CBS News correspodent Bob Simon traveled to eastern Kentucky to investigate the hazards faced by underground coal miners. His conversation with women who lost their husbands in the May 2006 Darby Mine disaster will air on this Sunday, March 11 at 7:00 PM (EST).
by Les Boden For the past several years, Nevada employers and insurers could avoid paying workersâ compensation benefits to workers who had positive drug tests. According to an article in Occupational Hazards, this led to the denial of 10%-12% of claims filed in Nevada. But thereâs a loophole that the Nevada legislature is considering closing. […]
Worker issues were in the spotlight on Capitol Hill this past week. Senator Patty Murray of Washington state introduced legislation to ban asbestos, and the hearing on the bill featured testimony from John Thayer, head of a crew that works in the tunnels running beneath the U.S. Capitol. He explained that he and his crew […]
An article in yesterday’s Financial Times reveals that prior to the deadly explosion at its Texas City refinery, BP successfully lobbied against environmental regulations that could have mitigated– if not prevented– the catastrophe from having taken place in the first place.
In continuation of the tradition begun at Jordan Barabâs Confined Space blog, Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups on 81 workplace deaths, including the following: Eric Jones, a 34-year-old Burlington, Wisconsin resident who fell 90 feet from the […]
By David Michaels Marla Cone, in the Los Angeles Times, reports on a complaint raised by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that the National Toxicology Programâs Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) is being run not by federal scientists but by a consulting firm that also works for manufacturers of chemicals […]
At today’s Senate hearing on Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) proposal to ban asbestos in the U.S., Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) said some very interesting things. (Audio here) His opening statement began predictably: There is no debate that certain forms of asbestos are toxic and deadly. (Oh yeah, I know where this is going. It’s the same old debate […]
As long as the U.S. system has employers bearing the brunt of soaring health insurance costs (or avoiding them by not offering coverage at all), workers, companies, and even charities will be trying out different approaches to affording healthcare. Here are a few approaches that have made the news recently: The new Farmersâ Health Cooperative […]
Mike Hendricks from the Kansas City Star notes in a recent article that all-too-often, trench collapses happen when “work crews take shortcuts because they’re in a hurry or think a trench box interferes with the job they’re doing.” While it may be true that workers are “cutting corners” to finish the job they are assigned […]
The House Education and Labor Committee, chaired by George Miller (D-CA), issued a progress report on MSHA’s implementation of the MINER Act of 2006. The report says implementation by the agency and mining industry of certain provisions of the new law are “proceeding too slowly,” including inadequate application of underground communication and tracking devices.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blog “The Gavel” quickly […]