Highway work zones can be deadly for road construction and maintenance workers. Safety and road construction experts made a series of recommendations in 2001 to agencies on ways to make these projects safer for workers. Have they help to prevent fatalities?
Injury Control & Violence
Really? Industry group launches campaign against worker centers, low-wage workers
In their efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers from illegal workplace practices and conditions, worker centers have now attracted the million-dollar ire of formidable anti-union forces. And while advocates say it’s a sign of worker centers’ success, it’s still a worrisome trend that’s made it all the way to the halls of Congress.
Some USDA meat and poultry inspectors work many hours of overtime. USDA insists it doesn’t affect their critical food safety responsibilities.
Injury Control & Violence
OSHA settlement with Wal-Mart calls for use of third-party safety auditors
Wal-Mart and OSHA reached an agreement to resolve a number of safety problems at 2,857 of the retailer’s stores. OSHA’s meager budget hardly allows it to do follow-up inspections at all of these sites. Wal-Mart will arrange for third-party monitors to assess their compliance with the settlement agreement.
Government
Safety equipment installed after the fact, too little, too late for Army veteran coal miner
Three months after a WV coal miner is killed on the job, the company decides to install safety equipment that could have saved his life.
Fair working standards for construction workers and financial profit for developers aren’t incompatible, according to a new report from Texas’ Workers Defense Project. In fact, consumers are actually willing to pay more to live in places built on principles of safety, economic justice and dignity.
Cancer
Pushing back against anti-regulatory forces, safety and environmental protections long overdue
The newly created Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Action held today its first hearing. Witnesses described the toll on public health and safety when the regulatory process is paralyzed by powerful interests and required analyses with no proven benefits.
Pilgrim’s Pride is the world’s second largest poultry producer. The firm’s repeat violations of chemical process safety management should earn them OSHA’s severe violator label.
Throughout a meeting in which it criticized OSHA action on several workplace hazards, the Chemical Safety Board was careful to acknowledge the progress OSHA had made in addressing the hazards, the factors that impede effective OSHA action, and the preventability of explosions and other chemical incidents that kill workers and leave families and communities devastated.
Affordable Care Act
Research on immigrant health care spending makes case for widening insurance options
With immigration at the forefront of national debate, Jim Stimpson decided it was time to do a little more digging.