With House Speaker Paul Ryan now stating that he’s going to try again on legislation to “replace” the Affordable Care Act, it’s worth looking at some of the ways the ACA has benefited women – and how actions from Congress and the Trump administration could affect women’s insurance coverage and access to care. Women gained coverage under the ACA The ACA’s biggest achievement was reducing the percentage of the population without health insurance. It did…
As a PhD student, Laura Syron was helping her advisor with workplace safety research focused on the Pacific Northwest commercial fishing industry. The project got her thinking about worker safety throughout the seafood supply chain, from the boat to the processing plant. So she decided to do a study of her own. The result is likely the first to examine occupational health and safety inside Oregon’s seafood processing industry. Along with her co-authors, Syron, a doctoral student at Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences, examined data from workers’ compensation…
The U.S. Senate passed a resolution last night urging Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy to warn the public about the risk of asbestos exposure. The deadly mineral continues to be imported to the U.S. S. Res. 98 designates the first week of April as “National Asbestos Awareness Week.” The Senators note that the U.S. continues to use tons of asbestos every year despite its well-known danger. The resolution acknowledges: Thousands of workers in the U.S. face significant asbestos exposure Thousands of people in the U.S. die from asbestos-related diseases every year The  U.S. Geological Survey…
From time to time I write a blog post titled “Not an accident.” These posts highlight the name of a recent workplace-fatality victim and also challenge the often-used term "accident" to describe such an event. The hazards that lead to workers being killed on job---from being pulled into or crushed by machinery to falling from a roof--- are well-understood and can be addressed. Yet most worker fatalities are described by police spokespersons as “accidents” and the term is then repeated in local press accounts. Could the press instead communicate how such incidents could be averted? Several…
Before Patrick Morrison worked for the International Association of Fire Fighters, he was a firefighter himself. He’s experienced the horrifying and profoundly saddening events that first responders see every day. And like many other firefighters, he turned to alcohol to deal with the accumulating mental trauma. Fortunately, Morrison got help and considers himself “in recovery” today. But many firefighters don’t. In fact, an August 2016 IAFF report noted that even though firefighters experience a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rate that’s similar to soldiers returning from combat, many…
Many of us breathed sighs of relief on Friday when House Speaker Paul Ryan announced the withdrawal of legislation to roll back the Affordable Care Act. The bill, the American Health Care Act, would have resulted in 24 million people losing insurance and $880 billion less for Medicaid over the next 10 years -- while giving an $883 billion tax cut targeted to the wealthiest. At town hall meetings and over the phones, members of Congress heard from constituents urging them to leave the ACA’s coverage expansions in place. Yet the bill’s defeat doesn’t mean that the idea of healthcare coverage…
Yesterday, House Republicans failed to find enough votes to pass their Affordable Care Act replacement. It was a very good day for the millions of Americans projected to lose their coverage under the GOP plan. But let’s be clear: Obamacare is not safe. In a last-ditch effort to round up more votes, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., proposed an amendment that would have, beginning in 2018, allowed states to determine the kinds of essential health benefits required in insurance plans purchased with tax credits. Under Obama’s health care law, insurance plans sold via the federal health care…
Dan Rather was the newscaster. His lead for the CBS Evening News on Friday, March 24, 1989 was: "An oil tanker ran aground today off the nation's northern most ice-free port, Valdez, Alaska." The Exxon vessel was holding 53 million gallons of crude oil. By 3:30 am, the Coast Guard estimated that 5.8 million gallons had already been released from the tanker. Ultimately, nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil contaminated the region. I was reminded of today’s 28th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster by my colleague Mark Catlin. At the time he was with the Alaska Health Project, a non-…
My favorite line from today’s Senate hearing on the nomination of Alex Acosta to be Labor Secretary came from Senator Elizabeth Warren: “The test for Secretary of Labor is not: are you better than Andrew Puzder.” Puzder was Trump’s first pick for the job. He had a long list of problems that made him unfit for the position. So instead of Puzder, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is considering the nomination of Alex Acosta. The 48-year old is currently dean of the College of Law at Florida International University. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern…
At the Sacramento Bee, Ryan Lillis and Jose Luis Villegas report on the effects that Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on California farms, writing that fear of deportation is spreading throughout the state’s farming communities. While many farmworkers believe immigration raids are inevitable, farm operators, many who voted for Trump, hope the president will bring more water to the region and keep immigration officials off their fields. Lillis and Villegas write: Fear is everywhere. The night before, the local school board became one of the first in California to declare its campuses a…
