Failing to get the time to acclimate to a hot work environment can be deadly. That’s the message I took away from an item in last week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). “Heat illness and deaths among workers — U.S. 2012-2013” reports on 13 occupational heat-related fatalities investigated by federal OSHA. Nine of the […]
Obama signs order requiring certain contractors to disclose labor violations; judge rules in favor of college athletes; Brooklyn hospital fined for workplace violence; and workers take wage theft to court.
Recent pieces give a glimpse of working an Ebola outbreak, industry-backed attacks on a researcher investigating artificial sweeteners’ effects, how parking laws affect housing prices, and more.
Education
New data: Lack of acclimatization procedures most often associated with worker heat deaths
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on heat deaths among U.S. workers, underscoring the often-tragic consequences that result when employers fail to take relatively simple and low-cost preventive actions.
Government
Not an “accident”: Stanley Thomas Wright, 47, suffers work-related asphyxiation at railyard in North Las Vegas
This week’s snapshot of just one work-related fatality. This one occurred on August 2 at a railyard in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
Environmental Health
Study: Trees save 850 lives every year, prevent thousands of health complications (seriously!)
Next time you pass a tree, you might want to give it a second thought. Maybe even a hug. One day, that tree might just help save your life.
The Labor Department convinced USDA to insert some worker safety measures into its new poultry slaughter inspection regulation. Poultry workers hope the measures are more than just words in the Federal Register notice.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
CDC: Ebola worsening in West Africa; little risk to general US population
As the Ebola epidemic in West Africa worsens, CDC sends staff to affected countries and issues a travel alert, but stresses that the disease “poses very little risk to the general US population.”
FOIA
Final USDA poultry rule: Line speeds stay the same, but no word from OSHA; food safety advocates call it a step backwards
For 17 years, Salvadora Roman deboned chickens on the processing line at Wayne Farms in Decatur, Alabama. Because of the repetitive movement and speed of the processing line, Roman developed a chronic and painful hand injury that affects her ability to do even the most basic household chores. About three years ago, she was fired from the plant for taking time off work to visit a doctor for the injury she sustained on the line.