HuffPo’s Dave Jamieson writes this week about a Kentucky worker who raised concerns about safety problems at Armstrong Coal, was fired for doing so and complained about it to the Labor Department, and is now being sued by his former employer for making his claim.
The Labor Department’s MSHA issued a new regulation this week targeting employers that have an egregious pattern of violating mine safety and health standards.
With five days left in calendar year 2012, the Obama Administration released its current regulatory plan and agenda, including new rules addressing health and safety hazards in workplaces. Neither OSHA nor MSHA have a good track record predicting when such rules will actually be completed.
Seven new worker safety regulations–both proposed and final rules—are stuck in the Obama White House. One proposed rule has been “under review” for 645 days.
Now that the Presidential election is over, it’s time for the Labor Department to kick into high gear expand workers’ rights and ensuring workers’ lives and health are protected. Here’s my wish list of tasks for the Labor Department to accomplish in the next 6 months:
In our new report “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” we devote one section to key activities by the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
The newly unveiled granite memorial in Whitesville, WV is a visible reminder of the 29 miners who were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine, but the truest measure of our recognition of their sacrifice is what we do in their memory to protect the living.
Coal miner Johnny Mack Bryant II, 35, was killed on Friday, July 27 in the “red zone” when he was struck and pinned by a continuous mining machine. Let’s see whether this work-related fatality gives the Labor Department a greater sense of urgency to finalize safety regulations to require proximity detection devices on certain types of mining equipment.
While investigative reporters are exposing the plague of black lung disease in U.S. coal miners, the best Members of Congress are willing to do is ask for a postage stamp commemorating the American Coal Miner.
The Washington Post’s article “Meaningless millions” captures some of the heartbreak experienced when your loved one is killed on the job, but like most things, there’s more to the story.