Slate investigates a little-used Fair Labor Standards Act provision that could improve conditions for farmworkers; Syrian child refugees face exploitation in Turkey’s textile industry; OSHA cites a Wisconsin shipyard for exposing workers to high levels of lead; and researchers offer new insights into the effects of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law.
President Obama called out asbestos as the key example of why the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is needed. He signed it into law today.
Cancer
The Donald ignorant on public health, too: Asbestos widow schools Trump about the “magic mineral”
Donald Trump is ignorant about many things and we can add asbestos to the list. Linda Reinstein’s husband died too young from cancer caused by asbestos. She schools Trump about exposure to the deadly mineral.
Cancer
Bringing the anti-asbestos movement into the future: A conversation with two young worker safety advocates
The road toward eliminating the threat of asbestos has been long, slow-moving, incredibly frustrating and littered with significant hurdles. Thankfully, advocates like Linda Reinstein, who lost her husband to asbestos-related disease in 2003, refuse to get discouraged.
Reporter Andrew Schneider has written a sequel to his 2004 book “An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana Uncovered a National Scandal.” The new book covers the unsuccessful criminal trial against W.R. Grace, and the legacy of a deadly form of asbestos from Libby that fills millions of attics across the U.S.
I’m marking Global Awareness Asbestos Week by shaming some companies in San Antonio, TX for exposing workers and the community to asbestos.
Reporters at the Center for Public Integrity investigate the nation’s third wave of asbestos disease; garment workers in Bangladesh continue to fight for safety and dignity in the workplace; Seattle becomes the first U.S. city to allow Uber drivers to organize; and OSHA sends its silica rule to the White House.
Public health researchers, agency officials and scholars describe the Toxic Substances Control Act as a defective, outdated law. They often use EPA’s failed effort to ban asbestos as a poster child for the broken law. A TSCA “reform” bill currently has traction in the Senate, but it’s left behind the poster child.
Cancer
Labor group outlines significant flaws in chemical reform bill, joins growing list of opponents
The AFL-CIO joins a growing list of organizations which have raised serious concerns—or outright oppose—the Vitter/Udall bill to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Environmental Health
Meaningful gains or huge setbacks?: Congress weighs two bills aimed at reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act
For years, advocates have been calling on policymakers to reform the nation’s outdated chemical safety laws. Today, two such bills stand before Congress — one that advocates say better protects the public’s health and another that advocates warn is a dangerous step backward.