The Year in US Occupational Health and Safety
kkrisberg | September 8, 2017Typically, we like to end the annual “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety” on an uplifting note. But this time around — to be honest — that was a hard sell.
Take a quick look through the 2017 yearbook and you’ll quickly glean that worker health and safety is very much at risk under the new administration and from lawmakers in the states. From the attempted rollback of a new federal beryllium exposure standard to state efforts to weaken workers’ compensation systems, the view from 2017 does not seem terribly promising. On the other hand, the fight for workers’ rights has never…
cmonforton | September 7, 2017Researchers who investigate the impact of the work environment on health contributed dozens of papers to the peer-reviewed literature over the past 12 months. Scholars and advocates with non-profit organizations also published reports on various topics related to worker rights and safety. The final section of "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety" highlights some of this important and impressive research.
A particularly prominent topic in scientific journals addressed the heat-exposure experiences of farm workers. We profile two papers that report on the feasibility of using an…
cmonforton | September 6, 2017Investigative journalists play an important role in raising public awareness about worker health and safety issues. The number and quality of stories over the last 12 months was exceptional so "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety" includes a full section which highlights our picks for top-notch reporting.
The stories that Kim and I profile in Section III of the yearbook include the following:
A three-part investigation by NBC Bay Area that examined the workers’ compensation system in California. In one city, the medical claims of nearly 70 firefighters were denied and the…
cmonforton | September 5, 2017Kim Krisberg and I published yesterday---Labor Day 2017---the sixth edition of "The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety." It’s our effort to record the key events which advanced (or degraded) worker safety protections in the last 12 months. Kim's blog post yesterday provided an overview of the yearbook. I offer today a snapshot of the yearbook’s first section which addresses high points and low points of actions at the federal level.
Last year the OHS community bid farewell to Joe Main and David Michaels, the assistant secretaries of labor for MSHA and OSHA, respectively. We…
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 | September 9, 2016Earlier this week, we published our annual report, “The Year In U.S. Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2015 – Summer 2016,” chronicling the victories, setbacks and struggles taking place in the American workplace. But it was just about impossible to piece together a report like this without thinking about the strange — and often scary — election before us and its implications for workers.
So, when we were crafting the report’s concluding thoughts — a section we call “The Year Ahead” — it seemed almost logical to go down that “scary” road, to talk about the presidential election as if…
cmonforton | September 11, 2015This week’s recap of "The Year in US Occupational Health and Safety" concludes with the section dedicated to national reporting on worker health and safety topics.
When Kim and I looked back over the past 12 months and brainstormed topics to include in the report, on the top of our list was the contributions of investigative journalists. The stories we profile in Section IV the report include the following:
The New York Times’ Sarah Maslin Nir exposed the “price of pretty nails” in her investigation of working conditions for nail salon workers in the New York City area. In the May 2015 series…
cmonforton | September 8, 2015In the fourth edition of “The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety,” which we released on Labor Day, we recap some of the key activities that occurred at the federal level in the previous 12 months. One of the most noteworthy events was the Ebola virus epidemic, which brought worldwide attention to the need for appropriate equipment and training for health care workers. We devote a section of the report to recapping the government’s response following transmission of the virus to nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson. We describe some of the efforts by National Nurses United, the…