Local efforts help California nail salons create healthier working conditions; California court ruling a win for farm workers and labor unions; Milwaukee institutes new safety measures after a city employee is shot and killed; and flight attendants chronicle sexual harassment in the skies.
Environmental Health
Protecting the workers rebuilding Houston: ‘We must see them as full human beings who deserve fairness’
Even before the rains of Hurricane Harvey let up, Marianela Acuña Arreaza was mobilizing to protect the workers who would dig out and rebuild the city of Houston after catastrophe.
U.S. Chemical Safety Board considers withdrawing retaliation protections for offshore oil workers; unions re-examine their role in the wake of sexual harassment revelations; America’s fastest-growing jobs are also among the lowest-paying jobs; and migrant women continue to face exploitation on the job.
APHA Annual Meeting
Occupational health, environmental protections the focus of new public health policies
The American Public Health Association adopted 13 new policy statements. Six of them address priority topics on worker safety and environmental health.
At BuzzFeed News, Zahra Hirji and Jason Leopold report that the news organization has obtained internal emails, recordings and interviews from oil company BP showing that executives are struggling to “reset” its Alaska operations after a string of incidents that threatened workers’ lives. For example, on Sept. 10, two workers inadvertently triggered a leak of […]
News headlines about 9 million deaths in 2015 due to pollution were eye catching. The Lancet Commission’s Report on Pollution and Health goes much deeper than point estimates. The authors argue that governments, foundations, and medical societies pay too little attention to the local and global consequences of pollution.
Millions of cubic yards of household debris from Hurricane Harvey is piling up in southeastern Texas. An NPR story following Hurricane Katrina paints a picture of what happens when it is carried away to landfills.
Reporters investigate the deaths of five workers at Tampa Electric; OSHA removes worker fatality information from its home page; more workers sue Fraser Shipyards for hazardous lead exposures; and the Secret Service runs out of money to pay its agents.
Three lawsuits by different public health and environmental groups are challenging EPA’s new regulations on prioritizing and evaluating toxic chemicals. The regulations stem from amendments made by Congress last year to the 40 year old Toxic Substances Control Act. The groups argue that EPA is ignoring congressional intent.
The feds grant billions in contracts to shipbuilders with serious worker safety lapses; Texas lawmakers want to undo an Austin initiative that protects construction workers; Chevron agrees to highest fine in Cal/OSHA history after refinery fire; and Democrats hope to ban a dangerous pesticide after EPA fails to act.