In announcing National Farm Safety Week, President Obama emphasized his Administration’s commitment to reducing hazards of agricultural work – including for young people. So how are we doing at protecting children and teens working on farms and ranches? Note: There is no federally required safety training for youth working in agriculture. Estimated injury rate is 38 per day and fatalities, 115 per year
Pregnant workers at center of major Supreme Court case; new legislation could help miners with black lung get needed care; thousands of Amazon.com workers in Germany go on strike; and labor advocates oppose changes to the National Labor Relations Board.
Environmental Health
Not an “accident”: Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, suffers fatal work-related injuries at southern Oklahoma oil rig site
This week’s snapshot of just one work-related fatality in the U.S. This one occurred on September 10 at a fracking site near Mannsville, Oklahoma.
Beginning January 1, 2015, employers in the 29 states covered by federal OSHA will have new requirements for reporting work-related hospitalizations and amputations.
Government
Temp workers organize for change in an industry rife with reported abuses: ‘They would treat people as disposable’
For eight years, Dora worked at a frozen pizza factory in Romeoville, Illinois, called Great Kitchens. For eight hours a day — sometimes seven days a week — she assembled pizza boxes or arranged cheese and other toppings on pizzas. The consequences of years of such repetitive work surfaced in October 2012, when her hands would go numb and a painful cyst formed on her left wrist. She told her supervisor about the problem, but he said he couldn’t do anything about it — Dora was a temporary worker hired through a staffing agency and so Great Kitchens wasn’t responsible for addressing her injury.
Environmental Health
Andrea Kidd-Taylor: Public health leader, worker safety advocate, justice seeker
The public health community is mourning the loss of Andrea Kidd-Taylor, DrPH, MSPH, 59, who died on September 1 from cancer.
Our Labor Day tradition continues with the third edition of “The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2013 – Summer 2014.” Section I of the report recaps happenings over the last 12 months at the federal level.
Around Memorial Day, OSHA set expectations in its regulatory agenda of what it would accomplish over the summer months. Now Labor Day is upon us and OSHA is 0 for 7 on the progress it said it would make on new worker safety regulations.
Government
Not an “accident”: Elbert C. Woods, 45, suffers fatal work-related injury at Cleveland, Ohio company
This week’s snapshot of just one work-related fatality in the U.S. This one occurred on August 21 at Cleveland Track Material in Cleveland, Ohio.
Injury Control & Violence
Fatal work injury that killed Erik Deighton, 23, was preventable, MIOSHA cites Colonial Plastics
Erik Deighton’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see Michigan OSHA’s findings in the agency’s citations against his employer, Colonial Plastics.