In an eight-day period, two workers lost their lives at communication towers. Their deaths reminded me of the grave hazards in the industry and the subcontracting model that can shield firms from responsibility for the hazards they create.
A Labor Department report describes the ways in which our state-based workers’ compensation system is failing injured workers. Will the report become a roadmap for reform or another government report that collects dust?
ProPublica and National Public Radio examine “injury benefit plans.” They are set up by some employers in Texas and Oklahoma as alternatives for firms that are allowed to opt-out of having workers’ compensation insurance.
The most memorable event in the last 12 months on workers’ health and safety topics was the exceptional reporting by journalists. One section of The Year in US Occupational Health and Safety is devoted to reporters’ contributions.
Why is the worker fatality rate in the cell-phone tower industry more than 10 times that in the construction industry? ProPublica and PBS Frontline investigate, and a former tower climber explains the pressures that lead to free climbing and other dangers.
As Jori Lewis notes in the case study about World Trade Center recovery workers’ health and safety, those who showed up at Ground Zero on the days and weeks after 9/11 got some misleading information about the risks they faced. Most notably, the EPA issued reassuring statements about the air quality – when, according to […]