construction | The Pump Handle

Government In the fight for a rest break, Dallas construction workers find their voice: ‘This is not the end, but a stepping stone to something bigger’ (rerun)

December 30, 2016 The Pump Handle

While The Pump Handle is on holiday break, we are republishing some of our favorite posts from the past year. This one is from May 2016: Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His tragic and entirely preventable death marked a turning point in advocacy efforts to pass a rest break ordinance for local construction workers.

Child Labor In the fight for a rest break, Dallas construction workers find their voice: ‘This is not the end, but a stepping stone to something bigger’

May 23, 2016 Kim Krisberg 1Comment

Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His tragic and entirely preventable death marked a turning point in advocacy efforts to pass a rest break ordinance for local construction workers.

Education New data: Lack of acclimatization procedures most often associated with worker heat deaths

August 8, 2014 Kim Krisberg 2Comment

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.

Cancer Working in clouds of dust. If it’s silica, it’s not safe.

September 10, 2013 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

Construction crews working in a cloud of dust takes place thousands of times every day in the U.S. Here’s just one example from my community.

Worker Health & Safety Preventing worker deaths through better building design

April 24, 2013 Liz Borkowski, MPH

Construction is the US industry sector with the most worker fatalities. Designing buildings with construction and maintenance workers in mind can make buildings safer, and green buildings truly sustainable.

Education Austin’s Construction Career Center providing a path toward safer, better-paying jobs

January 18, 2013 The Pump Handle

In Austin, Texas, a growing movement to transform working conditions for construction workers is underway and the new Construction Career Center is playing a pivotal role.

Injury Control & Violence Construction workers in central Texas successfully tie living wages to big business tax breaks

December 14, 2012 The Pump Handle

Workers in Travis County, Texas, are celebrating what advocates are calling a landmark victory, after local leaders voted to ensure that economic incentive deals benefit both big business and workers.

Injury Control & Violence A different kind of Texas-style justice: Two nights at Austin’s Workers Defense Project

August 31, 2012 The Pump Handle 1Comment

It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.

Injury Control & Violence Houston, we have a workers’ rights problem: Profile of a worker justice center in Texas’ biggest city

July 9, 2012 The Pump Handle 3Comment

Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren’t members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.

Injury Control & Violence Austin project successfully integrating workers’ rights into larger sustainability goals

June 18, 2012 The Pump Handle 2Comment

When most of us think of sustainability and construction, the usual suspects probably come to mind: efficient cooling and heating, using nontoxic building materials, minimizing environmental degradation — in other words, being green. But in Austin, Texas, a new effort is working to expand the definition of sustainability from the buildings themselves to the hands that put them together.