Failing to get the time to acclimate to a hot work environment can be deadly. That’s the message I took away from an item in last week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). “Heat illness and deaths among workers — U.S. 2012-2013” reports on 13 occupational heat-related fatalities investigated by federal OSHA. Nine of the […]
Obama signs order requiring certain contractors to disclose labor violations; judge rules in favor of college athletes; Brooklyn hospital fined for workplace violence; and workers take wage theft to court.
Education
New data: Lack of acclimatization procedures most often associated with worker heat deaths
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on heat deaths among U.S. workers, underscoring the often-tragic consequences that result when employers fail to take relatively simple and low-cost preventive actions.
Government
Not an “accident”: Stanley Thomas Wright, 47, suffers work-related asphyxiation at railyard in North Las Vegas
This week’s snapshot of just one work-related fatality. This one occurred on August 2 at a railyard in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Labor Department convinced USDA to insert some worker safety measures into its new poultry slaughter inspection regulation. Poultry workers hope the measures are more than just words in the Federal Register notice.
FOIA
Final USDA poultry rule: Line speeds stay the same, but no word from OSHA; food safety advocates call it a step backwards
For 17 years, Salvadora Roman deboned chickens on the processing line at Wayne Farms in Decatur, Alabama. Because of the repetitive movement and speed of the processing line, Roman developed a chronic and painful hand injury that affects her ability to do even the most basic household chores. About three years ago, she was fired from the plant for taking time off work to visit a doctor for the injury she sustained on the line.
Mine safety penalties are pretty meaningless if they aren’t paid, and more so if they aren’t assessed.
McDonald’s ruling could be a major turning point for the fast food worker movement; federal commission clarifies rules for pregnant workers; miners with black lung may have been wrongly denied benefits; and a new OSHA whistleblower partnership is launched to support commercial carrier workers.
Education
Studies: Students initially complained about healthier school food, but now it’s like totally not a big deal
Nearly two years ago, American schoolchildren began sitting down to healthier school lunches, thanks to new federal nutrition guidelines. Media reports of the nutrition upgrade weren’t terribly encouraging, with stories of unhappy kids, unhappy parents and politicians who think addressing childhood obesity is an example of the “nanny state.” However, recent research has found what most parents probably already know: Kids are pretty adaptable — they just need some time.
One reporter’s tale of hoops and roadblocks trying to get an interview with an EPA official.