The American Chemistry Council is making the ludicrous claim that a proposed OSHA regulation on combustible dust will negatively impact the economy and job growth. That’s a bunch of baloney. OSHA doesn’t even have combustible dust on its regulatory agenda.
Royal Dutch Shell’s and Sauid Aramco’s Motiva refinery in Port Arthur Texas open last month with fanfare. The celebration was quickly overshadowed by a ruinous leak of corrosive into the heart of the refinery. The incident could have resulted in catastrophic loss of life
Nurses’ demanding jobs often leave them injured, and nurses working injured increases the risk of medication mistakes; many farmworkers never report pesticide-related ailments; and the rate of uninsurance is high among federal firefighters.
Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren’t members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working conditions in a state that has the highest construction worker fatality rate in the country.
Three of my favorite investigative journalists have worked together to expose a national disgrace: coal miners in the U.S. still develop black lung disease.
A National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health workshop featured excellent research on using workers’ compensation data to study occupational safety and health — but will policymakers and other non-experts be able to understand and use this information?
President Obama’s regulatory czar is missing a fundamental component of regulatory uncertainty. It’s pretty simply, make a deadline, stick with it, or explain why it will be missed.
Family members of the April 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster say they are still in the dark. The latest example is Alpha Natural Resources failure to make public a progress report required in its non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Not a single Republican member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee voted in support of a resolution calling for the Committee to “consider and report legislation to improve safety and whistleblower protections for miners, and increase accountability for dangerous mine operators.” The 29 families of the Upper Big Branch miners now know who is standing with them and who is against them.
Researchers at Michigan State University offer more evidence that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual estimate of occupational injury and illnesses grossly misses the mark on the actual count of work-related health harm. How many more studies are needed before the Secretary of Labor addresses the problem?