Greg Byers, 43, worked underground at Arch Coal/ICG’s Pocahontas Coal Mine in Beckley, WV. He suffered a serious injury in July 2012 that led to his death. An investigation report explains how common sense–not rocket science–could have prevented his work-related death.
The Family and Medical Leave Act is 20 years old and still doesn’t cover 40% of workers; researchers find evidence of brain damage in five former football players while they’re still alive; and a police officer protecting polio workers in Pakistan was killed.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Florida farmworkers’ wages: Pick 32 pounds of tomatoes, earn 50 cents, and Senators admit they know it
Subsistence wages, unsafe working and living conditions and hard labor describe the work life of many U.S. farm workers. The Senate’s bi-partisan immigration reform plan may help to change this reality.
Texas may boast a booming construction sector, but a deeper look reveals an industry filled with wage theft, payroll fraud, frighteningly lax safety standards, and preventable injury and death. In reality, worker advocates say such conditions are far from the exception — instead, they’ve become the norm.
The image of the “Kelly Girl” taking on temp jobs for “pin money” helped build temp agencies during the 20th century; today, a woman in the contingent workforce is more likely to be cleaning 30 hotel rooms a day for low pay and no benefits.
Denying undocumented immigrants access to the ACA’s main avenues for the uninsured has implications for the hospitals and health centers that serve uninsured people.
Injury Control & Violence
This takes the cake: Kentucky company sues coal miner who complained about safety problems
HuffPo’s Dave Jamieson writes this week about a Kentucky worker who raised concerns about safety problems at Armstrong Coal, was fired for doing so and complained about it to the Labor Department, and is now being sued by his former employer for making his claim.
A new report by the European Environment Agency offers more than a dozen case studies for us to examine the question: could we have taken action earlier to prevent harm to human health or the environment?
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
Report: Americans dying earlier, getting sicker than those in other high-income nations
When it comes to good health, America is far from top dog. A new report finds that although the nation has experienced improvements in life expectancy and survival in the last century, we’re falling behind our counterparts in other high-income countries.
Former superintendent of the Upper Big Branch mine, where 29 miners were killed in a 2010 explosion, is sentenced to 21 months in prison; 38 workers were killed in the Algeria gas field hostage-taking; and a new report explores how on-the-job safety and corporate accountability suffer when employers rely heavily on subcontracted temporary workers.