I don't write this blog anymore, but it still averages around 1,000 hits a day -- and more on most weekdays.

Today the visitor count hit ONE MILLION.

Cool.

Labels: Blog

As I mentioned in last week's farewell post (here, if you missed it), I will try to keep you up to date on places you can go to find similar information and analysis. Here's the first installment:


Workplace Health and Safety News

• The Pump Handle is an excellent blog that covers regulatory issues. To fill some of the gap left by the termination of Confined Space, The Pump Handle has launched a new feature, Confined Space@TPH, that will keep up on workplace safety and health news.


• Starting next week, Tammy Miser will continue the misnamed The Weekly Tollevery two weeks on its own page.


• You should also bookmark the award-winning Hazards Magazine, run by the intrepid Rory O'Neill and friends. Hazards has health and safety news and a toolbox of indepth information about every conceivable health and safety issue.


• The labor news service, Labourstart runs a health and safety page. If you have a webpage, you can also set up a health and safety feed (check out the right-hand column of Confined Space)


• The CalOSHA Reporter offers a free daily news digest. Despite its name, it covers more than just California news. You read the on-line version here or subscribe to the daily e-mail.


• For immigrant issues, you can't go wrong with Working Immigrants


• For Workers Compensation news, check out Workers Comp Insider.


• For general public health news and commentary (as well as excellent writing), there's no better place to go than Effect Measure.

Labor News

• Labourstart also runs an excellent labor news service, sorted by country. US labor news is here. If you have a webpage, you can run the Labourstart newsfeed.


• RawblogXport runs a labor news blog as well, with short excerpts for labor articles.


• Mick Arran has resurrected Dispatch From The Trenches, a labor commentary blog, and, in honor of the demise of Confined Space, has added a feature called TrenchNews, "a round-up of some of the news stories on unions and labor issues that the MSM either buries in the Business pages or doesn’t cover at all."

Well, that should do it for now. I'll continue to keep you updated as new workplace safety resources come on line.

Labels: Blog

As I mentioned last night, this will be my last Confined Space post. Next week I start work at the House Education and Labor Committee. If you're on line now (9:00 - 11:00 pm EST), welcome. Please use the comments all the way down at the bottom of this post (below the last song) and "refresh" occasionally to keep up to date. (Of course, some people decided to start the party early. Check out the comments under last night's post.)

Over the past four years, I’ve written more than 2,800 posts here at Confined Space. My original goal was not just to educate people about what is happening in American workplaces, but also to put workplace safety and health into a political context. You won't read in any newspapers that if the 12 deaths at Sago last year, or the 15 deaths at the BP Texas City refinery the year before had been the only workplace fatalities on those days, those would have been good days in the American workplace. More than 15 workers are killed every day on the job in this country and a worker becomes injured or ill on the job every 2.5 seconds. The overwhelming majority of deaths, injuries and illnesses could have been easily prevented had the employers simply provided a safe workplace and complied with well-recognized OSHA regulations or other safe practices.

And you'll never learn from the evening news that we have more fish and wildlife inspectors than OSHA inspectors, or that the penalties from a chemical release that kills fish is higher than a chemical release that kills a worker. Not many are aware that workers are often afraid to complain about health and safety hazards or file a complaint with OSHA. Almost no one understands that OSHA inspections are so infrequent and penalties for endangering workers are so insignificant that there is almost no disincentive for employers to break the law. Employers are almost never criminally prosecuted for killing workers even when they knew they were violating OSHA standards.

You know these things. But most Americans – including our political leaders -- don’t have a clue. And most of this nation’s newspapers and other media aren’t helping.

And there are still far too many health and safety professionals that don’t understand that to a very great extent, who lives and who dies in the workplace is determined by politics – both power relationships in the workplace, and traditional politics that determines who controls our government. What that means is that organizing unions and electing politicians who will fight against unlimited corporate control over our regulatory agencies, our workplaces and the environment are of vital importance to protecting the health and safety of American workers.

