Many environmental, health and consumer groups are shrugging their shoulders about the TSCA reform bill headed to President Obama’s desk for his signature. Their reaction—the silence—is striking.
Reveal investigates the toll of nuclear testing on the country’s “atomic vets”; federal labor officials propose new mining safety rules; D.C. officials vote in support of a $15 minimum wage; and an Amazon employee writes a first-person account from inside one of the company’s warehouses.
Environmental Health
State, local public health lose critical funding because Congress fails to act on Zika: ‘Yes, we should be scared’
“In my darker hours when I’m sleeping at night, that’s where I go.” Those are words from Eric Blank, senior director for public health systems at the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), talking about the enormous difficulties that public health labs faced in confronting the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Now he fears that without emergency federal funds and in the face of new funding cuts, Zika virus will force the nation’s critical public health lab network into that same scenario — or into something even worse.
A ‘hidden’ workforce of foreign workers at a Tesla plant in California; Illinois legislators pass a domestic workers bill of rights; Congress uses a spending bill to weaken safety rules for truckers; and lawsuits over workplace leave policies spike way up.
Environmental Health
With mosquito season around the corner, Congress drags its feet on Zika funding
With near constant news on the threat of Zika virus and a quickly growing evidence base detailing the virus’ devastating impact on fetal brain development, you’d think Congress could get its act together to make sure our public health system is fully prepared and equipped to confront the mosquito-borne disease. Sadly, you’d be wrong.
Imagine if employees are your local grocery store or restaurant weren’t given access to the bathroom when they needed to use it. Employees soiled themselves while stocking shelves or working at the check-out counter. That’s what is happening where we can’t see: behind the walls of poultry processing plants.
Workers inside Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel speak up about wages and conditions; New York’s governor sides with farmworkers in right to organize; reporters investigate the lack of women coaches in college sports; and Uber agrees to a workers guild with very limited power.
DuPont’s Board of Directors were challenged by shareholders to address the firm’s defective worker safety program.
CDC investigates diacetyl exposure in coffee production facilities; Supreme Court rules in favor of workers’ First Amendment rights; Latino workers still face the greatest fatality risks at work; and a job-seeking experiment finds women bear the brunt of age discrimination in the job market.
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.