A construction industry trade association in British Columbia urged the province’s regulatory body to issue a proposed rule to protect silica-exposed workers. The proposal was issued this month. Where’s the U.S. equivalent of a group of high-road construction employers insisting on rules to protect workers’ health and safety?
After receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in OSHA penalties, and workers losing fingers in machines, you’d think this company would accept that its current safety program stinks.
Serious safety lapses at the Deer Park, TX Dow Chemical plant led to the death of Brian Johns. An OSHA “Star” status is only as good as what happens for workers on the front lines.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 cases of elevated blood lead levels from workplace exposures are reported each year to state health departments. In California, where the workforce is 36 percent Hispanic, the proportion of individuals with elevated blood-lead who also had Hispanic surnames was 64-70 percent.
Every week, the Austin-based Workers Defense Project welcomes standing room-only crowds to its Workers in Action meetings. And once a month, a local OSHA representative would join the meeting, giving some of Texas’ most vulnerable workers the chance to meet face-to-face with the agency. Unfortunately, due to the federal sequester, OSHA has had to indefinitely suspend its participation. It’s a significant loss.
Spring 2013 looked like it would be a banner season for progress by the Obama Administration on new worker safety regulations; not so much anymore.
The AFL-CIO’s “Death on the Job” report shows why U.S. workers deserve much better protections than they are getting.
In the early 1990’s, the American Dental Association put up quite a fight to oppose an OSHA regulation requiring dentists to provide gloves, masks and goggles to employees who could be exposed to blood-contaminated saliva.
Eric Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Latino Union of Chicago quite literally meet workers where they’re at — on the city’s street corners. Many of the day laborers who gather there are hired to work construction at residential housing sites. Work arrangements are hardly formal and day laborers are frequently subjected to unnecessary and illegal dangers on the job. Unfortunately, worker safety is often kicked to the curb in the street corner marketplace.
A quick review of the bi-partisan Senate immigration reform bill reveals a few provisions related to workplace safety.