Two events inspired me to launch this blog in March 2003. Following the deaths of the Columbia astronauts in 2002, I woke up one morning realizing that while a few workers killed in a workplace accident sometimes receive enormous media attention, most workers die alone and unnoticed by anyone except their immediate families and friends. Something had to be done to ensure that these thousands aren’t dying in vain.

The second event was the repeal of the OSHA ergonomics standard by the Republican Congress and the Bush White House. That travesty of justice taught me that if we’re going to make – and sustain -- any progress on workplace safety in this country, many more people have to understand what’s happening in American workplaces, the political context in which these tragedies occur, and the need to organize on a local and national level. Or, as Michael Silverstein wrote in his recent paper discussing the future of OSHA, "political change must precede policy change.”

When I started Confined Space in March 2003, it was all about me – a way to vent, which I needed (thanks to our President and his cronies), a reason to write (or rant) -- which I enjoy (and will miss) -- and a way to keep in touch with friends and colleagues who I was afraid I’d lose track of.

But based on the mail I get from people, Confined Space became much more – a source of much-needed news about what’s happening in our workplaces and government agencies and a voice for those feeling politically frustrated. But most important – and most unexpected -- it became a way for family members and loved ones of those lost to the workplace to find meaning in the death of their loved ones, a voice for their anger and a constructive direction to fight the system that took their loved ones away. And perhaps it even provided some ideas and tools that they could use to wage their struggle.

Writing this blog became a learning experience for me as well. Not just that it forced me to keep up with what was happening in the world of workplace safety, but the Weekly Toll (thanks Tammy) and the thoughtful and angry notes and comments I received from the families and friends of those killed in the workplace, brought me closer to the human tragedies faced by thousands of American families every year. Confined Space provided a place for them to tell their stories, stories that are almost never heard in our newspapers, magazines, radio or TV. And with that came a renewed sense of meaning and inspiration -- raw energy – to challenge the low priority that the politicians and media in this country give to workplace safety and workers’ health and lives.

But at the same time, I’m tired -- bone tired – not just from lack of sleep (I didn’t have the luxury that some bloggers enjoy -- being able to blog at work), but also from writing the same sad stories – with different names and details – over and over again. More and more frequently I’ve gotten the sense that I’m repeating myself; I’m not sure I have anything new to say anymore. And maybe there isn’t really anything new to say; maybe it’s always the same basic story; only the names and dates change. And so, although it’s incredibly hard to think about leaving this behind, this is an opportunity to move beyond writing to facilitate change.

Before I go, there are a few people I need to thank. Actually, there are hundreds that I need to thank, but a few require special mention – particularly Jonathan Bennett at NYCOSH, Rory O’Neill at Hazards and Tony Oppegard for keeping me supplied with news and perspective that I might otherwise have missed. Journalists Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette, Andrew Schneider at the Baltimore Sun, Steve Franklin at the Chicago Tribune and David Barstow at the NY Times deserve lots of credit for going the extra miles to dig out the stories behind the stories and setting a standard that every journalist should strive to live up to.

But most of all I want to thank the families -- the wives, husbands, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers of those chewed up and spit out by the system of work in this country. The courage, creativity and resolve displayed by Tammy Miser, Coit Smith, Mary Vivenzi, Irene Warnock, Misty Plante, Michelle Marts, Becky Foster, Barb Parker, Holly Shaw, Sharon Nichols, Kelly Heilert, Michelle Lewis, Robin Harpster, Adam Turem, Donna Puleio Spadaro, Patience Buck-Clarry, Melissa King, Phyllis Oliver and Betsy Shonkwiler to name just a very few who have shared their sorrow, their anger and their energy, have nourished me with the inspiration and fuel to carry on through the late nights and early mornings.

And, of course, I need to thank my wife, Jessie, and the kids (Nicole, Madeleine and William) for giving me a far longer leave of absence from many familial duties than anyone really deserves.

Finally, I'd be remiss is I didn't thank the Bush administration appointees, many Congresspersons and Senators, and scores of negligent employers for ensuring that there wasn't a single day over the past four years that I didn't have plenty to write about.

