occupational fatalities
cmonforton | October 11, 2017The U.S. Supreme Court is not interested in hearing former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's claim that he didn't get a fair trial. On October 10, the court denied Blankenship's petition to review his criminal conviction. (here (see page 3))
In December 2015 a jury found Blankenship guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety standards. Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine was the site of the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years when 29 miners were killed by a massive coal dust explosion. Blankenship micromanaged his coal mines so much so that he demanded production reports every hour.…
cmonforton | October 4, 2017President Trump’s nominee to head the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) appeared today before a Senate committee for a confirmation hearing. David Zatezalo answered questions about the epidemic of black lung cases, an increase in mine worker fatalities, the need for safety assistance for small mine operators, and more. Zatezalo began his career in 1974 as a UMWA coal miner and most recently served as chairman of Rhino Resources.
I watched the webcast of Zatezalo's confirmation hearing. The nominee noted his experience managing 39 different coal mines in the U.S.…
kkrisberg | September 27, 2017At the Toronto Star, reporter Sara Mojtehedzadeh went undercover as a temp worker at Fiera Foods, an industrial bakery, to investigate why temp workers are more likely to get hurt on the job. Earlier this year, Canadian occupational health and safety officials brought charges against the company, whose clients include Dunkin’ Donuts, Costco and Walmart, for the death of 23-year-old Amina Diaby, who was strangled to death after her hijab got caught in a machine.
Mojtehedzadeh, along with Brendan Kennedy, write:
I get about five minutes of training in a factory packed with industrial equipment…
cmonforton | September 15, 2017The Trump Administration is proposing to scrap a requirement for mine operators to conduct safety checks before miners begin their work. Identifying hazards and fixing them is key to preventing work-related injuries and deaths.
The requirement on Trump's chopping block applies to more than 11,000 mining operations that extract metals and aggregates, such as underground gold and salt mines and rock quarries. Similar requirements for coal mines are not part of the administration’s announcement, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see this proposal lead to similar changes at coal mines.
The rule “…
garrettbrown | September 14, 2017Starting in July 2015, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) was authorized to hire several dozen more field compliance officers to protect the state’s 19 million workers. Because Cal/OSHA’s hiring has not filled all new positions or kept up with retirements, there has been an average of 34 vacancies of these fully-funded positions since then, resulting in $11 million in unused resources through August 2017. Not only is this a missed worker protection opportunity, no one knows what’s happened to these funds and where they are.
Another mystery is the whereabouts…
kkrisberg | September 12, 2017At the Huffington Post, Dave Jamieson reports that labor unions are stepping up to help protect increasingly vulnerable immigrant workers from deportation. In fact, Jamieson writes that in many instances, labor unions have become “de facto immigrants rights groups,” educating workers on their rights and teaching immigrants how to best handle encounters with immigration officials.
Jamieson’s story begins:
Yahaira Burgos was fearing the worst when her husband, Juan Vivares, reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in lower Manhattan in March. Vivares, who fled Colombia and…
kkrisberg | September 4, 2017For the sixth year in a row, we present “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” our attempt to document the year’s highs and lows as well as the challenges ahead.
Like previous editions, the 2017 yearbook highlights policies, appointments and activities at the federal, state and local levels; outstanding news reporting on workers’ rights, safety and health; and the latest research from public health agencies and worker groups on the ground. Of course, you can’t ignore the giant elephant (no pun intended) in the room in 2017 — a new president and a Republican-controlled Congress…
kkrisberg | August 25, 2017At the Tampa Bay Times, Neil Bedi, Jonathan Capriel, Anastasia Dawson and Kathleen McGrory investigate a June 29 incident at Tampa Electric in which molten ash — commonly referred to as “slag” — escaped from a boiler and poured downed on workers below. Five workers died.
A similar incident occurred at Tampa Electric two decades earlier. If the company had followed the guidelines it devised after that 1997 incident, the five men who died in June would still be alive, the newspaper reported. In particular, the five deaths could have been avoided if the boiler had been turned off before workers…
garrettbrown | July 11, 2017At the end of two complete years when dozens of fully-funded field compliance positions went empty, reported workplace fatalities and injuries in California are on the rise. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has had a monthly average of 34 vacant field enforcement positions since July 2015, which means that more than $10 million in state-authorized funding was left unused.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest available data shows that 388 workers were fatally injured on the job in California in 2015. On average, that is more than one worker a…
cmonforton | June 30, 2017It is maddening to read yet again about a worker being killed in a trench cave-in. These deaths are completely preventable by using some pretty cheap equipment. The death of Donald “DJ” Meyer in December 2016 is especially tragic. The 33 year-old is survived by his son Ashten, 8. The youngster’s mother died unexpectedly two years ago.
I learned this week that OSHA has thrown the book at Meyer’s employer. They issued citations against Arrow Plumbing for six willful and eight serious violations and proposed a $714,142 penalty.
