This week, Houston became only the second major city in the U.S. South to pass a law to prevent and punish wage theft. It’s a major victory for all workers, but it’s especially significant for the city’s low-wage workers, who lose an estimated $753.2 million every year because of wage theft.
APHA Annual Meeting
Amid minimum-wage votes and Walmart strikes, APHA OHS section honors workplace-safety champions
At the 141st meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) held last week in Boston, the organization’s Occupational Health & Safety section honored the achievements of some extraordinarily dedicated individuals and organizations whose efforts have been advancing workplace safety. While these awards are typically most meaningful to others in the field, events taking place […]
Child Labor
At US’s favorite water park, 20 year old fatally crushed in wave machine, his fifth week on the job
The water parks operated by Schlitterbahn receive award after award for being the country’s best water resorts. Obviously, amusement parks that cause the death of an employee are not rejected from the awards competition.
At the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Boston this week, the organization officially approved 17 policy statements, including one calling for the US to improve access to paid sick and family leave and one urging OSHA to require workplace injury and illness prevention programs.
Environmental Health
Reporting workplace hazards: “If people are afraid to report, things don’t get fixed”
According to a new report from the Center for Effective Government, American workplace health and safety is suffering from – and as a result of – a serious lack of resources. While the number of US workplaces doubled between 1981 and 2011 and the number of US workers increased from 73 million to 129 million […]
Nearly 150 witnesses signed up to testify at a DC Council hearing on expanding access to paid sick leave and raising the minimum wage.
Wages in the highly profitable fast food industry are so low that more than half of families of front-line fast food workers are enrolled in and depend on public assistance programs to make ends meet. In other words, that seemingly inexpensive burger and fries not only comes with a secret sauce, but a secret cost.
USDA continues to insist that worker safety concerns are OSHA’s responsibility, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that its proposed rule to “modernize” poultry slaughter inspection with dizzying line speeds will injure workers.
While OSHA has never been the most robustly funded federal agency, its efforts and regulatory authority have helped prevent countless deaths, injuries and illnesses on the job. However, recent budget cuts and future budget cut proposals threaten those gains, and it’s no stretch to say that worker health and safety hang in the balance.
Construction crews working in a cloud of dust takes place thousands of times every day in the U.S. Here’s just one example from my community.