I do have one major disappointment, though – that this blog is going out childless, without issue. I had hoped for some offspring. You know, a few similarly crazy people out there who would say “Hey, this is a good idea, but he’s missing a bunch of stuff,” or “What a clutz. I can say this better,” or “He’s full of shit. Listen to me." So that when I passed on, there would be two, five, a dozen workplace safety blogs to carry on.

But don’t despair. I’ve been having conversations with people about continuing some parts of Confined Space, and Tammy will continue the Weekly Toll from another (to be announced) location. The Pump Handle will be carrying on with some of the more newsy parts of Confined Space. To the extent other blogs start picking up some of this work, I’ll announce it here and in mailings to my list. And the archives will remain as a resource.

So, has this blog had any impact on improving the conditions for workplace safety in this country? Maybe. Enough? Not nearly. Since I started this blog, the AFL-CIO has dismantled its safety and health department, OSHA has issued only one new, weak standard (under court order) and expanded its voluntary programs at the expense of enforcement. Immigrant fatalities continue to grow, coal mine fatalities more than doubled last year, the Bush administration continues to appoint political cronies and union busters to agencies entrusted with ensuring workers lives and well-being and Congressional oversight became a thing of the past -- until now. (On the other hand, when I started this blog, President Bush’s favorable ratings were in the 70’s and Republicans held both Houses of Congress. Now he’s in the low 30’s, the Dems have taken charge of Congress, and they’ve hired me.) The real test of success is how many more workplace safety activists exist today than existed four years ago.

What comes next? I know what comes next for me. But what about you? What needs to be done and how are we going to do it? Chew on that for a while.

As journalist Bill Moyers wrote in a recent must-read article in The Nation,

The eight-hour day, the minimum wage, the conservation of natural resources, free trade unions, old-age pensions, clean air and water, safe food--all these began with citizens and won the endorsement of the political class only after long struggles and bitter attacks. Democracy works when people claim it as their own.

And that goes for workplace safety as well.

In 1970, Congress passed, and President Nixon signed a radical new law promising

To assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women

In other words, a safe workplace became a right, not a privilege to be enjoyed only when a company is making a good profit. Thirty-five years later, that promise not only remains unfulfilled, but has taken several major steps backward over the past several years.

And to quote myself at the 2004 APHA Occupational Health Section Awards luncheon:

We need to make it clear that the right to a safe workplace wasn’t bestowed upon us by concerned politicians or employers who were finally convinced that “Safety Pays.” The right to a safe workplace was won only after a long and bitter fight by workers, unions and public health advocates. It was soaked in the blood of hundreds of thousands of coal miners, factory and construction workers. And the current movement to transform the agency into nothing but a coordinator of voluntary alliances is a betrayal of that promise and those lives.

Hopefully in my new job, I can help to restore the system of checks and balances that our constitution provides to make sure that our government does what it’s supposed to do.

Anyway, as I said. I’m not disappearing, just moving into a different dimension. But before going, I have a couple of favors to ask. Please stay in touch. Save my e-mail address jbarab@starpower.net. I’ll need your information and inspiration more than ever.

Do me just one more big favor: keep informed, stay angry and keep raising hell.

OK, I’m out of here. It’s your turn now. Hasta la vista, baby. Flights of angels sing me to my rest. And don't be sad. We’ll always have Paris.

-- Jordan

P.S. Like any good union meeting, this blog shouldn’t end without a song. So, everyone, let’s all join hands, click once or twice on the picture below and sing along with Pete and the Weavers. After all, when you really think about it, what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?



Obituaries

Tammy Miser: Weekly Toll

Mike Hall: AFL-CIO Now

Mick Arran: Dispatch From the Trenches

Revere: Effect Measure

Cervantes: Stayin Alive

Michael Fox: Jottings By An Employer's Lawyer

Workday Minnesota

James Governor: Monkchips

Labels: Blog

This is incredibly hard for me, but tomorrow night will be my last blog post on Confined Space. After much deliberation, I’ve decided to take a new job that makes it impossible to continue.

Starting next week, I’ll be heading to the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, working on OSHA-related legislation, oversight hearings, investigations, etc. In other words, instead of just writing about what Congress and this administration needs to be doing to protect workers, I’ll hopefully be able to directly affect some of those things.

