Workers keep dying from combustible dust explosions, even though there’s plenty of knowledge about how to prevent them; three farm workers were found dead in a manure pit; and the list of environmental activists killed in India keeps getting longer.
Public awareness of water-contamination concerns related to hydraulic fracturing has been growing. But one of the more pernicious and pervasive potential occupational fracking hazards may come from sand.
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.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Public health officials urge USDA to withdraw plan to “modernize” poultry inspection, worker and food safety will suffer
The Obama Administration’s quest to appease businesses’ claims about burdensome regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers’ safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American Public Health Association, the feedback on USDA’s proposal to “modernize” the poultry inspection process is loud and clear: scrap the idea because faster line speeds will take a grave toll on poultry plant workers.
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.
Debbie Brewer, a 53-year-old mother of three, has mesothelioma. It’s most likely due to asbestos exposure from the work clothes of her father, who succumbed to his own asbestos-related disease in 2006.
Six months after Maureen Revetta’s husband, Nick, 32, was killed by an explosion at the U.S. Steel plant in Clairton, PA, she was still waiting to hear from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Environmental Health
Doubt and other products: The National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens, bad for whose business?
The styrene industry objects to their product being listed as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” in the National Toxicology Program’s latest Report on Carcinogens. They got a chance to describe anticipated impacts on their business in a House committee hearing.
The New York Times’ Ian Urbina reports that the law limiting trucker hours has an exemption for oil and gas workers — and, not surprisingly, traffic crash fatality rates for this group are high.
Injury Control & Violence
Largest Hispanic civil rights group provoked by Obama USDA’s disregard for poultry plant workers
The nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization issued an action alert to its members urging them to tell USDA Secretary Vilsack to withdraw a proposed rule that would allow poultry plant operators to increase assembly line speeds to 175 birds per minute. The majority of employees in poultry processing are Hispanic or other vulnerable workers.