Massachusetts Teens Awarded for Workplace Safety Efforts

As a parent of multiple teenagers, I observe with amusement as well as some sadness parents with young children who have all kinds of lofty aspirations and hopes for their future teenagers. Because by the time you actually have teenagers, everything is reduced to a prayer that they'll emerge at the other end alive, and preferably without becoming pregnant, addicted or arrested.

Too much free time tends to multiply the chances of dangerous encounters with drugs and sex, so we're generally quite happy when our kids get jobs. Until we hear of things like these:

In Boston, 18-year-old Cristian Ribeiro was stabbed and killed in February, 2004 as he pursued a shoplifter who had stolen from the CVS where he was working. One Girls Inc. member shared her friend’s story: while working at a retail establishment in Lynn, she was raped by a pair of men and then locked inside, leaving her helpless and alone. These incidents have been tragic motivators that keep youth at Girls Inc. and MassCOSH’s teen leaders hard at work developing policy and trainings to protect young workers.

Happily, there are people working on preventing these incidents. The Massachusetts Coalition on Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) has recruited team of youth organizers to conduct workshops and other forums for peers to make them aware of hazards on the job and their rights to a safe and healthy working environment.

They produced a report on Workplace Violence Affecting Teens, and faced with the fact that teens in Massachusetts are injured on the job at approximately twice the rate of adults, they are also attacking the problem through the political process, supporting the passage of the Child Labor Reform Bill (House Bill 3790/Senate Bill 1094), meeting with community members and elected officials to draw attention to the bill’s importance.

Frustrated by the serious lack of safety protections for young people, the MassCOSH peer leaders worked with Senator John Hart and Senator Patricia Jehlen to file a bill strengthening the enforcement authority of the Attorney General. The bill would enable the AG to fine employers who violate the Child Labor Laws through a civil process. The bill also requires that teens working after 8:00 PM be provided with adult supervision on site.

For their efforts, the MassCOSH peer leaders, along with the Youth from Girls Inc. Career Path Program were honored for their efforts to protect young workers at the North Shore Labor Council’s Annual Dinner last week.

“I don’t want to hear about another teen life being taken away when the situation could have been prevented,” said Raquel Lamons, a 14-year-old Teens Lead at Work peer leader. “We want young people to be safe when they work.”

***

“I thought this was all grown-up business, I didn’t know we could actually pass a bill,” said Kamaya Ray from Lynn’s Girl’s Inc. Belkys Perez added “I feel empowered, in charge, I don’t feel like they look at us like we are just kids to them – but that we actually matter.”

Sounds like the type of program we should be promoting in every community.

A Carolina COSH Member in John Henshaw's Court

I'm still on vacation (actually, a break between two vacations -- taking my daughter to college tomorrow -- sniff), but with a little help from my friends, Confined Space goes on.

Tom O'Connor, Coordinator of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (the umbrella organization of COSH groups), attended a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) the other day and filed the report below.

NACOSH, as originally devised, was a true advisory committee. While I was at OSHA, NACOSH members set their own agenda, requesting reports from OSHA and other experts on various topics, such as alternative methods of rulemaking or improving OSHA's enforcement policies, in addition to listening to (and discussing) reports on the progress on OSHA's projects. They were generally fairly lively meetings that held the feet of the Assistant Secretary, NIOSH Director and OSHA Directorate heads to the fire.

According to Tom, things have changed over the past couple of years:

I attended a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) the other day and, while I learned some things about what OSHA and NIOSH have been doing lately, I left somewhat puzzled as to the role of this committee. In a six and a half hour meeting, there was a total of 30 minutes devoted to “committee discussion” and a few scattered minutes for questions from committee members. The rest of the time was devoted to presentations by OSHA Director John Henshaw and his staff and Dr. John Howard, Director of NIOSH.

Now the members of this committee seem to be a dedicated, nice bunch of folks—too nice maybe. If I had been sitting on the committee rather than just being an observer, I would have liked to ask a few questions about some of the statements made by Mr. Henshaw during the meeting, for example:

1) Ergonomics: Henshaw pointed to the fact that the agency conducted 1,703 inspections addressing ergonomic hazards over the past year, resulting in 300 “hazard alerts” and fourteen citations under the General Duty clause. Whoa, was I wrong! I guess that ergonomics standard wasn’t really necessary after all! All those inspections, presumably in high ergo-hazard industries, and less than one-tenth of one percent is found to have a problem! If I had been on the committee, I would have wanted to hear more about how they were so successful in their ergonomic hazard prevention efforts that 99.9% of inspected worksites are now free of serious ergo hazards.

2) The public’s right to know: Henshaw matter of factly stated that the agency has been fighting a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times seeking more detailed inspections data. Now readers of Confined Space will remember that OSHA hasn’t always appeared real enthusiastic about giving full access to the inspections data on their website, but what’s up with fighting the FOIA request? Didn’t the committee at least deserve an explanation as to why the public doesn’t have a right to this information? A court recently ruled against them, Henshaw explained, and now they are “considering our next steps.” He didn’t ask the “advisory” committee for their advice on how to proceed.