If you’re around, stop by here tomorrow (Wednesday) night to say goodbye. I’m inviting you all over to an on-line goodbye party from 9:00 to 11:00 pm EST. I’ll take some time to reflect on the past four years, and I’ll be on line, so you can use the comments at the bottom of the last post to wish me well, blast me for leaving, speculate about the future of workplace safety in this country, or predict the next American Idol winner.

And it’s BYOB. Lots of it.

See you tomorrow.

Update: You can view the wreckage of the party here, and in the comments below this entry and tomorrow's.

Labels: Blog

Must be that time of year again.

Confined Space is once again in the running for Labor Website of the Year. You can vote for Confined Space in that colorful blue, green, yellow and red box in the upper right corner of this page. (Or, if for some strange and unexplainable reason you want to vote for some other site, you can do that here. Never let it be said that I'm not fair.)

The competition is run by LabourStart, "Where trade unionists start their day on the net." In case you've never checked it out, LabourStart is an international labor news service and is the source of the headlines you see on the right side of this site, as well as the health and safety news also over on the right.

You may remember last year, Confined Space came in third with 404 votes. The winner, the British National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) (a union with over 200,000 members) had 1,078 votes, fewer than the number of visits Confined Space gets on a typical weekday. So there's no reason we shouldn't win this going away. Right?

Voting ends on 31 January 2007. You can only vote for one site and you can only vote once. (Finally, just to make life more difficult, also note that you will receive an e-mail asking you to confirm your vote. You need to click on the link.)

Labels: Blog

Tired, jet-lagged, but back from visiting my daughter on her Junior Year Abroad. Guess where she's studying? Hint:

Labels: Blog

OK, after a few idle threats, I'm really taking off this afternoon for foreign shores and probably won't be blogging until I get back after New Years (although I will be working on my Top Ten Workplace Safety and Health Stories of 2006).

That is, unless I happen to find a nice internet cafe and nothing to do....

So have a happy holiday, relax, spend some nice time with family and friends -- and in your spare time think about what we as activists and workers need to do next year to make sure more workers come home safe and sound at the end of the day.

And then we're off to 2007.

Who wudda thunk it?

Labels: Blog

I used to think that winning the Koufax Award for Best Single Issue Blog of 2005 was a big deal, but today I've exceeded that honor. Yes, I am the 2006 Time Person Of The Year, joining the ranks of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, George W. Bush and Harlow Herbert Curtice (huh?)

Person of the Year: You

Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

Why, you ask? It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

***

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. [Not me. I watch Lost AND blog. I just don't sleep.] I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? [Or people needlessly dying in our nation's workplaces?] Who has that time and that energy and that passion? [Who indeed?]

The answer is, you do. [That would be ME. I do.] and for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you. [ME]

What can I say, except "Thank you." (Although, to be quite honest, the Koufax Award was a bigger honor.)

But seriously folks, think of what the web has made possible in terms of communicating nationwide (or worldwide) the tragedies, stuggles, defeats and victories of victims and families who have been chewed up by work. And more important, take a minute to think about what still can be done. I think we've only just scratched the surface over here at Confined Space headquarters. There's much more to be done, and it's up to you (yes you!) to do it. You control the information age. (And take it from me. You can still watch Lost.)

Labels: Blog

I'm heading to my parents place today in California. They're in need of some caring for. Time to return the favors. Then off to Paris to spend the holidays with my daughter who's "studying" abroad. (Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.) Actually, she seems to be doing far more work than I did on my Junior Year Abroad. Must talk to her about that.

Bottom line is that I'm not sure how much blogging will be accomplished between now and next year. But if you want to know what's going on, just go back and read the archives. It's always the same story, just different names and dates.

I do plan to spend some of my flight time working on the Top Ten Workplace Safety Stories of 2006. Nominations will be accepted down below in the comments.

Labels: Blog

While I was still recovering from my Thanksgiving gluttony, my mysterious friend Revere over at Effect Measure went and had his second blogoversary. I had he opportunity to have a cup of coffee with Revere at a very early stage of his blog-life and tried to warn him that it would take over his life. He didn't listen, and now, two years later he's undoubtedly wishing he had listened to me. Not really. Like me, he loves blogging -- when he's not hating it.

