Reporters were shut out during the shutdown of access to agency information. That situation didn’t stop two of them from continuing to report on deaths of workers in the U.S. mining industry.
Last year, Caitlin O’Dell’s 27 year-old husband was crushed between two pieces of mobile mining equipment. A proximity detection device could have saved his life, but the coal industry insists the devices need more study before mine operators are required to install them.
While OSHA has never been the most robustly funded federal agency, its efforts and regulatory authority have helped prevent countless deaths, injuries and illnesses on the job. However, recent budget cuts and future budget cut proposals threaten those gains, and it’s no stretch to say that worker health and safety hang in the balance.
The federal government shutdown has put a halt on most workplace safety inspections. It’s another important public health program adversely affected by the spending showdown.
The long-time residents of Iron County, Wisconsin who make up the Iron County Joint Impacts Mining Committee say the open-pit iron mine planned for the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin – a range that extends into Michigan where it’s known as the Gogebic Range – will bring much needed good jobs and economic development. Such […]
The Labor Department took the first major step this month to protect the health of many U.S. workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. Workers in the mining industry, however, are not addressed by the Department’s action.
A fourth official formerly associated with Massey Energy was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for conspiring to thwart federal mine safety laws. Massey Energy was the operator in 2010 of the site where the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years occurred.
The second annual report on US worker health and safety offers a review of activities and new policies at the federal scene, and a recap on the best reporting about it by the nation’s journalists.
Three months after a WV coal miner is killed on the job, the company decides to install safety equipment that could have saved his life.
When I asked Teresa Schnorr why we should be worried about the loss of a little-known occupational health data gathering program, she quoted a popular saying in the field of surveillance: “What gets counted, gets done.”