Tony Mazzocchi was a visionary who was in the forefront of the labor movement’s efforts to secure protections for working people, including strong workplace health and safety laws. He was inducted this week in the Labor Department’s Hall of Fame.
Alpha Natural Resources, which purchased Massey Energy in 2011, is publicizing it very cool mine-rescue dog name Ginny, the first of its kind in the U.S.. I can’t help but wonder though whether the promo-campaign about Ginny isn’t meant to distract us from the serious safety violations discovered in the company’s coal mines.
National Police Week honors law enforcement officers who’ve been killed in the line of duty; OSHA tells Hyatt Hotels that housekeeping workers are at risk of ergonomic injuries; and a fire in a Phiippines clothing factory kills 17.
Worker Health & Safety
The Pander Games: Obama Administration Sells Out Kids Doing Dangerous Agricultural Work, Breaks Pledge to Ensure Welfare of Youngest Workers
By Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPRBlog Yesterday evening, when press coverage had ebbed for the day, the Department of Labor issued a short, four-paragraph press release announcing it was withdrawing a rule on child labor on farms. The withdrawal came after energetic attacks by the American Farm Bureau, Republicans in Congress, Sarah Palin, and–shockingly–Al Franken […]
Earlier this month, the Mine Safety and Health Administration released results of an internal review into the agency’s actions leading up to the April 5, 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, which killed 29 miners in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The Executive Summary reports, “While the Internal Review team did not find evidence that the […]
In the latest issue of EHS Today, Terence Milford lays out the case to employers for investing in ergonomics: In 2002, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employees suffering from repetitive stress injuries incurred in the workplace took a median of 23 days off work, while those who experienced a […]
Although the news of a shopper using pepper spray was disturbing, I was glad that Black Friday 2011 passed without the kind of tragedy that happened in 2008, when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was killed by a stampede of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island. OSHA cited Wal-Mart for a serious violation of […]
By Elizabeth Grossman We have learned from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request and released by the Center for Public Integrity earlier this month that there are currently about 465 United States industrial facilities on what the EPA calls its “watch list.” The list is made up of […]
Injury Control & Violence
Curious to learn about workplace safety in a responsible regulatory environment
I’m eager to listen in on tomorrow’s congressional hearing about workplace safety. It’s being conducted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, with the title “Workplace Safety: Ensuring a Responsible Regulatory Environment.” That’s a heading that probably means different things to different people, and those of us watching would […]
The Department of Labor’s Labor Day 2011 website features some interesting historical info on this holiday, and an address from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis that focuses on job creation. What I found particularly interesting was an op-ed by Secretary Solis – one of many linked from the site’s News page – published Friday in […]