And that's a good thing, because during this period of unending attacks on our public health system, we need a provocative independent voice that will ask the questions that need to be asked. Effect Measure has become an indespensable resource for anyone following pandemic flu issues and the preparations that this country needs to make..

Go read his blogoversary essay. In addition to saying some very nice things about me, he talks about the influential people reading Effect Measure, and why we blog:

The "who is reading" is important to us because it goes to part of what Effect Measure is about. We didn't want to just have a conversation with the blogosphere, although we are delighted one has developed. Our aim was to change the conversation within public health. We didn't think most public health professionals were going to agree with everything we said or even most of it. But we wanted to legitimize saying it, making the topics we brought up and they way we talked about them part of the conversation in public health. It's not just the topics like war and religion that are usually not considered part of public health. It's public health topics that we talk about in a particular way. When we talk about pandemic influenza preparation, for example, we emphasize community mobilization, cooperation and collective action. We're not interested in individual prepping, although we don't say it is unimportant. It's just not on our blog agenda. We also push transparency and honesty and credibility as cardinal virtues of public health practice. All of those things have political correlates and we aren't shy about pointing them out.

Amen

Labels: Blog

Being the modest person I am, I'm always reluctant to write about myself, but occasionally someone writes up something that says what I do better than I can say it myself.

Lifelines, the web publication of the Laborers Health and Safety Fund of North America, has an article in the May edition on the third anniversary of Confined Space:

Subtitled “News and Commentary on Workplace Health & Safety, Labor and Politics,” Confined Space pulls no punches when it comes to the interface of safety and politics in the U.S. It is unrelenting in its criticism of OSHA under the Bush Administration (Barab worked there for the last three Clinton years), and it praises state and local officials who bring criminal charges against derelict employers. It publishes the Weekly Toll – an individual accounting of as many workplace fatalities as it can document.

As is typical of blogs, Confined Space does not attempt to present all sides of any issue. Rather, it absolutizes the importance of ending workplace injuries and fatalities and dissects the efforts – or lack thereof – of others from that point of view, letting the chips fall where they may. Readers form their own judgments in reaction to the clear and definite perspective offered by Barab.

***

There’s no question but that the fight for jobsite health and safety is an uphill battle. Barab clearly enjoys the fight, and he makes the most of it. The topics are intense, the writing is good and the perspective is sharply critical. It’s good reading for anyone who wants to end the carnage – 6,000 fatalities a year – in American workplaces.

Labels: Blog

If you live in Washington, you probably saw this front page article about the "angry left" bloggers. The article -- about Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing is sort of amusing, and even touching in a way, but the general impression you're left with is that the left blogosphere are a bunch of angry moonbats (as the right would say).

Here's how it begins:

In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

In fact here's what one of the leading right-wing blogs had to say about the article:

WaPo Profiles Loony Left Blogger

The Washington Post looks at the sick, raging, impotent world of the moonbat blogosphere, with a profile of a woman totally obsessed with hatred....It’s amazing how closely this matches my mental image of these lunatics.

Well, yes and no. The article did kind of give that impression (as did the photo of her. She has a better on on her site.) But if you actually read it, you find that Maryscott is not obsessed with hatred and she's not obsessed with anger. But like many bloggers, she is obsessed with things like injustice, needless wars based on lies, economic policies that blatently favor George Bush's rich supporters, and environmental & energy policies being sold to the highest bidder and on and on. And those things, in turn, make her angry, and they even make her hate those who perpetuate these things -- understandably.

Now, I have to admit that I also have been known to get angry, and that I have, on occasion, expressed myself in rather angry terms in this blog. (Here and here for example. OK, and maybe here too.) But again, we must ask. Am I a demented, "sick, raging, impotent" person, who just happened to imprint on George W. Bush for want of anything better to hate that day?