Arrow Plumbing was responsible for making certain its excavation…
cmonforton | May 4, 2017Cell tower worker Kris Runyon, 39, fell to his death on Tuesday, May 2 in Meridian, MS. Local news station WAPT reports the incident occurred at about 7 pm when Runyon was 228 feet off the ground on a cell tower. A co-worker witnessed the incident and the county coroner reported that Runyon was wearing safety equipment designed to prevent a fatal fall.
The industry news source WirelessEstimator.com reports that Mr. Runyon was employed by D&K Nationwide Communications. D&K is a subcontractor to MasTec, a business that provides engineering, construction, and maintenance services to…
cmonforton | April 28, 2017Ignoring workers’ safety concerns.
Failing to fix hazards.
Directing employees to do unsafe tasks.
Repeatedly violating safety laws.
Falsifying training records and safety audits.
Lying to safety inspectors.
Who would do such things?
Regrettably, far too many employers and 12 of them are profiled in the report “The Dirty Dozen 2017: Employers who put workers & communities at risk.” It was released this week by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) as part of global commemorations of Worker Memorial Day.
National COSH asked its expansive network of health…
kkrisberg | April 18, 2017At Bloomberg BNA, Stephen Lee reports that with fears of deportation looming, undocumented immigrants are becoming afraid to access legal remedies when they’re injured on the job. The article notes that such immigrants are disproportionately employed in hazardous jobs and while they account for just 15 percent of the overall workforce, they account for 18 percent of occupational fatalities. Lee writes:
Sofia, a Mexican fieldworker in Santa Rosa, Calif., has a workers’ compensation case in the works after hurting her arm and shoulder pulling vine roots, requiring surgery. But she says she’s…
kkrisberg | April 8, 2017At the Center for Public Integrity, Talia Buford and Maryam Jameel investigate federal contractors that receive billions in public funds despite committing wage violations against their workers. In analyzing Department of Labor data on more than 1,100 egregious violators, the reporters found that federal agencies modified or granted contracts totaling $18 billion to 68 contractors with proven wage violations. The Department of Defense contracted with the most wage violators.
Under Obama, labor officials had attempted to address the problem with the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which…
cmonforton | March 29, 2017From time to time I write a blog post titled “Not an accident.” These posts highlight the name of a recent workplace-fatality victim and also challenge the often-used term "accident" to describe such an event.
The hazards that lead to workers being killed on job---from being pulled into or crushed by machinery to falling from a roof--- are well-understood and can be addressed. Yet most worker fatalities are described by police spokespersons as “accidents” and the term is then repeated in local press accounts. Could the press instead communicate how such incidents could be averted?
Several…
cmonforton | March 14, 2017Kentucky’s Labor Secretary Derrick Ramsey announced this week that his department would be issuing a “Monthly Workplace Safety Report.” The report will provide a recap of the previous month’s safety consultation services, which are offered to employers at no charge by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety & Health Education & Training.
The Labor Secretary says he wants to change the public's perceptions about the Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s work.
“For years, employers across Kentucky viewed the issuance of penalties and citations as the cornerstone of the…
cmonforton | March 11, 2017Rick Simer’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see OSHA’s findings in the agency’s recent citations against K.B.P. Coil Coaters, Inc.
The 64 year-old was working in August 2016 when he was killed on the job. The initial press report by the Denver Post indicated that Mr. Simer was “caught in an aluminum splitter machine.” I wrote about the incident shortly after it occurred.
OSHA completed its post-fatality inspection and recently issued citations to K.B.P. Coil Coaters. OSHA found that the company violated safety regulations for lockout/tagout procedures (1910.147)…
cmonforton | February 28, 2017Cirilo Banuelos Reyes, 50, fell to his death on February 14 at a demolition site in Lanett, Alabama. Roy Granger, his employer and owner of Regeneration LLC told WRBL:
“It was a very sad, sad situation and accident. ….This was just a freak accident that happened here.“
Reyes was working on the fourth floor of the abandoned, 100-year old West Point Stevens Mill. Lanett police report that Reyes was removing wood floor boards when a section of flooring gave way. The worker fell four stories and later succumb to his severe injuries.
Granger described Reyes as a
“great worker. …he had worked for…
lborkowski | February 24, 2017by Laura Punnett, ScD
Perhaps you’ve heard that there are some unusual trends in U.S. death rates – specifically, that white people are experiencing an unexpected increase in mortality. Last year, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published an innovative analysis calling attention to the alarming increase in mortality rates, specifically in white, non-Hispanic, middle-aged Americans. This trend contrasts dramatically with previous historical declines among whites, the continuing declines in U.S. Blacks and Latinos, and the declines in many other developed countries. The report has…
kkrisberg | February 21, 2017At Reveal, Jennifer Gollan reports on how the Navy and other federal agencies give lucrative contracts to shipbuilders with troublesome worker safety records. In fact, Gollan reports that since 2008, the Navy and Coast Guard’s seven major shipbuilders have received more than $100 billion in public funds despite serious — and sometimes fatal — safety gaps. She noted that in his first days in office, President Trump announced plans for a massive Navy fleet expansion, which could mean even more workers will be at risk.
Gollan writes:
With extra business comes more risks for workers. But there is…