lborkowski | February 7, 2017Twenty-four years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA has allowed millions of workers to take time off work to care for new children and seriously ill family members, but it has several shortcomings and was only intended to be a first step. But over the past 24 years, US policy has stagnated while most of the rest of the world has demonstrated how well common-sense paid leave policies can function. Today, members of Congress have re-introduced legislation that would help us catch up.
The FMLA’s two most important shortcomings are allowing…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017Not violating federal labor law seems like a commonsense precursor for being awarded lucrative federal contracts. House Republicans, however, disagree.
Last week, majority members in the House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution to get rid of federal disclosure requirements included in President Barack Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which he originally signed in 2014. Those disclosure requirements directed businesses bidding for federal contracts of $500,000 or more to report any violations of 14 labor laws within the prior three years. Among those 14…
cmonforton | February 3, 2017Today, The Pump Handle had its own bizarre experience with the Trump Administration. It came via an email sent by HHS spokesperson Matt Lloyd to members of the Association for Health Care Journalists. Some of those professionals were reporting on the data released today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on insurance enrollment on Healthcare.gov. The 90-day open enrollment period ended this week.
CMS's plain-spoken news release indicates that 9.2 million individuals selected plans from the ACA marketplace, including three million new consumers. Many of these Americans…
cmonforton | January 30, 2017Hearing someone describe a situation as “one step forward, two steps back” is never a good thing. When it involves efforts to protect people’s health or public safety, the consequences can be dire. President Trump doesn’t care. He’s making good on a ludicrous campaign pledge that for every one regulation issued by a federal agency, the agency will have to offset the cost by eliminating two existing regulations. He issued that order today. The nonsense goes something like this:
FAA: “We need to enhance testing requirements to protect against flocking birds affecting airplane engines. That's…
lborkowski | January 30, 2017President Trump’s callous and short-sighted executive order restricting US entry for refugees and travelers from certain countries is rightfully getting a lot of attention, but it risks overshadowing another destructive thing he did for global health during his first week in office: reinstating and expanding the Mexico City Policy, also known more descriptively as the global gag rule. Trump’s adoption of this policy is even more reprehensible than it was for his Republican predecessors, for two reasons: First, he has broadened its scope so it appears to cripple not only family planning, but…
kkrisberg | January 27, 2017
We’re just a humble little public health blog. But we can still do our part. If you or someone you know need help getting health insurance coverage before next week’s enrollment deadline on Jan. 31, here are some good resources.
First, why do this? Because this week, the Trump administration abruptly canceled advertising and outreach scheduled to run during this final week of Affordable Care Act enrollment. Apparently, he even pulled ads that were already paid for. But, you can still enroll. According to Paul Demko at Politico:
(The Trump administration) is also halting all media outreach…
lborkowski | January 27, 2017By Jonathan Heller
President Trump’s 100 day plan includes deporting 2 million undocumented residents from the US. The plan represents a massive increase in scale and speed of deportations. Trump says he will focus on deporting undocumented people with criminal records. With fewer of them in the US now as a result of President Obama’s policies, Trump has already expanded the definition of who is a ‘criminal’ to include people who are merely charged or suspected of committing crimes. Being in the US without documents may become a ‘criminal’ act. Sensitive locations, like schools and clinics,…
garrettbrown | January 26, 2017Mass firings by garment factories and a wave of government arrests of union leaders and worker rights advocates threatens the gains made in improving workplace health and safety for the 4 million, mainly women, garment workers in Bangladesh. A shadow of fear and intimidation has fallen over the nation’s 3,500 export garment factories, undermining the ongoing process to establish factory health and safety committees that have genuine, active participation by workers.
International clothing brands have tremendous influence in Bangladesh because of the $26 billion in apparel exports they ordered…
cmonforton | January 25, 2017I can thank the Trump Administration for one thing. I now have a new phrase to describe how the poultry industry distorts information about working conditions for its employees: alternative facts.
Last fall, the National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association made a wild pronouncement about their industry’s work-related injury rate. They asserted their injury rates are at an all-time low and have declined by 81% since 1994. The trade associations' news release said:
“Perhaps more than any other industry, the poultry industry has focused its energies…
kkrisberg | January 24, 2017Can I afford the water that comes out of my tap? It’s not a question that Americans typically ask themselves. However, a new study finds that in the next few years, many more of us might be asking that very question as we open our utility bills and realize that we’re merely accustomed to affordable water — we don’t have a guaranteed right to it.