Or might my anger come from the fact that, in the face of dozens of needless, preventable workplace deaths, and thousands of disabling injuries and illnesses each week, when we have employers committing what any sensible person (and more and more prosecutors) would consider to be homicide and manslaughter, we're plagued with an administration that thinks that they are somehow fulfilling the mandate of the Occupational Safety and Health Act by passing out more factsheets, making more speeches to industry associations, and and prettying up more websites?

But actually, I'm a very gentle man, even tempered and good natured who you never hear complain....Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein, a patient man am I, down to my fingertips, the sort who never could, ever would, let an insulting remark escape his lips. A very gentle man....

Anway, read the article. There's something so "romantic" -- in a Hemingwayesque sort of way -- about pounding away at your keyboard, a cigarette in your mouth, a whiskey (or non-alchoholic beer) tipping precariously over your keyboard, a photo album of your father, killed in Viet Nam three months before you were born, propped up against the monitor.....

My blogging life is not nearly so exciting. No smoking, no drinking (except an occasional coffee), no tragic personal stories... the most exicting thing that happens in the vicinity of my computer is an occasional "accident" by one of the dogs who don't like to get their delicate feet wet outside on rainy days when the basement carpet is so soft and warm and inviting (who can blame them?)

Finally, I love the photo that accompanies her "Daily Rant." It's what I feel like when I read the paper every morning:

Labels: Blog

Some bloggers are so eloquent that I feel the need to steer you in their direction. Go read Digby, winner of the Koufax Award for Best Writing:

I have to say that the reason the political blogs are changing things has far less to do with our entertaining writing or cogent analysis than with the fact that we provide a forum for citizens to interact and a system for interacting with each other. We bloggers set forth ideas and lead the debate, but our political power derives from our readers and commenters. Essentially, it's a collaborative political media --- and the political and media establishments are starting to notice that many thousands of average citizens are engaging. They aren't stupid. They know that blog readers are all opinion leaders in their own lives who take the arguments and ideas that are hashed out on the blogs to water coolers, dinner tables, bars and churches everywhere. That's some powerful mojo.

Labels: Blog

Thanks to your numerous and persuasive comments, Confined Space is the winner of the 2005 Koufax Award for the Best Single Issue Blog, beating out previous 3-time winner, Talk Left. The "Sandy's" are given to the best “lefty” (as in Sandy Koufax) blog in a variety of categories. Thanks to all of you who voted for Confined Space:

Best Single Issue Blog

This category has always been dominated by Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left. She won in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

This year, Jeralyn finished second to Jordan Barab of Confined Space, a blog devoted to News and Commentary on Workplace Health & Safety, Labor and Politics.

Congratulations, Jordan.

How did Jordan unseat the reigning champion?

Susie:

I am a huge fan and cast my vote for Confined Space, because Jordan has so thoroughly documented the deliberate dismantlement of worker protections under the Bush administration.

When those miners were trapped in West Virginia, I knew where to turn for the truth: Confined Space.

Because Jordan has never forgotten the plight of manual laborers, factory workers and the other blue-collar citizens treated as disposable in Bush's America, he is my hero.

Pam Tau Lee:

Confined Space, the blog that truly keeps giving and giving... truth, passion, and solidarity.

Rory O'Neill:

Confined Space - this blog made workplace deaths and disease a scandal. It has changed reporting of the issue in the media, and has started a new debate in the US. Given the US is a world class workplace killer with laughable penalties for safety crimes - see the Sago mine explosion, for example - this is a crucial resource.

Captain Safety:

Confined Space - Changing the workplace for the better, one posting at a time.

As I said in my recent “Blogiversary” message, this whole process (win or lose) was not only extremely gratifying (You like me, you really like me) which keeps me going through the late lonely nights in my dank, gloomy basement, but also educational: Confined Space seems to be filling a void in the health and safety movement.

