The Palm Beach (Florida) Post is reporting that Ag-Mart has settled a civil suit filed by a migrant farmworker family who alleged their son’s serious birth defects were associated with the company’s improper handling of pesticides. Earlier reporting in March 2005 by the PB Post exposed the working and living conditions of this family and other farmworkers, and birth defects among some […]
The Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 entitled “Serious OSHA Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Patterns.” The subcomittee has not yet released a witness list, but I’d expect to hear something about some of the bad actors profiled in the “Dirty Dozen” report, […]
It’s national Sunshine Week—an effort “to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.”  A great way to celebrate the public’s right-to-know what its government is doing, is by sending a FOIA request to your […]
On Thursday, the Senate approved legislation that will boost funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, increase the agencyâs enforcement power, and effectively ban lead in all childrenâs products. The House bill passed in December contained similar provisions, although that chamber raised the maximum fine for companies that fail to report product hazards immediately to […]
That’s the word from Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, John Oxendine, during his announcement that the State will impose new safety requirements to prevent combustible dust explosions. The Commissioner’s new rule comes one month after a deadly explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which killed 12 and severely injured scores […]
(Updated 3/7/08) OSHA announced yesterday that it sent letters to about 14,000 employers across the country, letting them know that their work-related injury rates are higher than the national average. The Agency’s news release does not mention any company names, but an OSHA spokesperson told me that the list of employers will be posted on […]
That’s the headline from an editorial in today’s Savannah Morning News, laying responsibility for the broken workplace safety regulatory system on the Secretary of Labor’s desk. The words of editorial page editor, Tom Barton, sound like those I’ve heard before when a workplace disaster strikes a town. Journalists, community leaders, and family member victims are […]
As the recent problems with tainted food, drugs, toys, and other consumer products have made clear, our regulatory system has a lot of holes in it. Part of the problem is the current reluctance of agency appointees to do anything that might burden the industries in question, but thatâs not the whole story. Itâs also […]
OSHA’s Regional Office in New York announced the successful resolution of a retaliation case filed by a worker who was discharged by his employer after he expressed concerns about entering a workspace which had just been “bombed” with an insecticide. The case began more than two years ago at a residential housing complex in Flushing, NY, called […]
Kudos! to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for providing an update on their investigation of the devastating explosion at the Imperial Sugar/Dixie Crystals refinery near Port Wentworth, Georgia. As I’ve noted in previous posts, because the CSB makes it part of their business to provide regular update for the publicâeven if they don’t have much at all to reportâtheir […]