A few of the recent pieces I recommend reading: Sarah Kliff & Ezra Klein at Vox: The Lessons of Obamacare Chris Ladd in Forbes: Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage in the US Donelle Eller in the Des Moines Register: Iowa pollution enforcement could lose big under Trump EPA cuts, critics warn Teddy Wilson at Rewire: Texas Legislators "Ignore" Spiking Black Maternal Mortality Rates Linda-Gail Bekker & Anthony S. Fauci at STAT: Women are Leading the Way in HIV Research And because the House Republicans' healthcare bill is so consequential for public health and there's…
There’s a lot at stake for women’s health in the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, which eliminated out-of-pocket costs for birth control and has been highly successful in breaking down barriers to affordable family planning. The cost-sharing changes alone are saving individual women hundreds of dollars each year on their choice of contraception. So far, the Republican replacement proposal, known as the American Health Care Act, doesn’t impact the Obama-era contraception coverage provisions, nor does it touch other women’s health benefits, such as designating maternity care…
Labor Secretary nominee Alex Acosta is schedule to appear next week before a Senate Committee for his confirmation hearing. Senators should formulate their questions for him by reviewing a just released platform on worker safety. Protecting Workers' Lives & Limbs: An Agenda for Action makes dozens of recommendations to improve occupational health and safety policies and practices, including many for the future Labor Secretary. They include: Commit to protecting workers’ health and safety on the job with strong and fair enforcement, promulgation of common sense standards, and outreach and…
As the Republicans push forward their abysmal Affordable Care Act replacement, much of the talk surrounding its impact focuses on insurance numbers and premium hikes. Those things are certainly important. But this is more important: The Republican plan will cause unnecessary suffering and preventable death. How do we know this? Let’s start with the Congressional Budget Office report that scored the Republican replacement plan, titled the American Health Care Act. That report estimates that if the Republican plan is enacted, 14 million more people would be uninsured by 2018 than would have…
Kentucky’s Labor Secretary Derrick Ramsey announced this week that his department would be issuing a “Monthly Workplace Safety Report.” The report will provide a recap of the previous month’s safety consultation services, which are offered to employers at no charge by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety & Health Education & Training. The Labor Secretary says he wants to change the public's perceptions about the Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s work. “For years, employers across Kentucky viewed the issuance of penalties and citations as the cornerstone of the…
House Republicans have released –and rushed through two committees—the American Health Care Act, which would result in destabilized individual insurance markets and millions of people losing health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office hasn’t yet released its estimate of the likely impacts, but an analysis from authors at the Brookings/USC Schaeffer Initiative calculates it would result in 15 million people losing coverage. The AHCA contains provisions addressing both private and public insurance; I’m most concerned about the impacts on Medicaid, which would shift substantial healthcare…
Rick Simer’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see OSHA’s findings in the agency’s recent citations against K.B.P. Coil Coaters, Inc. The 64 year-old was working in August 2016 when he was killed on the job. The initial press report by the Denver Post indicated that Mr. Simer was “caught in an aluminum splitter machine.” I  wrote about the incident shortly after it occurred. OSHA completed its post-fatality inspection and recently issued citations to K.B.P. Coil Coaters. OSHA found that the company violated safety regulations for lockout/tagout procedures (1910.147)…
Another day, another study that shows soda taxes work to reduce the consumption of beverages associated with costly chronic diseases in children and adults. This time it’s a study on Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax, which went into effect at the start of 2014 and tacked on 1 peso per liter of sugary drink. Published this month in the journal Health Affairs, the study found that purchases of sugary drinks subject to the new tax went down more than 5 percent in 2014 and nearly 10 percent in 2015. At the same time, purchases of untaxed drinks went up by slightly more than 2 percent. The…
At the Atlantic Monthly, Alana Semuels interviews David Weil, who served as administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division under President Obama, on his time at DOL and the future of labor under Trump. On Obama’s effect, Weil told Semuels: Semuels: What specifically changed in the Department of Labor under Obama? Weil: One of the things Obama did from the beginning was to fight hard to get resources for his enforcement agencies. He came in and the number of investigators in the Wage and Hour Division was barely 700 nationally—and it is responsible for 7.3 million workplaces…