Finally, the Best Single Issue Blog was not the only category that picked the best of the best. Go check out the winners in the other categories as well:

The winners list:

Best Blog -- Non Professional
Crooks & Liars

Best Blog -- Professional or Sponsored
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo

Best Blog Community
Daily Kos

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Echidne of the Snakes

Best New Blog
Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory

Best Writing
Digby of Hullabaloo

Best Single Issue Blog
Jordan Barab of Confined Space

Best Expert Blog
Pharyngula by P.Z. Myers

Best Group Blog
Shakespeare's Sister

Best Post
Bag News Notes for Katrina Aftermath: And Then I Saw These

Best Series
FireDogLake for Plame coverage

Most Humorous Blog
Jesus' General

Most Humorous Post Dood Abides for
The Wizard of Oil

Best State or Local Blog
Bluegrass Report and Tennessee Guerilla Women

Best Commenter
Georgia10

P.S. And at some point around 8:30 tonight, Confined Space surpassed a half million hits.

Labels: Blog

E-mail from a "fan:"

I have scanned your "blog" a couple of times and know that you have some valid concerns and points. Total worker safety should be our goal. Your tone is so inflammatory and militant I suspect that some, if not many, people are turned off to your message. By any chance, are you Muslim? I'm sorry if you are offended by the question, but given current world events your tone makes me curious

Offended? Not at all. More like dazed, confused and stupified.

Labels: Blog, Crazy Shit

The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins.

In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing -- for the sheer fun and joy of it -- to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.

And in that spirit we face the future together.

Nineteen months ago, I started Confined Space for two main reasons. The first was to have a personal outlet for the outrage that I constantly feel and, hopefully, to spread the outrage. The idea of writing a weblog, or Blog, came to me shortly after the space shuttle Columbia disaster in January 2003 that killed 7 astronauts.

You may remember that the media worldwide covered every detail of their lives. And I admit, I soon felt like I knew more about their lives than I know about my own parents.

At some point it dawned on me that the astronauts were really just workers – space workers – but not terribly dissimilar to the more than 100 other workers who died tragically that week on the job in the United States. They were all just doing their jobs. The only difference is that the other 100 only got a couple of paragraphs in the local newspaper. No outrage, no anger, no call to action. They weren’t glamorous enough. In fact, they were generally people who do ordinary, dirty jobs on construction sites, roads and factories. Most of them died alone, only noticed and remembered by their immediate family, friends and co-workers.

You will only need a few moments on Google to find the names, pictures, hometowns and dates of death of every American killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past three years. But you can search long and hard, and ultimately in vain for the names of the more than 5,000 Americans killed in the workplace last year. You’ll find the few that I can locate on Confined Space. But otherwise, they don’t exist, except in statistics.

Irving Selikoff once said, “statistics are human beings with the tears wiped away.”

Well, our job is to put those tears back.

And while we’re at it, we need to put the politics and the organizing back as well.

Which brings me to the second reason I started Confined Space: To make sure that every worker understands that his or her vote is directly related to their chance of coming home from work alive and health at the end of each workday.

We knew in the very early days of the Bush administration that the Republicans were going to go after the ergonomics standard. My response was something like “Make My Day!" I had a vision of millions of American workers, having patiently waited a decade for an ergonomics standard, rising up in righteous anger to smite those who would snatch away their hard-won gains.

Needless to say, I was wrong. The time was too short to educate and then mobilize the American workforce—or even just the AFL-CIO. We need to have an American workforce that is already educated and pre-mobilized.

So how do we spread the outrage, put back the tears and politicize workers?

First, we need to take advantage of every teachable moment. Last year, we had 5,559 “teachable moments” when workers lost their lives in the workplace (not counting the 50,000 to 100,000 workers who die each year of occupational diseases.) We need to take those moments to educate not just our members and our students, but also journalists. We will not be able to rely on Congressional hearings to bring out the truth. Our best hope is the media.

No longer can we tolerate headlines – even in a rural, low-circulation newspaper -- that claim that a workplace death resulted from a “freak accident” when the unprotected walls of a 12-foot trench cave in on top of a worker.

No longer can we let journalists get way with calling the death of a worker a “mystery” when he suffocates in an unmonitored, unventilated manhole.

No longer can we let journalist blame a severed limb or crushed head on “employee error” because someone accidentally turned on the machine while he was inside.

No longer can we let articles go unanswered that neglect to note that well recognized safe practices were ignored, that laws were broken.