3) The Hispanic “Summit”: As previously reported here, OSHA recently held a conference on Hispanic worker health and safety without bothering to involve most of the public health experts, grassroots Latino organizations, or labor unions who have real experience in these issues in the planning process. The conference was reported at the meeting to be a stunning success. Undoubtedly, some useful information exchange took place and folks in attendance got to see Secretary Chao hand out a real big check to a faith-based Latino organization in Florida, in case anyone missed the real point of the whole exercise. (Maybe the Bush folks saw this as particularly culturally appropriate since handing out pre-election goodies is a tried and true campaign tactic in Latin America.) If I were on the committee, I would have liked to ask why they decided to have the meeting in Florida in the middle of the summer (The cheap airfares? All the great restaurants in Orlando?) and why the only Hispanic organizations involved were the Chamber of Commerce and a Republican political organization.


4) The "benefits" of deregulation: In response to the recent Washington Post story which essentially accused the current administration of bringing worker safety and health regulations to a grinding halt, Henshaw stated that the story contained “a number of inaccuracies.” He declined to specify what these were. He said that he was “proud” of the agency’s action in killing the TB rule and in their general approach to regulation. I would have liked to ask him for a little clarification on how taking away health workers’ protections from TB was a step forward.

But, hey, I’m not on the committee.

By the way, kudos to NIOSH Director Howard for staying through the full day of the meeting, offering some insights into NIOSH research priorities, and making a point of talking to folks attending the meeting.

Preventing Hispanic Worker Deaths: An Uphill Battle in NC

Better start climbing

You wonder why there are so many immigrant deaths in American workplaces?

"I had one boss who told me to go to the top of a roof," Tomas Ramirez recalled. "I said, 'Give me a rope," and he said 'I had another guy do it without a rope; are you a chicken?' Well, I'm not a chicken, so I climbed up there without the rope."

In North Carolina, while workplace deaths and injuries are falling in general, Hispanic deaths and injuries are on the rise

In 2002, the last year for which complete statistics are available, there were 169 workplace fatalities in North Carolina. That was 17 percent fewer than the year before, and the lowest number since record-keeping began in 1992. It was a remarkable improvement, with one exception: 25 Hispanics died on the job that year, up from 20 the year before.

Since October, at least six more Hispanics have died on the job in North Carolina, Labor Department data shows. Two of them lost their lives this past Monday in separate construction accidents in Wake County, the latest reminder of the risks such jobs bring.

Workers of Hispanic origin are also over-represented in nonfatal work injuries. In 2002, Hispanics made up 5.3 percent of the state's work force, but 7.4 percent of nondeadly accidents that involved days away from work, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

State officials say they're trying to address the problem. Some aren't so convinced

Tom O'Connor, a Chapel Hill-based coordinator for COSH, a national network of worker advocacy groups, is more blunt.

"Whatever they're doing doesn't seem to be working," he said.

O'Connor is helping lead a campaign to impose tougher federal penalties on employers that don't follow safety and health regulations. He points to California, which three years ago raised the maximum civil fines for serious workplace safety violations to $25,000, compared with North Carolina's $7,000.

Cherie Berry, chairwoman of the N.C. Labor Commission, doesn't think that tougher penalties would fix the problem.

A lot of small businesses, she said, can't afford to pay fines higher than what her agency levies today, so why force them out of business? But Berry also called on more employers to step up to the plate.

"We're out there trying to point out the benefits of training workers in safety," she said. "But it's also incumbent on the industry to self-police."

OK, now let me get this straight. We don't want to fine businesses because they can't afford to pay the fines, but you're somehow going to convince them to shell out money to enjoy the "benefits" of making their workplaces safe? Seems to me that there's no greater benefit for a business than to avoid a fine that might put them out of business. (While I always hate to sound partisan -- I'm a uniter, not a divider -- it should be noted that the Ms. Berry's position is elected and she, unlike the rest of the North Carolina cabinet, is a Republican -- in case you couldn't tell from her "philosophy.")

And what is "self-policing" in this context? Are businesses going to fine each other? You get kicked out of the country club if you kill more than one worker per year? Maybe drivers should start self policing other drivers too. I've always wanted to make a citizens' arrest when someone runs a light and almost hits me.

Which is not to say that solving the problem is an easy task

In the 1990s, North Carolina had the fastest-growing Hispanic population of any state, Census data shows. The numbers have continued to soar through the recent economic downturn: Between 2000 and 2002, the state's Hispanic population grew an additional 16 percent to nearly half a million residents.

During the same three-year period, North Carolina's Hispanic work force grew 42.3 percent to 215,000.

In 2002, nearly 30 percent of Hispanic workers in North Carolina earned their living in construction, the industry that claimed more lives than any other that year: 44. One in five worked in manufacturing and one in 10 in agriculture, the industries that rank second and third in terms of fatalities.

The North Carolina Department of Labor doesn't have enough Spanish speakers and often can't keep those it has because they are lured away by better wages in private industry.

So what's the answer if you want to address the problem? Spend the money that's needed, increase the disincentives to killing workers, or rely on self-policing?

I think we're seeing the answer.