January 5, 2011 The Pump Handle

Liz and Celeste are on vacation, so we’re re-posting some content from our old site. By Celeste Monforton, originally posted 12/16/09 In April-May 2008, there were a spate of fatalities involving workers doing installations or maintenance on cell phone towers. I blogged about seven of these worker deaths and promised to report back on the […]

October 13, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 6Comment

All 33 of the miners who were trapped in Chile’s San José mine have been safely lifted to the surface, as have the six rescuers who descended into the mine during the operation. Shift supervisor Luis Urzua was the last miner lifted to safety in the specially designed capsule that traversed the more than 2,000 […]

October 6, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH

After 29 miners were killed by an explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine on April 5, the Mine Safety and Health Administration stepped up inspections at 89 coal mines that had poor safety records. Even so, nine workers have been killed working inside mines, and another four using machinery near mine entrances, in […]

September 29, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH

Becoming a mayor or a journalist might not seem like a particularly life-threatening career choice, but in parts of Mexico wracked by drug violence these have become dangerous jobs. Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers reports: As if Mexicans needed more evidence that criminal groups are trying to hijack the political life of the nation, it […]

August 30, 2010 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 1Comment

Just in time for the Labor Day holiday, the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) released a study indicating 85 percent of workers rank safety on the job as their top labor standard. NORC’s report, Public Attitudes towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety, assembled the results of dozens polls and surveys to assess […]

July 29, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 1Comment

If you’ve got four minutes, go watch OSHA’s video of Diane Lillicrap speaking on crane safety. Diane’s son Steven Lillicrap, 21, was killed by a crane at a Missouri construction site in 2009. I wrote yesterday about the importance of OSHA’s new crane rule, but Diane conveys it in a much more powerful way.