We need to call reporters up, write letters to the editor, send them copies of David Barstow’s NY Times articles and Andrew Schneider’s series on death by asbestos in Libby, Montana. We need to put them in touch with experts, teach workshops at their conventions, convince them that these are tragic tales of good versus evil, stories that Pulitzer Prizes are built upon.

We need to use those teachable moments not just for journalists, but also for politicians. November 4, 2008 may be a bit too far in the future to start focusing on just yet, but November 7, 2006 isn’t too far away. We need to make sure that every time a worker dies, someone in the local paper is quoted asking the local and state politicians what they are doing in Washington – or even in the statehouse – to make sure these tragedies don’t happen again. Are they supporting higher fines, jail terms, stronger standards, more inspectors?

We also need to mobilize families. Some of the most moving mail I’ve received as a result of Confined Space is from the wives, siblings and children of workers killed on the job. They are angry about the death their loved ones. And they find some solace in knowing that there’s someone else out there who is just as angry.

We need to put that anger to good use. We need to spread that anger to the community, to the journalists and politicians. It not only advances the political struggle, but it helps the families know that the death of their loved ones may serve some higher purpose.

And, of course, we need to continue to remind workers that injuries, illnesses and deaths can be prevented, that an organized workforce is their best guarantee of a safe job.

That a safe workplace is a right, not a privilege to be enjoyed only when the company is making a good profit.

We need to make it clear that the right to a safe workplace wasn’t bestowed upon us by concerned politicians or employers who were finally convinced that “Safety Pays.” The right to a safe workplace was won only after a long and bitter fight by workers, unions and public health advocates. It was soaked in the blood of hundreds of thousands of coal miners, factory and construction workers. And the current movement to transform the agency into nothing but a coordinator of voluntary alliances is a betrayal of that promise and those lives.

While I was searching for the meaning of life the other day and I happened upon a list of Saul Alinsky’s rules for effective action. Two of them struck a note with me:

1. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

2. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

This was somewhat serendipitous. Earlier in the day I had overheard a Mike Silverstein telling Jim Moran that he had found an audiotape of a very famous Philadelphia City Council hearing. I don’t know how many of you know about this. You young-uns out there probably weren’t even born yet, so I’ll summarize it briefly.

This was back in the days before we had a national Right-to-Know standard. Philaposh was attempting to pass a city ordinance and had to convince a skeptical City Council that workers really deserved the right to know what chemicals they were being exposed to. Jim brought a tank of compressed gas up to the city council desk and opened the valve. The City Councilors scattered, panicked, demanding to know what was in that tank, demanding to know what they were being exposed to!

Those are the kind of tactics we need to figure out how to use again. What we need to do is relax, find some tactics we enjoy, and show the world not just that they are wrong, but that they are ridiculous.

I will leave you with this thought that Jeff Faux, former President of the Economic Policy Institute used to say:

“We don't get to decide who wins; history decides that. We only get to decide which side we fight on and how hard we fight.”

Labels: AFL-CIO, Blog

I may be on semi-vacation, but technology marches on. I've made a few enhancements to Confined Space that you may find useful.

E-Mail: Note the little envelope with an arrow. You can click on this to e-mail an individual article to a friend (or enemy -- take your pick).

Confined Space Mailing List: On the left-hand column is a mailing list form which you can use to sign up for a weekly mailing of Confined Space highlights. I promise not to send more than one a week (unless something urgent and important happens). And I promise not to give your names to anyone else.

Permalinks: Note the word PERMALINK above each posting. You can right click on this and click on "Copy Shortcut" to copy the URL for each individual posting to your webpage or e-mail. (Or you can just click on PERMALINK and copy and paste the URL in the Address box.) . You can also then print out the individual post instead of the entire page.

Labels: Blog

Blogging Into the Future

Here's an article by Matt Welch in the Columbia Journalism Review about how blogs like Confined Space are the single most significant journalistic phenomenon of the 21st century. (Well, almost...). Although he fails to list Confined Space as one of the best blogs (an all-too-common, if unforgivable oversight), it's an interesting article that is guaranteed to make many of you want to start your own blogs.

Come on in, the water's fine!

Labels: Blog, Journalism