A stagehand’s death is a grim reminder of hazards in the theater; it takes OSHA an average of nearly eight years to issue a new standard; and a federal decision clears the way for 50 cancers to be added to the list of WTC-related diseases eligible for compensation and treatment.
Workers keep dying from combustible dust explosions, even though there’s plenty of knowledge about how to prevent them; three farm workers were found dead in a manure pit; and the list of environmental activists killed in India keeps getting longer.
National Police Week honors law enforcement officers who’ve been killed in the line of duty; OSHA tells Hyatt Hotels that housekeeping workers are at risk of ergonomic injuries; and a fire in a Phiippines clothing factory kills 17.
April 28th is Workers Memorial Day, and groups California to Nebraska to Kentucky are planning events — see a complete list at the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) website. Events in Washington, DC are happening in advance of Workers Memorial Day: On Thursday, April 19th at 10am, the Senate Health, Education, Labor […]
Earlier this month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration released results of an internal review into the agency’s actions leading up to the April 5, 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, which killed 29 miners in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The Executive Summary reports, “While the Internal Review team did not find evidence that the […]
In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics: In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work, while those who experienced a […]
Earlier today, US Attorney Booth Goodwin charged Upper Big Branch mine superintendent Gary May with “conspiring to impede the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s enforcement efforts” at that mine. Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia was the site of numerous health and safety violations leading up to the April 5, […]
Celeste wrote last week about the letter from scientists and public health experts urging President Obama to direct the Office of Management and Budget to finish reviewing the Department of Labor’s proposed health standard on crystalline silica. Respirable crystalline silica has been known for several centuries as an occupational hazard — it can cause irreversible […]
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has warned about the dangers of combustible dust before, and its new report on a series of disasters at the Hoeganaes facility in Gallatin, Tennessee once again highlights how deadly this hazard can be. In three separate incidents at the Hoeganaes powdered metals plant, fires killed a […]
In iWatch News, Sasha Chavkin and Ronnie Greene report on a rash of kidney-disease deaths among sugarcane workers in Nicaragua. The workers generally don’t suffer from hypertension or diabetes, so attention has turned to workplace factors, Chavkin and Greene write: Some scientists suspect that exposure to an unknown toxin, potentially on the job, may trigger […]