Walmart says its wages are at the high end, but it’s hard to get by on even $12 per hour. After deducting housing, food, and transportation costs from a $12-per-hour worker’s paycheck, there’s little if anything left for other basic expenses, let alone saving for the future.
The owner of a factory where an explosion killed two workers is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10-20 years in prison; a reporter investigates deaths of young farmworkers since the Obama administration withdrew its proposed rule on child agricultural workers; and retailers have improved their Black Friday crowd control in the five years since Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death at a Long Island Walmart.
Environmental Health
Thanksgiving turkey gets Presidential pardon – Turkey workers, however, can’t get a break
As Americans prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday and the White House gets ready for President Obama to pardon the National Thanksgiving Turkey in a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday November 27 that will “reflect upon the time-honored traditions of Thanksgiving,” let us take a moment to reflect upon the welfare of the men and women […]
Food Safety & Nutrition
Poultry industry says it’s being “framed as poster boy for unsafe workplaces”
The poultry industry must have its head stuck in the chicken coop. With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, the industry is trying to convince the public that poultry-processing plants are great places to earn a living. The facts tell us something different.
This week, Houston became only the second major city in the U.S. South to pass a law to prevent and punish wage theft. It’s a major victory for all workers, but it’s especially significant for the city’s low-wage workers, who lose an estimated $753.2 million every year because of wage theft.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Worth reading: Child agriculture deaths, SNAP reductions, and a post-antibiotics future
Links to recent pieces on child agriculture workers killed on the job, imagining a future in which antibiotics no longer work, and various aspects of the inadequate US safety net.
At least 1.7 million US workers are exposed to respirable crystalline silica each year, this according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). These exposures occur in a variety of industries, among them construction, sandblasting, mining, masonry, stone and quarry work, and in the rapidly expanding method of oil and gas extraction […]
My public health colleague, Adam Finkel, ScD, MPP, received the 2013 Alumni Leadership award from the Harvard School of Public Health. He challenges the assertion that scientists and researchers are supposed to be ‘neutral,’ not advocates.
Will President Obama’s new regulatory czar make good on his promise to conduct reviews of agency rules in a timely manner? The 90-day deadline will expire this week for the office’s review of the Labor Department’s final rule to protect coal miners from black lung disease.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposes a rule that would make large companies’ injury and illness reports publicly available; Johns Hopkins Medicine suspends its black lung program after its activities are highlighted in a Center for Public Integrity report on miners denied black lung benefits; and an explosion at a Ciudad Juarez candy factory kills four workers.