Texas construction workers who’ve lost their lives on unsafe worksites may be gone, but they certainly haven’t been forgotten. Earlier this week, hundreds of Texas workers and their supporters took to the streets to demand legislators do more to stop preventable injury and death on the job.
Environmental Health
New study lifts the lid on unhealthy kitchen conditions in migrant farmworker housing
For many migrant farmworkers, the health risks don’t stop at the end of the workday. After long, arduous hours in the field, many will return to a home that also poses dangers to their well-being. And quite ironically for a group of workers that harvests our nation’s food, one of those housing risks is poor cooking and eating facilities.
A report about the H-2B guest worker program describes the mistreatment and abuse suffered by workers in the U.S. carnival and fair industry.
Food Safety & Nutrition
How will USDA respond to environmental justice concerns for poultry plant workers?
I’m eager to see how USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack responds to the environmental justice concerns raised about the Food Safety Inspection Services’ proposed regulation on poultry plant inspections.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
Our Washington Post local op-ed: DC meals shouldn’t come with a side of the flu
Our Washington Post local opinion piece addresses a problematic exemption in a DC law.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Florida farmworkers’ wages: Pick 32 pounds of tomatoes, earn 50 cents, and Senators admit they know it
Subsistence wages, unsafe working and living conditions and hard labor describe the work life of many U.S. farm workers. The Senate’s bi-partisan immigration reform plan may help to change this reality.
Texas may boast a booming construction sector, but a deeper look reveals an industry filled with wage theft, payroll fraud, frighteningly lax safety standards, and preventable injury and death. In reality, worker advocates say such conditions are far from the exception — instead, they’ve become the norm.
Injury Control & Violence
This takes the cake: Kentucky company sues coal miner who complained about safety problems
HuffPo’s Dave Jamieson writes this week about a Kentucky worker who raised concerns about safety problems at Armstrong Coal, was fired for doing so and complained about it to the Labor Department, and is now being sued by his former employer for making his claim.
Environmental Health
Demands for safer working conditions, fair wages drew Martin Luther King to Memphis
Today we commemorate the life of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated in Memphis, TN in April 1968. The civil rights leader was visiting Memphis to support hundreds of city sanitation workers in their demands for safer working conditions and dignity on the job.
In Austin, Texas, a growing movement to transform working conditions for construction workers is underway and the new Construction Career Center is playing a pivotal role.