While a good amount of research on water affordability has been conducted in the developing world, the issue has received much less attention in developed nations such as the United States. Elizabeth Mack, an assistant professor in the Michigan State…
cmonforton | January 18, 2017There’s a thriving garment industry in Los Angeles which specializes in small volume production. The employers, who supply the trendy casual sportswear for companies such as Forever 21, Charlotte Russe, Papaya, and Wet Seal, employ about 45,000 workers in Los Angeles. A survey of more than 300 of those workers describes the dirty, dangerous and unhealthy conditions of their jobs. The survey results and companion findings from focus groups are reported in Dirty Threads, Dangerous Factories: Health and Safety in Los Angeles’ Fashion Industry.
Nearly 72 percent of the workers indicated that…
kkrisberg | January 17, 2017At The New York Times, Jodi Kantor and Jennifer Medina report on Trump’s pick to head up the U.S. Department of Labor, fast food CEO Andrew Puzder, an outspoken critic of labor laws that benefit hourly workers.
Puzder is expected to face tough questioning during his confirmation hearings, especially as his company’s restaurants have been accused of multiple labor law violations. The article explores Puzder’s entry into the fast food world, his work as a lawyer, and interviews current and former workers at one of the chains that Puzder runs, Carl’s Jr. Kantor and Medina write:
In interviews…
garrettbrown | January 16, 2017Let’s just say there was a working class community – of various skin colors – which was dominated for a century by a giant corporation who ran the town with bought-and-paid-for politicians, and whose operations regularly poisoned the community, threatened the health and safety of its workforce, and periodically blew up, sending thousands to the hospital. How could they even begin to protect the health of their families and community, and exercise their democratic right to a local government that put the needs of the vast majority ahead of corporate profits?
The answer to that question can be…
lborkowski | January 16, 2017As Congressional Republicans continue taking steps toward repealing the Affordable Care Act without providing a detailed, workable plan to replace it, more people are speaking out against ACA repeal.
GOP Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan are speaking to journalists about how the ACA’s Medicaid expansion has helped their states. Governor Snyder explained to The Detroit News that the state accepted the Medicaid expansion but added requirements for recipients earning between 100% and 133% of the federal poverty level, and that the program is working and has the potential…
cmonforton | January 12, 2017Chronic beryllium disease is a horrible illness, as is lung cancer. Both diseases are the rationale for a new health standard issued by OSHA on January 9.
The rule is designed to protect the health of an estimated 60,000 workers in the U.S. who are exposed to the light-weight, super-strong metal: beryllium. This includes about 10,000 workers involved in electric-power generation; 9,000 workers in dental laboratories and dental offices; 8,400 in specialty construction trades; 5,600 in motor vehicle parts manufacturing; and 3,000 in the maritime industry who are welders and abrasive blasters.…
kkrisberg | January 10, 2017Because taking health insurance away from millions of Americans isn’t bad enough, President-elect Trump has reportedly asked an outspoken critic of vaccines — a man who supported the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines are linked to autism — to lead a commission on vaccine safety.
That man is Robert Kennedy Jr., who in 2005 wrote a “expose” published in Salon and Rolling Stone arguing that thimerosal, a preservative in vaccines, is tied to autism. Salon retracted the article after critics “further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value.” Rolling Stone dumped the story too. More…
lborkowski | January 9, 2017Republicans in Congress are pressing forward with a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act through a budget reconciliation process, which requires only 50 votes but can only eliminate the portions of the law that affect the federal budget. They don’t yet have a viable plan to replace it, so they’re pushing a “repeal and delay” strategy that would involve repealing the law now and asking voters to trust them that they’ll come up with something else in a few years (on top of the six they’ve already had). That something else would almost certainly involve skimpier coverage or the loss of…
kkrisberg | January 4, 2017At the Toronto Star, Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on the “lethal legacy” of a General Electric plant in the Canadian city of Peterborough, Ontario, where hundreds of compensation claims have been filed for illnesses that workers say were caused by occupational chemical exposures. In fact, one occupational health expert described the plant as a “cancer generator.”
Mojtehedzadeh reports that a study commissioned by General Electric and that the Star obtained found that male workers at the plant were up to 57 percent more likely to die of lung cancer than the general population, while female…
lborkowski | January 3, 2017The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on April 25, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
During 1999-2000, reporter Andrew Schneider blew the lid off the asbestos disaster in Libby, Montana. Schneider’s original stories, published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, drew national attention to the public health catastrophe in the town. The culprit was the W.R. Grace Company, with supporting roles played by lax regulatory agencies and cowardly public officials.
Schneider wrote dozens of articles for the Post-…
lborkowski | January 2, 2017The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Jan. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide…