Back Pain? Shut Up And Deal With It!

Sometimes you get a gift. I had missed this article about back pain in the New York Times on Tuesday. I finally read it after someone pointed it out to me, and noted that several of the experts quoted were leaders of the campaign against the ergonomics standard. Stanley Bigos and Norton Hadler who come up with gems like this:

Other studies have indicated that the development of abnormal disks is usually inherited. But there were no links to occupation, sports injuries or weak muscles, said Dr. Norton Hadler, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina.

Ah, another evening ranting and raving at my computer, I thought. But lo and behold, I was saved the effort by Darryl Alexander, Director of Health and Safety at AFT. She left a comment attached to my posting about the Detroit News column on ergonomics "science."

Interesting that the "scientists" used by the Chamber, NAM etc. recently surfaced in an article by Gina Kolata in the NY Times on the mystery of back injury cause and treatment. Dr. Hadler that well-credentialed expert was quoted as well as Stanley Bigos - both stating that we really don't know what is causing all these back problems and that "no treatment" seems to work as well or better than expensive treatment to getting workers back to work. Not a word in the article about work-related association of back injuries and returning workers to the same jobs that caused the problem in the first place.

We are in real trouble if these characters get front page exposure and credibility from the NY times.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Brought back memories of the OSHA ergonomics hearings where these so-called experts futilely tryed to explain how there was no association between back pain and jobs that required heavy lifting, as if the high incidence of back pain among nursing home employees was a product of pure coincidence. (Or maybe people with a previous history of back pain are naturally attracted to nursing, just as people with pre-existing neck and wrist pain are naturally attracted to chicken processing.)

And they complain about "junk science." Makes you want to scream.

OSHA Training Grant Program: The Unkindest Cut

I have written numerous times about OSHA's attempt to gut one of the agency's most successful programs, the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program. Under the program, millions of dollars are granted to unions, colleges, business associations, COSH groups and other non-profits each year to provide direct training to hundreds of thousand of workers. In recent years, the focus has been on Hispanic workers. The grant programs have spawned valuable training programs tailored to adult learners at the level and in the language that the workers could understand. The grant programs produced excellent publications and innovative train-the-trainer programs that have prepared a cadre of health and safety trainers who multiply the benefits of the program.

Every Bush budget has attempted to cut the program from $11 million to $4 million, changing the program from proven direct worker training to an internet-based creation. And every year, Congress has restored the full $11 million.

Once again, Bush is attempting to cut the program down to $4 million. But, in an interview in Inside OSHA, OSHA Chief John Henshaw, channeling the ghost of George Orwell

rebuked assertions that the administration is cutting the training grants program.

“I would not use the word ‘cutting',” Henshaw said referring to the proposed $6 million decrease in the training grant program. “We do not feel the training program should be based on one-on-one training. We are developing materials and technology to get information out to more people.”

We Interrupt This Program For a Short Musical Interlude

It rained so hard the day I left,
The weather it was dry,
The sun so hot, I froze to death,
Suzanna don't you cry.

I'm sorry. Now where was I?

Henshaw went on to extoll the virtues of internet based training, especially for Hispanic workers, "the fastest group entering the internet."

They'd better be fast. After working a 12-hour day in the poultry processing plant, they'll need to rush home on the bus to the trailer part, where, after making dinner, helping the kids with their homework, getting them to bed, then having the whole rest of the evening to relax in front of their Pentium XXVII computers with their high-speed internet connections, training themselves on how to prevent their necks and limbs and backs from disintegrating from hanging 20,000 live chickens above their heads every day.

Back in the days when we expected the federal government to follow the letter and the spirit of the law, health and safety training was done on worktime, with live trainers who could actually answer questions and engage the workers in learning instead of sticking them in front of a computer or expecting them to take a CD home with them.

And good workplace safety and health training is about more than just facts about hazards and how to prevent them. It's also about how to change the conditions in the workplace so that injuries and illnesses don't happen. And even if that information is accurate and understood, it isn't too useful for workers who have little knowledge of OSHA and little understanding of their rights. No matter how good the web page is, you can't do that kind of training over the internet.

John Henshaw and Elaine Chao will soon go before Congress and attempt once again to defend these cuts that are not cuts. They will try to argue that internet training is somehow better than face-to-face interactive training, and that all of this is particularly beneficial for Hispanic workers.

Let's just hope that Congress once again has the wisdom and courage to tell the agency they're full of crap.

Southern California Grocery Strike: A War for the Whole Country

Update in the NY Times about labor raising the pressure on the supermarkets in the Southern California strike over health care.

"This is not a battle about Southern California; this is a war for the whole country, particularly over health care," said Ron Judd, West Coast regional director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "This should be seen as the poster child of what employers are willing to do to take away health care."

The union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, describes its action as a goal-line stand against supermarket efforts to reduce benefits while having workers begin paying some of the premiums. Organized labor says that if the union loses here, corporate managers everywhere may be emboldened to cut back on health benefits.

And the hardship on the strikers is getting heavier. Carter Wright over at the Joe Kenehan Center has found some good first-hand information on the strikers' stories. "The courage shown by these people is astonishing."

OSHA Webpage Update

As I reported below, OSHA has closed off its very useful Inspection Data website from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 A.M.

I've heard from several sources that it's due to budget problems. One theory is that they're paying an expensive contractor and the site has been too successful to afford. Another theory is that the Firewall costs too much to run 24 hours a day. I've also heard that OSHA intends to limit access for people who spend too much time on the site.

New York health and safety activist Trina Semorille suspects: "It's because they want to limit access. They know you don't want to do this research during the day, at work, where it can be tracked, allowing whistleblowers and "troublemakers" to be punished. Off the job, no access at all--the site is closed. "

And University of Connecticut Associate Professor Tim Morse suggests, "It is interesting that the times that they cut it back are the times when workers are most likely to access it."

Very interesting, but hardly surprising.

Maybe we should all let OSHA know how stupid this really is. You can do it through the web page or call the main number: (202) 693-2000.

Make Workplace Safety an Election Issue

Quiz: What was the first major piece of legislation signed by George Bush?

Buzzz, time's up. Readers of Confined Space know that answer: The bill repealing the federal ergonomics standard.

It was so long ago, -- pre-taxcuts, pre-deficit, pre-9/11, pre Iraq, pre-Overtime regs, that many have forgotten this first of this administration's many crimes against working people. Long ago, but not far away for the millions of workers who continue to suffer every year from musculoskeletal disorders.

Well, now it's time for payback. Let them know that we haven't forgotten.

The United Auto Workers has just issued its "trade union activist's toolbox filled with facts about the issues that matter most to workers, retirees, our families and communities." One issue sheet addresses workplace health and safety issues. The sheet deals with four main issues:

• Ergonomics: Bending to the wishes of the powerful corporate interests that opposed the ergonomics rule — who also happened to be major contributors to the election campaigns of George W. Bush and GOP congressional leaders — Congress for the first time invoked the Congressional Review Act to repeal the ergonomics rule.
  
  Upon repealing the rule, the Bush administration promised a “plan” that would protect workers. After more than a year, and 1.8 million ergonomic injuries, the administration announced it would not issue a mandatory standard. It promised to issue voluntary guidelines in several industries, but has so far ignored the auto and auto parts industries.
  
  
• GOP Attacks on OSHA: Corporate interests opposed to regulations have turned their attention to the executive branch. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a part of the White House with authority to delay or block any OSHA standard. The Bush administration appointed a regulatory czar at OMB who favors phony cost-benefit analyses and otherwise obstructs health and safety protections.
  
  OSHA and the Department of Labor are headed by Bush appointees who see their role primarily as protecting corporations from “intrusive” regulations, rather than as protecting workers from on-the-job injuries. Funding cuts to OSHA enforcement personnel and to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have made the situation worse.
  
  
• Asbestos: Lawsuits by victims seeking compensation for asbestos-related illnesses are backlogged in the courts. Asbestos manufacturers have gone into bankruptcy, some of them phony, leaving many victims without recourse. The UAW supports efforts to develop national asbestos disease compensation legislation that will provide victims fair, timely and certain compensation.
  
  Insurance companies and some corporations supported by some Congressional Republicans, such as Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton Corp., are trying to escape their liability under the compensation system. They are unwilling to pay enough into the fund to properly compensate all asbestos victims. The UAW, along with the rest of the labor movement, is insisting the fund be adequate to pay all claims.
  
  
• Chemical exposure limits, especially metalworking fluids: Most of the chemical exposure limits used by OSHA were set before 1970, when the agency was established. Since then, OSHA has been able to update limits for 15 agents, but for hundreds of others the standards permit exposures that will make workers ill. The most pressing example for UAW members is exposure to metalworking fluids. The UAW was forced to file suit in October against Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to compel the Labor Department to resume action on this issue

There are, of course, many other issues that could make it onto union agendas this election year: withdrawal of tuberculosis rulemaking, failure to push for criminal penalties for workplace deaths, failure to issue the payment for personal protective equipment standard, OSHA's refusal to initiate the regulatory process for reactive chemicals, withdrawal of OSHA's nursing home initiatve, lack of action on workplace violence and on and on.

And while we're focusing on the all-important Presidential election, don't forget Congress where most evil is spawned. And while we're focusing on defeating Republicans, don't forget that some Democrats have also betrayed workers. Six Democratic Senators and sixteen Democratic Congresspersons voted to repeal the ergonomics standard. No Republican Senators and thirteen House members voted against repeal. (The Senate vote is here. The House vote is here.)

Workplace safety and health issues need to be raised every time you have a meeting with a candidate. We're pissed, we're hurting and they need to know about it, we need to put these issues on their radar screen no matter what party they belong to.

But there are plenty of other issues important to workers and unions: jobs, health care, pensions, minimum wage, labor law reform, taxes, privatization. In other words, we will need to fight within our unions to get health and safety issues on the election year agenda.... just as the UAW has done.

National Geographic Discovers Dangerous Jobs

Thirty years ago, the Devil's Wind—hurricane force southerlies—swept along the Southern Oregon coast. It was mid-August and many commercial salmon fishermen were baiting their lines miles from the safety of Brookings Harbor. With gusts pushing over 80 knots, every boat on the sea risked capsizing.

"I watched my best friend, John Crook, die when his father's fishing boat was swamped and rolled by the waves near the jetty off the Chetco River," said captain John Fraser, owner of the 42-foot (12.5-meter) wooden fishing boat Njord, based in Harbor, Oregon. "I was only ten years old then. But every time I cross that sandbar near the jetty I still think about it."

National Geographic has a new television series called "Dangerous Jobs." Most of the series seems to deal with the more "exotic" jobs -- underwater photographers, oil well fire fighters, test pilots, and bull fighters, but this article looks at a less glamorous job, hazards of commercial fishermen.

Throughout the 1990s, the fatality rate for commercial fishermen in Alaska was 28 times that of the overall U.S. work-related fatality rate of 4.4 per 100,000 workers a year, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Between 1992 and 1996, Alaska commercial fishing suffered 112 fatalities according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, based in Washington, D.C. Massachusetts claimed second place with 32 deaths; Oregon was fifth with 21.

This one may have already been shown. Can't find it on the schedule.

For photos of deep sea fishermen, check out labor photographer Earl Dotter's exhibit here.

Asbestos: It's not just the old exposures

The book reviews of Andrew Schneider's book, An Air That Kills, makes clear, even as we deal with asbestos related disease caused by exposures that occurred decades ago, new exposures to asbestos are still wreaking havoc. Here is yet another story:

When Juan Jimenez traveled from Guatemala to Brooklyn in the 1990s, his reasons were simple: He wanted to be near his brother, Jose, and to make some money.

He earned $4.50 an hour when he started as a general laborer at Atlas Knitting, a now-defunct garment company near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. With the cash from his 70-hour workweeks, he rented a $400-a-month walk-up apartment and eked out a modest existence.

Then, in December 2000, the 33-year-old undocumented immigrant unknowingly put his health — and perhaps even his life — on the line.

In what federal and city investigators said was one of the most egregious incidents of its kind, Jimenez, his brother, Jose, 28, and several more Guatemalan immigrants were recklessly exposed to asbestos when their employer ordered them to use knives or scissors and their hands to remove crumbling insulation from heating pipes in the multistory Prince Street building where the garment company and other businesses were located.

The workers had nothing more than handkerchiefs and pieces of cloth to cover their faces as they pulled more than 2,000 linear feet of aging asbestos from pipes over several days that December.

And, as usual, it's immigrant workers who face the worst

For years, immigrant workers appear to have borne the brunt of illegal asbestos removal. In Guatemala, Equador and Poland, there are many repatriated migrants feeling the effects of asbestosis they actually contracted in the United States, said Lowell Peterson, a Manhattan attorney who represents Local 78 of the Asbestos, Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers union.

The owners of the business, Marvin and Isaac Rubenstein, were convicted in October 2002 and went to prison ten days ago.

New Jersey Agrees to Voluntary Industry Chem Plant Security Standards

In a move that is upsetting environmentalists, community activists and Senator Jon Corzine (NJ), New Jersey Governor James McGreevey has apparently agreed to an arrangement with the American Chemistry Council, the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Chemistry Council of New Jersey that would require chemical companies to follow a set of security guidelines written by the American Chemistry Council, or be subject to stricter, unspecified state regulations.

Corzine, who has pushed unsuccessfully for national plant-security standards amid the terrorism fears of the past two years, has said McGreevey's policy would set a bad example for the rest of the nation.

"Securing New Jersey's chemical plants is too important to be left to the industry's voluntary efforts," Corzine's spokesman, Darius Goore, said in a statement yesterday. "Senator Corzine will continue to urge (Department of Environmental Protection) Commissioner (Bradley) Campbell to establish the same kind of strong requirements he is working for on the federal level."

Rick Engler of the Work-Environment Council was upset that the agreement was made behind closed doors. “’I'm a little reluctant to comment until I see a copy of it,’ Engler said. ‘But based on past experience, deals between industry and government that have had no public participation are not very good for the public.’

As reported previously in Confined Space, (here and here) Senator Corzine has introduced a bill that would call for strict security standards and “inherently safer production” that would substitute safer materials and processes for more hazardous ones. Corzines’ bill has fallen victim to a multimillion dollar campaign by the American Chemistry Council. The Bush administration is favoring a bill sponsored by Senator Jame Infhofe (R-OK) that that would require chemical companies to simply submit vulnerability or security-improvement plans to Homeland Security, but not require companies to consider using alternatives to current chemicals and practices.”

Green-Collar Workers: Does Just Transition Mean the End of Job Blackmail?

Does tackling global warming mean petrochemical industry workers will lose their jobs? The fight between jobs and the environment is at least as old as the environmental movement, and probably as old as the industrial revolution.

Jim Young writes about a movement that is coming up with a solution to this never-ending debate in an article in Sierra Magazine: "Just Transition"

That conversation has been going on for some time–and has led to a bold plan to reconcile environmentalists with workers who are frightened and angry at the prospect of job loss. Called Just Transition, it advocates financial support, health care, and retraining for employees displaced by environmental regulation, and would be funded by a tax on pollution. One recent transition proposal calls for two years of full, unconditional wage replacement and up to four years of full-time training or educational benefits, stipends for another two years for those who remain in training, health insurance, and retirement contributions

And it's not pie in the sky. Not only are there historical precidents in the GI Bill of Rights and a fund established in the 1950s in the European Coal and Steel Community, but environmentalists and unionists are working together today to make Just Transition a reality:

Just Transition emerged in its latest version from the Blue/Green Working Group, which includes the United Steelworkers of America, District 11; the Service Employees International Union; and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE!). It is led on the environmental side by the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists. They have been building on an idea that originated with the late Tony Mazzocchi, the visionary leader of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. In 1973, Mazzocchi enlisted support from environmentalists to help OCAW wage a successful strike–he called it "the first environmental strike"–over health and safety issues at Shell refineries in four states. "We were working with this sh--," Mazzocchi once explained, "but we didn’t even know its name."

The principle is simple, according to Les Leopold, director of the Labor Institute in New York City. Leopold calls for a "Superfund for Workers:"

"The basis for Just Transition is the simple principle of equity. We ask that any worker who loses his or her job during a sunsetting transition suffer no net loss of income. No toxic-related worker should be asked to pay a disproportionate tax–in the form of losing his or her job–to achieve the goals of sunsetting. Instead these costs should be fairly distributed across society." Leopold also lamented unions that were "allowing corporations to convince workers that environmental protection can only cause job loss and that there is simply no alternative path."

In fact, say Just Transition backers, environmental protections can produce job gains

In the United States, some persuasive new evidence discredits the old jobs/environment split. For example, a study initiated by the Blue/Green Working Group found that a program with a carbon tax could curtail U.S. release of CO2 by 27 percent by 2010 and 50 percent by 2020. Combined with money recycled through reduced taxes on wages and growth in new energy technologies, the program could create 1.4 million jobs in 20 years, while substantially reducing reliance on imported oil.

All the good arguments in the world won't make it an easy fight when workers are faced with losing their jobs and communities losing their industries. But ultimately, is there a choice?

Read the whole article.

Ergonomics: Living in the Past

When I read this editorial in the Detroit News today, I had to look at the date to make sure I hadn't stumbled across an old article:

Workplace injuries caused by repetitive activities like typing or assembling parts have left many workers in pain, and many employers bearing the painful costs of disability claims.

And yet the science about what causes the injuries and how they can be avoided remains inexact.

Still, a group of scientists wants the Bush administration to plunge ahead with imposing stiff safety standards. The administration proposes additional study of the plan.

Given the huge cost of implementing the new standards, more study to make sure they’ll actually work is reasonable.

The next sentence made perfectly clear why someone dug an old article out of the files:

The scientists recently boycotted a conference on repetitive motion injuries convened by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They argue that a copious body of work already exists on the subject, and that instead of wasting time and money on another conference, the agency should adopt their recommended regulations.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Read the entire column if you miss that feeling of nausea nostalgia.

Not to be left sputtering impotently in my beard (if I had one), I took advantage of their offer to Comment on This Story:

Regarding your editorial on ergonomic regulations and "sound science." Thank you for saving my fingers from the stress of repeated clicking by reprinting the propaganda of the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the anti-worker National Coalition on Ergonomics.

The facts, however, are that the National Academy of Sciences study that you misquoted looked at hundreds of authoritative scientific studies and concluded that working conditions cause musculoskeletal disorders and that ergonomic interventions can prevent them. The fact is that there is more good science on ergonomics than almost any other workplace hazard. And if you don't believe the science, go to any nursing home or chicken processing plant and ask workers about their backs and their wrists and their shoulders. Or better yet, find the people that used to work there, but are not longer able to because their disabled. It shouldn't be hard to find them. Over a million and a half workers lose time from musculoskeletal disorders every year

So please stop repeating the propaganda and start looking at the science and at the facts. It's the least you owe your readers.

That'll make 'em think twice.

You too can Comment on the Story, but I wouldn't rush. Given the obvious source of this column, I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing facsimiles sprouting up all over the country.

Maybe we should be writing our own instead of commenting on theirs.

19 Workers -- Mostly Immigrants -- Drown Trapped by Inrushing Tides

In one of the worst workplace disasters in modern British history, 19 mostly immigrant Chinese workers drowned when they were trapped by a rampaging night tide while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay, Great Britain. According to Tony Woodley, general secretary of the British Transport and General Workers' Union,

Morecambe Bay's famously ferocious tide may be a force of nature, but human beings bear the responsibility for yesterday's deaths of 19 Chinese workers picking cockles. "Drowning" will be the word on their death certificate, but it is cowboy capitalism that has caused this dreadful human tragedy.

The situation sounds very similar to the plight of many immigrant workers in this country who work, get hurt and die in high numbers doing dangerous work that most native Americans wouldn't put up with

The cockle pickers involved form part of the growing army of workers employed in a twilight world propping up profit levels across the British economy. The rightwing response can be predicted. They will ask why these workers were in the country, not why they were working - almost certainly for very little - in such dangerous circumstances, and for whom.

This is not a migration issue. It is an exploitation issue. As the local Labour MP in Morecambe said yesterday: "The cockles are worth a great deal of money, but those poor people who lost their lives were making very little of that."

The workers were working unregulated "gangmasters." According to Hazards Magazine,

Successive governments have rejected union calls to regulate the gangmasters. Instead, clampdowns like "Operation Gangmaster" in the mid-1990s have resulted in little action against the gangmasters. Instead, most enforcement action has hurt the exploited workforce, targeting benefit fraud or immigration offences.

Hazards reports that the ganmasters were deregulated in the 1990's in favor of "weak voluntary codes that leave gang workers at risk of injury, excessive hours, low pay and intimidation. It also means that the government and the authorities cannot keep track of gangmasters' activities. " The Labour government was wary of increasing the regulatory burden on business, dangerous reasoning that sounds frighteningly familiar to those of us on this side of the Atlantic.

More here.

Book Reviews: The Neverending Tragedy of Asbestos

I've written several times of journalist Andrew Schneider's stories about the asbestos contamination of Libby, Montana, as well as areas, such as St. Louis, where the vermiculite from Libby ended up.

Schneider has just written a book, An Air That Kills, about the tragedy of Libby. NYCOSH's Jonathan Bennet has written a review

An Air That Kills begins with an eyewitness account of what happened in Libby, documenting how Grace suppressed the knowledge that the vermiculite from its mine was mixed with asbestos, which was so toxic that it not only poisoned Grace employees, but also people whose only connection to the mine was to live in the vicinity. Grace was able to get away with its deception for decades, in part because of the complicity of the local establishment, including the town's doctors and its hospital, and in part because asbestos-related disease develops decades after exposure, and often is not recognized for what it is.

But Libby's epidemic is not confined to a corner of Montana. Hundreds of townspeople are only the first wave of the afflicted. The second wave is already well under way, and its victims, who, by Grace's own very conservative estimate, are likely to number 30,000, have never been to Libby.

But as Bennet says, the stuggle continues beyond Libby

The same forces of greed, carelessness and indifference that victimized Libby are still at work in Congress, in the regulatory agencies, and the boardrooms, striving to prevent corporate or official accountability and to maximize profits. The ongoing cleanup of Libby and the townspeople's success in winning some medical care and compensation represents an important victory for one group of victims. But An Air That Kills reveals that uncontrolled exposure to asbestos from Libby and elsewhere is a daily reality for millions of Americans.

Is it possible that with so many people at risk, a groundswell could develop to ban asbestos, to control exposure to what is already in place, and to ensure that those who are sick will be fairly compensated? The need is clear, but so is the power of those with another agenda.

And another Seattle Post Intelligencer review here:

When the boss says, "Asbestos, asbestos, all asbestos," we know exactly what we're meant to feel. Could there be a more sinister term in this Chemical Age? Not only are most of us aware of asbestos and its toxic qualities, but we also believe it has been banned, regulated and cleaned up by cadres of haz-mat Martians from the Environmental Protection Agency and armies of Superfund contractors.

As this devastating book proves beyond a microfiber of a doubt, we are dead wrong. We don't have a clue how dangerous asbestos really is, and asbestos is neither banned nor reliably regulated -- and is far, far from being cleaned up.

Read the reviews. Read the book.

The Weekly Toll

Worker Asphyxiated in Tanker Truck

An investigation is under way in the death of a 23-year-old Battle Ground, WA man who was killed in an industrial accident in Portland.

Curtis "Curt" Claflin had been working inside a truck tanker at Beall Transport Equipment Co. in Portland on Wednesday when co-workers found him unconscious. He later was pronounced dead at the scene, the victim of asphyxiation, according to the Multnomah County Medical Examiner.

"The air ran out," said his mother, Pam Claflin of Battle Ground. "We don't know exactly how or why."

Curt Claflin's job at Beall was to clean, repair and inspect truck tankers, his mother said. She did not know whether he was wearing a breathing apparatus or whether someone had been watching while he was inside the tank.

Worker Killed at Landfill

WHITE TWP. NJ -- The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will investigate the death of a tractor-trailer driver Wednesday at the Warren County landfill.

Slobodan Barbulovic, 39, of Glendale, N.Y., was attempting to unhook a tarp from his trailer as the rig was stopped on the landfill weigh station when the 2:39 p.m. incident occurred, state police said.

The tractor-trailer rolled forward and Barbulovic apparently lost his footing, slipped and was crushed beneath the tires, state police said.

Hardhat dies in 8th floor fall

A construction worker died yesterday after he fell from the eighth-floor window of a new apartment building in the Bronx, police said.

Jose Viscano of Queens was removing debris from the top floor of 1240 Washington Ave., in Morrisania, when he apparently slipped about 9 a.m., said Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings.

City building inspectors issued Joy Construction Corp. a violation for failing to install guardrails on several windows on the eighth floor and a safety railing on a sixth-floor setback, Fink said.

Man killed in machine

TOWNSEND, MA -- A 25-year-old father of three died Saturday after he got stuck in an injection molding machine at his job at Sterilite Corp.

Paramedics pronounced Sixto Otero, of 21 Francis St., Fitchburg, dead after they arrived at the Main Street plastics company at about 11:30 a.m.

"Initial investigation and statements from witnesses indicate that Mr. Otero became lodged in the molding machine while attempting to dislodge an obstruction from the machine," Townsend Police Chief Erving M. Marshall Jr. wrote in a press release.

(Bad couple of weeks for machinery deaths. Check out these two here and here.)

Two men killed at Murrieta construction site

MURRIETA, CA ---- Two men died Thursday morning when they were electrocuted at a construction site in Murrieta, authorities said.

Daniel Maxwell, 18, of Perris and Mike Pillow, 41, of Hemet were pronounced dead at the scene of the industrial accident, according to the Riverside County coroner's office.

"(Maxwell) was apparently trying to swing the crane around to pick up a hydraulic cylinder" to be used in repairing the earthmover, Whisenand said.

"It looks like he may have raised the crane too high and the crane hit some power lines," the chief said.

A charge arched back through the crane and energized the ground, electrocuting the two men ---- both of whom died instantly, Whisenand said.

Interestingly, this incident comes at almost the same time that OSHA completes and investigation of a simlar incident that occurred three months ago:

ALLENTOWN, PA-February 4, 2004 — A three-month federal investigation has concluded that a crane accident that killed three men in Telford in Bucks County last summer was caused by human error.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration report says 68-year-old crane operator Robert Forepaugh of Bensalem Township failed to maintain a ten-foot clearance from overhead electric lines and made contact with charged wires, energizing the crane.

Two co-workers died trying to save Forepaugh, who was hurled from the cab in the accident August 21st at JDM Materials Company. Forepaugh's nephew, 41-year-old George Frederick of Philadelphia, began administering CPR, but another worker, 29-year-old Daniel Evans of Philadelphia, touched the still-electrified crane, sending a deadly jolt through all three men.

Large Concrete Slab Fatally Crushes Fla. Construction Worker

PERDIDO KEY, Fla. -- A construction worker died Thursday when a large concrete slab was accidentally lowered onto his head by a crane.

Frank Scott, 47, of Mobile, Ala., was bending underneath the slab when a foreman radioed the crane operator to lower the concrete about 2 1/2 feet to the ground, according to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office. More here.

Mine Worker Killed

Kentucky has lost its first miner of 2004. State officials say a worker died after a 21-foot fall at a Leslie County mine Tuesday.

A spokeswoman with the state Department of Mines and Minerals says James Asher was attempting to tear down a metal building structure on the surface area of an underground mine around 4:30 p.m. when he fell from a bucket truck. More here.

Worker Dies In Rail Car Accident

PLANT CITY, FL - An employee at the Gerdau Ameristeel plant at 4006 Paul Buchman Highway was killed shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday in an accident involving a rail car.
Brian C. Gilbert, 30, of 18644 Hamilton Road, Dade City, was helping to back in railroad cars at the plant when the accident occurred, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.

A co-worker discovered Gilbert under a railroad car with his arm severed, the sheriff's report states.

According to the report, Gilbert went in to cardiac arrest and, despite the efforts of fire rescue workers, died at the scene.

Valve Explosion Kills Power Plant Worker

Bill Bowers advised, "Just be." He died Friday after a valve exploded Thursday at Progress Energy Florida's Crystal River complex.

At Progress Energy Florida's Crystal River complex, Bowers was a plant operator, and everybody liked him.

So news of the accident that led to his death Friday hit hard.

He had been opening a valve on a high-pressure pump in a coal-burning plant about 8 p.m. Thursday. The valve exploded, workers said.

Bowers, 49, was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital.

His skull was fractured, his brain was bleeding and his right arm was almost severed, according to Bowers' "life partner" of almost six years, Cathleen Foley, 54. She said head trauma from the explosion caused his death.

Worker crushed by cement truck

A worker was killed when a cement truck ran over him in the Gaslamp District yesterday, police said.

The accident happened shortly before 9 a.m. on Ninth Avenue just south of J Street, San Diego police said. The victim, a 60-year-old man from Los Angeles County, died instantly. His name wasn't immediately released.

Worker pinned between forklifts in A.C.

ATLANTIC CITY - -- A Pleasantville woman suffered a possible broken pelvis Friday when she became pinned between two forklifts while helping remove equipment from the Convention Center after the Pool and Spa Show.

Victim Annabelle Ross, 61, a member of Teamsters Local 331, was operating one of the forklifts. She became caught in the rear wheels of one the forklifts and was pushed into the other's wheels, becoming briefly trapped before the machinery was moved off her, police said.

Rail car accident kills worker at Westside mill

A grain mill worker was killed Wednesday morning when a rail car pinned him against a wall on the Westside, officials said.

Dwight A. Holderman, 44, of Fishers, was working with a 200,000-pound rail car, which left the tracks at Cargill Dry Corn Ingredients, 1730 W. Michigan St., about 11:30 a.m., police said.

Holderman died at the scene. Police said a crane was summoned from Ohio to move the rail car so the man's body could be freed. More here.

Kiewit employee dies after 25-foot fall from bridge

Pipefitter's aide's harness was not hooked up

An employee at Kiewit Offshore Services Ltd. died Monday night after falling 25 feet from a piece of a bridge he was working on, the company's president said.

Damon Tucker, 20, of Ingleside, was working as a pipefitter's helper shortly after 7 p.m. Monday when he fell from the bridge structure. Police responded to the call at 7:23 p.m. and found Tucker dead at the scene.

"It looks like it was an accident," San Patricio County Sheriff Leroy Moody said.

Tucker was wearing a safety harness before he fell, but he was not hooked up, Moody said.

Trucker found in tanker, dies

EAST LIVERPOOL, IN — A truck driver found in the bottom of his tanker at VonRoll/WTI Monday afternoon has died, according to company officials, who would not release the driver’s name.

According to a release from VonRoll, a company employee was unloading a tanker truck containing lime slurry just after 2 p.m. when he found the driver in the bottom of the tank, which still contained some of the product.

The employee who entered the tank to remove the driver also was taken to the hospital in a second ambulance, both of which were en route to the hospital by 2:30 p.m., according to VonRoll officials.

Spokesman Raymond Wayne said he did not know how the driver ended up in the tanker, and said that is one of the aspects of a comprehensive investigation that is under way. More here.

State to probe Davenport (IA) construction worker death

A Honduran immigrant who died at a Davenport construction site last week may not have been wearing a hard hat, contrary to a policy of the general contractor that required him to have one, police and a company official said.

While co-workers who were on the site when Santiago Cano, 43, fell to his death Friday say he was wearing the protective headgear, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and police did not see it and could find no evidence of it when they retrieved his body and looked through his personal belongings at the hospital, according to a police report.

Cano fell 12 feet onto his head, breaking his neck and his right arm at the wrist in the mid-morning accident, according to police. He was pronounced dead after being taken to Genesis Medical Center-East Campus.

Cano was the third person to die in an industrial accident in the Iowa Quad-Cities since mid-December.

Michael W. Dudley, 39, of East Moline, died Dec. 15 after getting caught on a conveyor belt at LeClaire Manufacturing in Bettendorf. Lawrence Erbst, 37, of Davenport, was found dead Dec.19 inside a hopper at Holland International Manufacturing of Brave Foundries LLC., Davenport.

Wal-Mart Nation World

This makes you stop and think:

As capital scours the globe for cheaper and more malleable workers, and as poor countries seek multinational companies to provide jobs, lift production and open export markets, Wal-Mart and China have forged themselves into the ultimate joint venture, their symbiosis influencing the terms of labor and consumption the world over.

With sales of more than $245 billion a year, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the United States, still the ultimate consumer market. China is the most populous country, with 1.3 billion people, most still poor enough to willingly move hundreds of miles from home for jobs that would be shunned by anyone with better prospects. The Communist Party government has become perhaps the world's greatest facilitator of capitalist production, beckoning multinational giants with tax-free zones and harsh punishment for anyone with designs on organizing a labor movement.

More than 80 percent of the 6,000 factories in Wal-Mart's worldwide database of suppliers are in China. Wal-Mart estimates it spent $15 billion on Chinese-made products last year, accounting for nearly one-eighth of all Chinese exports to the United States. If the company that Sam Walton built with his "Made in America" ad campaign were itself a separate nation, it would rank as China's fifth-largest export market, ahead of Germany and Britain.

So why are we bothering negotiating "free" or "fair" trade agreements with other counties when we could just travel to Arkansas and negotiate with Wal-Mart?

And what's so attractive about China?

For Wal-Mart and other multinational companies doing business in China, a stable currency, political peace and a compliant workforce are nearly as important as low costs.

"There might be places in other parts of the world where you can buy cheaper, but can you get [the product] on the ship?" Tsuei said. "If we have to look at a country that's not politically stable, you might not get your order on time. If you deal in a country where the currency fluctuates, everyday there is a lot of risk. China happens to have the right mix."

Labor activists in China and abroad say that mix includes the ruling party's ban on independent trade unions -- workers may join only the party-run union -- as well as courts and regulatory agencies controlled by local party officials who are often willing to overlook labor violations to appease businesses that can be milked for taxes, fees and bribes.

The activists argue that as Wal-Mart pits suppliers against one another and squeezes them for the lowest price, the workers suffer.

"Wal-Mart pressures the factory to cut its price, and the factory responds with longer hours or lower pay," said a Chinese labor official, who declined to be named for fear of punishment. "And the workers have no options."

But Wal-Mart audits its suppliers, doesn't it?

Ah yes, but things are often not what they seem....

Wal-Mart portrays itself as a force for good in China. The company says it enforces labor standards for its suppliers and insists that they comply with Chinese law.

"We look at safety. We look at health, and this comes with a cost. We ensure people get paid above minimum wage. They have to have fire extinguishers, fire exits," Tsuei said. "There are people out there who cannot have those things and offer a lower price. We do not do business with those people."

Wal-Mart employs 100 auditors who annually inspect every supplier's factory. Last year, the company suspended deals with about 400 suppliers, primarily for exceeding limits on overtime, Tsuei said. Another 72 factories were blacklisted permanently last year, he said, almost all for employing children under China's legal working age of 16.

But Wal-Mart does not conduct regular inspections of smaller factories that sell goods to the company through middlemen. Nor does it inspect all its suppliers' subcontractors or the Chinese manufacturing operations of U.S. suppliers such as Mattel Inc. and Dell Inc.

"The inspection system is not effective," said Li Qiang, a labor organizer who has been in contact with workers at more than a dozen factories that supply Wal-Mart, and who worked in one himself before leaving China three years ago. "The factories are usually notified in advance, and they often prepare by cleaning up, creating fake time sheets and briefing workers on what to say."

Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month, violating Chinese labor laws. If Wal-Mart really wanted to monitor conditions among its suppliers, Li said, it could do so with surprise visits, longer inspections and independent auditors. "But if they did that, prices would definitely go up," he said.

Sing Along: "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities"

Who woulda thought you could make a toe-tapping song out of "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities?"

Bill Maher, that's who.

Click here if you don't believe me. You won't be sorry. Thanks to Calpundit for the tip.

Update: Oops, the link expired. Too bad. Here are the words of the first stanza:

Hi my name is Koby Teeth, and when I first heard President Bush say those words, "Weapons of mass destruction related program activities and significant amounts of equipment," it made my blood boil. So I wrote this song...

Well Old Lady Liberty won't stand idly by
While you piss on her leg and spit in her eye,
So let the word travel forth from Baghdad to Tikrit,
We got an ice-cold mug of whup-ass with a chaser of shit,
I'm pissed off about those damn "related program activities"
(and significant amounts of equipment!)

Shocking Discovery: Water Is Wet!

Oh, yeah, and Bush Favors Business

Now sit down, this may come as a shock to you (who have been hiding under your beds with your eyes closed and your ears plugged for the past three years), but it turns out, according to a Washington Post "analysis" by Thomas Edsall, "In Bush's Policies, Business Wins."

I know this is truly hard to believe, as is the following observation: "In many areas, the Bush administration is more in sync with corporate America than were the Clinton administration and earlier Democratic presidencies."

Edsall starts with Bush's immigration proposal noting that the

unquestioned beneficiaries are U.S. employers. If the proposal becomes law, they will have a vastly enlarged pool of prospective workers, many willing to perform the dirtiest and most dangerous tasks for low pay....The immigration proposal fits a broader pattern encompassing Bush's tax legislation, regulatory decisions, labor policies and economic strategies

More shocking is the fact that Edsall is apparently not the only one who shares this crazy opinion:

"Since 1932, we have not had a president who has been more closely allied with business and more sympathetic to large and powerful corporations," said Columbia University historian Alan Brinkley, a specialist in the American presidency.

"It's hard to think of anyone [in the 20th century] who has been more connected to the corporate world than maybe Herbert Hoover" in the 20th and 21st centuries, said Robert Dallek, professor emeritus at Boston University and a prominent presidential biographer.

Even the Chamber of Commerce agrees:

On "the major areas of concern, I don't think there is much separation at all," said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs of the Chamber of Commerce. "Some shading, but, largely speaking, we are on the same page."

The president and the Chamber of Commerce are in harmony on several issues as well, including pay regulations that could exclude thousands of workers from overtime benefits, and Medicare legislation backed by the pharmaceutical and health industries.

One of the administration's most significant domestic achievements -- enactment of three tax cuts -- was boosted by massive lobbying efforts from business coalitions that overcame alliances of labor, civil rights, women's groups and other liberal interest groups.

And while we're at it, lets not forget the repeal of OSHA's ergonomics regulation, and subsequent suppression of recordkeeping for musculoskeletal disorders, the withdrawal of OSHA's tuberculosis proposal, cessation of OSHA's nursing home initiative, OSHA's refusal to initiate the regulatory process for reactive chemicals, despite a recommendation by the Chemical Safety Board, opposition to the European union's attempt to effectively control the safety of chemicals, opposition to effective regulations that would address chemical plant security, gutting of clean air rules, allowing private contractors to write nuclear weapons plants’ safety rules, attacking the scientific underpinnings of any future worker or environmental protectins, opposition to extending unemployment benefits, pushing for social security privatization, pushing an anti-worker, anti-family bankruptcy bill as well as tort "reform" legislation that would reduce people's right to sue corporations for unhealthy products, loosening rules on ownership of multiple media outlets, privatizing federal government jobs, pushing an energy bill that favors Halliburton, polluters and is so full of pork that even some Republicans couldn't stomach it. I could (and often do) go on and on, but you get the idea.

Of course, the Administration's pro-business proclivities haven't exactly been a secret, even from the semi-mainstream press. Bill Moyers has certainly noted it, as has David Broder and previous Washington Post articles. It fact, it's gotten so obvious that even the non-Howard Dean presidential candidates have caught on. Who's next? Hopefully, a good chunk of the 47% of the population that still finds some reason to support the man living in the White House.

Maybe not that it's become a "fact" that the administration of George II favors business, journalists should start writing something like this in every article: "President George W. Bush, whose policies consistently favor small business, announced today that blah blah blah blah...." Or, "On the agenda of this nation's lawmakers this week will be George Bush's pro-business [energy, tax, labor, trade, immigration, environment, etc., etc.] agenda.

This is a bit more like it: $475,000 Fine For Workers' Deaths

"When employees die because employers have not complied with worker safety laws, it's more than just an accident, it's a crime."

So said Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Holtzman as he handed down a $475,000 crminal penalty on Spectrum, a Petaluma, CA, health products company where two workers died in a 2002 industrial accident. Spectrum admitted to willfully violating the law.

Javier Del Rio, 42, and Francisco Estrella Galvan, 24, were asphyxiated while cleaning a 12-foot tall steel tank used to filter flax seed oil that Spectrum uses in a variety of organic food and health products. The tank had been filled with argon gas, which displaces oxygen.

Immediately after the April 25, 2002, accident, and again on Wednesday, Spectrum officials said they had the right training and equipment in place and expressed anguish over the deaths.

This is an interesting statement, considering Spectrum "admitted to willfully violating the law." And considering that

it's believed Galvan tried to rescue Del Rio after the older man fell unconscious after entering the tank. Petaluma police and Cal-OSHA investigators found the men lacked safety harnesses, oxygen monitors and breathing apparatus, all required under state regulations governing confined spaces, such as the tanks.

And how were they "trained" to test for oxygen deficiency? Throw a lighted match into the tank. I guess if it went out, there was no oxygen. This was probably a good way to tell if a confined space contained oxygen -- 100 years ago.

Spectrum was charged with two felonies, one count of violating the confined space law for each of the men. The fine was a result of a settlement where Spectrum agreed to pay over $200,000 to worker safety and confined space training programs at the Petaluma Police and Fire departments.

California, according to the NY Times series, When Workers Die, is a state that actively pursues criminal prosecutions against companies that kill workers.

State law changed in 2000, increasing potential penalties for workplace safety violations resulting in deaths from $75,000 to $1.5 million. The law also increased the exposure to criminal liability of a company and its officers

"Outrageous" Strikers in L.A? Give Me A Break!

The Mad Prophet, (a.k.a. C Bryan Lavigne) is one of the few bloggers who gets more outraged at absurd, right-wing, anti-worker crap than I do. Read this about an L.A. Times column whose writers whine about "coercive" unions (a.k.a. striking grocery store workers in L.A.) violating employers' and workers' rights

Chemical Safety Board Blasts OSHA

Chem Board Found To Be One of Few Government Agencies Not Comatose

Calling OSHA's inaction "unacceptable," the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) today criticized the agency for not taking action on reactive chemical hazards despite hundreds of incidents, some catastrophic, that have killed more than 100 workers over the past decade. The CSB recommended in September 2002 that OSHA revise its Process Safety Standard (PSM) to include reactive chemicals. In November 2003, OSHA responded that it had not yet decided whether to revise the PSM standard because no consensus on a best approach had emerged.

According to the CSB press release

In a letter to John Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, CSB Chairman Carolyn Merritt said the Board voted unanimously on Feb. 2, 2004, to designate OSHA's response as "Open -- Unacceptable Response." By designating the recommendations "open," the Board indicated it will continue to seek action from OSHA on the requested actions. Chairman Merritt said the Board was "disappointed" that OSHA had given no indication when it might make a decision on moving forward to extend coverage of reactives.

In the letter to Secretary Henshaw, Chairman Merritt wrote, "While the Board commends OSHA on increased outreach efforts designed "to heighten awareness of hazards associated with reactivity," Board members continue to believe that the evidence compiled by the CSB"s investigation strongly indicates that a revision of the standard is necessary."

The Board voted in Oct. 2002 to make the recommendation to OSHA, which is required by law to formally respond to the CSB. The recommendation followed the release of a two-year CSB hazard investigation entitled "Improving Reactive Chemical Management." The study called reactive chemical accidents a "significant chemical safety problem" that are responsible for continuing deaths, injuries and environmental property damage nationwide. The study focused on 167 serious accidents over 20 years, which caused 108 fatalities and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

Reactive hazards exist when a single chemical or a mixture has the potential to undergo a violent, uncontrolled reaction when improperly processed or combined. The chemical reactions can release large quantities of heat, energy and gases, causing fires, explosions or toxic emissions. Reactive chemicals and mixtures often appear harmless until exposed to specific processing or storage conditions, such as elevated temperature.

The Board is currently composed of three appointees of President Bush, and one holdover from the Clinton Administration. Board Member Gerald Poje, a Clinton appointee, noted that New Jersey had recently issued a reactives regulation and praised the state for showing the leadership instead of waiting for a consensus was achieved.

Five unions originally petitioned OSHA for a revised PSM standard in 1995 following an explosion and fire that year that claimed five lives at a Lodi, New Jersey plant. Under the Clinton Administration, OSHA had planned to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to collect additional information on reactive chemical hazards as a first step toward revising the standard, but the Bush Administration removed it from the regulatory agenda in December 2001. Last June, a group of labor unions and environmental organizations again petitioned OSHA to address reactive hazards in the PSM standard.

OSHA's administrator, John Henshaw, responded to the Board's letter stating

"Our goal is to be sure that workers are safe and healthy and we will continue to work with chemical safety stakeholders to prevent incidents in the future."

Since the Boards' report was released in 2002, OSHA has initiated a number of educational efforts to educate the chemical industry about reactive hazards and has participated in roundtable discussions with industry, labor and environmentalists in an effort to reach a consensus. CSB Board Chairman Merritt pointed out, however, that her years in industry showed that regulations were much more effective in changing behavior than voluntary measures.

The Board's letter stated that

Board members continue to believe that the evidence compiled by the CSB's investigation strongly indicates that a revision of the standard is necessary. Board members do not feel that a consensus on the best approach should be a condition for deciding the baseline question of whether a revision of the PSM standard is necessary. There is certainly no lack of ideas or opinions concerning how the problem can be solved. OSHA has under its authority ample means to gather the information and advice needed to determine how best to approach revision of this standard. These include an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, development of a proposed rule, as well as comments, public hearings and post hearing comments on that proposal.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Board's decision

a serious indictment of the Bush Administration's dismal worker safety and health record. It shows that even in the case of deadly hazards the Bush Administration sides with giant corporations and refuses to act to protect workers....Putting corporate interests over worker safety is leaving workers in serious danger. The Bush Administration should act now to regulate reactive chemicals before more workers' lives are lost.

Hey Harry, Get Out the Dead Worker Template Again

Here's another article about the sewer worker, Jacob Britt Anderson, who was crushed to death earlier this week when the walls of an 18 foot deep trench collapsed on top of him. This article left me rather upset, and National COSH Coordinator Tom O'Connor captured my feelings in a comment:

I read this news article too and what most struck me about it was that the news story contained no question as to what the hell the employer (who was right there operating the backhoe) was doing sending the guy into an unprotected 18 foot trench. Nor did it question the owner's putting the blame on the victim who he claimed wasn't supposed to go beyond the safety area. Instead, the article focused entirely on what a swell job the firefighters did responding and how the local people helped out by giving them coffee.

To which I say "amen."

I've thought about this before, but I'm thinking it would be nice to set up a training program for journalists, especially local journalists who get assigned to cover stories like this. Maybe encourage them to do a bit of research into regulations and best practices, into the background of the company. Have they ever been cited by OSHA? Maybe even talk to some of the workers to see if this the conditions that killed their co-worker was unusual, or whether they risk their lives every day. Are they free to complain about the safety of their jobs and suggest improvements without being retaliated against? Any recent injuries or close calls? Do workers get any training? If so, what do they learn? Are they free to report injuries or illnesses?

Right now, it seems that covering workplace fatalities is one step above (or maybe the same step) as writing obituaries. They all sound basically the same:

(Name) or "An unidentified worker" (age __) was killed today when a (x foot deep) trench collapsed on top of him. The worker was dead when rescue personnel arrived.

(Name), owner of (company) said he couldn't be more sad about the death of (name). "My workers are like family to me. This is just a terrible loss, and terrible shock." He added that he couldn't figure out for the life of him how this could have happened. (Supervisor) said that (dead worker) was told not to go down into that trench. "I don't know what made him go down there," (supervisor) said.

(Mayor's name) praised the local fire and rescue department for their swift response. "It's just too bad that they were too late." He added, however, that during his administration, the fire and rescue department was able to purchase (name of equipment) and (name of equipment) which it has utilized in several other local trench tragedies this year.

(Dead Worker) had (number) children. His co-workers considered him to be (choose adjective: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean or reverent). "He was the greatest, most loving guy," said (co-worker). "We're really going to miss him."

The police department has ruled the death an accident. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating to determine whether or not federal regulations were violated.

Father and Son Story

Anyone who thinks that we don't need regulations or stiff criminal penalties for workplace crimes or that this type of thing doesn't happen in the 21st century in the U.S.A. needs to cut out this article and put it on the refrigerator.

Over a decade, Alexander Salvagno and his father, Raul, operated one of the state's largest asbestos removal firms, working on 2,000 projects from Buffalo to Long Island, often with a specific lab that vouched for their results.

Now, federal prosecutors say their work was the heart of a conspiracy in which they ordered crews to crudely rip asbestos from walls while the lab faked air tests, putting potentially thousands of people at risk of disease and death.

In what prosecutors say is the largest federal prosecution of its kind, the Salvagnos are charged with racketeering - including running a criminal enterprise - and conspiracy to violate the federal Clean Air Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. An indictment alleges that the Salvagnos, who owned AAR Contractors of Latham, N.Y., in Albany County, did not bother with even minimal precautions that would keep toxic asbestos fibers out of the air.

The indictment charges that Alexander Salvagno was the secret and illegal owner of the lab it often worked with, and that it faked tens of thousands of air samples and test results. The buildings included elementary schools and private homes. Large manufacturers, a hospital, bank, convent and even the New York State Department of Labor Building - which houses the Office of Asbestos Control - are among the 39 buildings specified in the indictment.

According to testimony by former employees and investigators in the trial, which began in November, as many as 1,555 buildings from that 10-year period are suspect, because the asbestos removal firm and the laboratory collaborated. The Salvagnos, who could face lengthy prison terms, earned millions in the scheme, according to the court documents.

Also note that the penalties and jail terms the men face come result from violating EPA, not OSHA regulations.

DC Water Agency Manager Fired for Revealing Lead Threat

Last week the Washington D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) revealed that it had known since 2002 that thousands of D.C. residents were drinking water that contained lead levels far above EPA standards.

Now it has been revealed that WASA fired a manager who had warned the agency and EPA of the lead contamination.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority fired a high-ranking manager last year who had repeatedly warned top agency officials and federal authorities of lead contamination in the city's tap water before tests last summer revealed that the lead exceeded federal limits in thousands of homes.

Seema S. Bhat was WASA's water quality manager from 1999 until she was fired in March after her bosses decided that she had too often reported lead problems directly to the Environmental Protection Agency. A federal investigator who reviewed the matter last summer ruled that Bhat was improperly terminated and ordered WASA to rehire her and pay her damages. WASA has appealed and the case is in litigation.

In an interview yesterday, Bhat and her attorney, Brian J. Schwartz, said WASA officials constantly reprimanded her for raising the issue of lead contamination with the EPA -- even after it was clear that the city would exceed a federal guideline.

Bhat said she was keeping the EPA informed because she wanted WASA to launch an aggressive campaign to replace lead service lines and inform the public of the problems. Instead, she said, her superiors told her to be more patient and enrolled her in a training course designed to teach her to respect the chain of command.

"I had to deal against the whole bureaucracy," said Bhat, 57, who lives in Columbia. "I was all alone."

Companies Stand To Save Billions On Asbestos Victims Bill

While the U.S. Continues to Import and Use the Deadly Material

Think asbestos exposure was a thing of the past? Think again

Most of the industrialized world has banned the use of what were once called "miracle fibers" for their fireproof properties. But Commerce Department figures show that U.S. importation of asbestos has increased 300 percent in the last decade, with much of the cancer-causing material being used in automotive brakes.

The Environmental Protection Agency has cautioned millions of homeowners who may have vermiculite insulation contaminated with asbestos to stay out of their attics.

And federal health investigators have begun a survey of 250 plants that handled asbestos-contaminated products from a vermiculite mine in Montana. They are warning people that were involved with the operations in any way to see their physicians.

Meanwhile, we're still paying the price of decades of illness caused by asbestos exposure in this country. We've discussed here several times last year's failed attempt in Congress to pass asbestos compensation legislation that would bring some order to the hundreds of thousands of asbestos suits that have been filed. There is little doubt that some attorneys have been using people who are not sick to exploit the problem, while the courts are so clogged that truly sick people wait years to be compensated or die before their case is heard. The idea behind the legislation was that, instead of unending lawsuits driving large and small companies bankrupt, there would be a fund upon which truly affected people could draw.

Last year's bill floundered for two reasons: the size of the fund, and the medical criteria used for determining who would be eligible for compensation. The fund that the companies and the insurance industry settled on was too small, according to labor. And then experts from the the industry got together to determine their own criteria.

"The criteria they adopted excluded almost all the recommendations made by those of us without ties to industry. What remains is criteria that excludes thousands and thousands of people actually ill with asbestos-related disease," said Dr. Mike Harbut, one of the nation's leading asbestos specialists.

As originally written, the criteria exclude thousands of people in Libby, Mont., whom federal testing showed had clinical signs of asbestos disease from a contaminated vermiculite mine. It would have excluded a Libby woman on her death bed in a Seattle hospital, because Hatch's act only allows those with occupational exposure to bring suit. The fact that the woman had been contaminated with asbestos that her late husband had carried home from the W.R. Grace mine would have made no difference.

(For more on the tragedy of Libby, Montana, see here, here, here and here.

Despite the problems, President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist have declares passage of an asbestos comp bill a major priority. "The torrent of asbestos litigation has wreaked havoc on asbestos victims, on American jobs, and this havoc has extended into our economy," said Frist. "

But St. Louis Dispatch reporter Andrew Schneider, who originally broke the Libby story, thinks that while bankruptcies may be a problem, chaos and havoc may be overstating the problem just a bit.

The Post-Dispatch found that a different picture emerges in Securities and Exchange Commission filings and press releases from the five largest asbestos targets who have filed for bankruptcy. The most recent reports from Armstrong, W.R. Grace, Federal Mogul, Owens Corning and U.S. Gypsum show that with a single exception, all have increased sales and have the same or a greater number of employees than before they filed Chapter 11.

Hatch's act not only would prevent most future suits against enormous corporations, it also would put some of them billions of dollars ahead of the game.

For example, in December, 2002, the Halliburton Corp. reached a settlement of $3.6 billion with thousands of people with asbestos diseases who had sued one of its subsidiaries.

Documents submitted to the Judiciary Committee say that under the proposed fairness legislation, no company would be forced to pay more than $25 million per year for 27 years into the compensation fund. Thus, the most a corporation would have to shell out would be $675 million. In Halliburton's case, it would have saved nearly $3 billion if the legislation goes into effect.

And then, ask some Congressional leaders, why are we spending all of this time and energy fighting about how to compensate past victims, when we're still importing and using asbestos in this country. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), supported by Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), has introduced a bill to ban asbestos, but has so far gotten no Republican support.

"It would be irresponsible for Congress to consider a bill addressing the fallout from asbestos exposure that does not include a ban on its future use," said Leahy, who co-sponsored Murray's bill. "Too many innocent people have been poisoned by asbestos already."

Worker Killed in 18 Foot Deep Trench

GREENVILLE, Ala. -- Police in Greenville say a worker died Sunday afternoon after a wall of dirt collapsed on him. Police Chief Lonzo Ingram said 26-year-old Jacob Britt Anderson of Kinston was in an 18-foot trench at the time of the accident, which was reported shortly after 3 p.m.

Ingram said Anderson was working on a sewer line. He was employed by Johnson's Excavation and Construction of Opp. Greenville firefighters spent about five hours trying to dig Anderson out.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the industrial accident( sic).

Excuse my language, but 18 fucking feet deep? That's only three and a half times the legal limit.

See that blue comment link at the bottom of this post? Can anyone give me one good reason why these Johnson guys shoudn't be in jail? Come on, I'm waiting. One good reason.

18 feet!

Come on. One good reason, right here:

OSHA Cuts Web Access

Computers Refusing to Work Overtime?

OSHA has one of the more useful government websites. If you click on Inspection Data, you can look up citations by employer, by SIC (industry) code, and citation number. You can find out what the most cited violations in any given industry sector, you can look up accident investigations and even General Duty Clause citations -- and until just recently, you could do it 24 hours a day.

But no more.

Late this evening I was looking up a certain employer who should be in jail (see above) to see if he had any previous citations, and this is the message I received:

Effective Immediately
This application will be available only on weekdays
between the hours of 0800 and 1800 Washington, DC time

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but my theory is that Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has told the computers that because of DOL's new overtime regulations, the computers would no longer be receiving overtime pay. So they went on strike. Or were locked out.

Or maybe Bush's budget cuts have really hit home and DOL is trying to save money on electricity?

Maybe it's some kind of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft, terrorist, Iraq, Al-Queda, Weapons-of-mass destruction-related-activity kind of thing. (Note the suspicious use of military time....)

Maybe this isn't about computers. Maybe entire factories of South Asian children were looking up the information and typing it in, and now, thanks to Elaine Chao, they're working eight-hour days with health care benefits. Yeah, human rights, that's the ticket.

What's going on? Has anyone ever heard of a computer database clocking out at 5:00? And that's "Washington D.C. Time," (known to the rest of the world outside the beltway as "Eastern Standard Time"). Tough luck for you Hawaians. Better get your work done in the morning.

This is one of the most bizarre things I've seen yet. What's next, holidays and snow days for computers?

Hey Johns (Kerry and Edwards), are you listening? If this isn't an election issue, I don' t know what is! The first one to speak out gets my vote.

Budget Humor

You gotta hand it to the old Chimpster in the White House. The guy's got a sense of humor. If he loses the election, there's always Saturday Night Live. He's so funny, he can even liven up the Federal Budget.

Mark Schmitt at the Decembrist found these. I thought they were a joke, but they're real. Check it out here. Read the captions.

Hoo, ha ha. What a guy!

And, I hate to give it away, but here's the punch line:

Improving education for all children, strengthening Medicare, working towards a cleaner environment, and extending compassion and a helping hand to those in need are key to supporting the values that make our Nation strong. The agency chapters that follow describe in more detail how President Bush’s Budget proposes to address the challenges we face in upholding these and other important American values.

FY 2005 Budget Proposal

Planned Cut In Training Grants Again

President Bush's FY 2005 (October 2004 - Sept 2005) budget proposal was released yesterday. Details to follow, but basically OSHA's funding is fairly flat -- except for the annual planned decrease in the worker training grants from $11 million for direct worker traiing to $4 million for computer training. This is the fourth year Bush has proposed this cut. In every previous year, the money has been restored by Congress.

We'll see what happens this year...

OSHA Budget Passed

Training Grant Money Saved

Included in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill for FY 2004 which the Senate passed last month was the Labor- HHS Appropriations bill which included funding for OSHA, MSHA and NIOSH. As you now, the bill unfortunately did not include a measure blocking the DOL overtime regulation (despite votes to that effect in the House and in the Senate) which will result in reductions of overtime pay for 8 million workers.

OSHA received a modest increase, allowing it to maintain current program activities. FY 2004 funding for OSHA will be $460.7 million, compared to $450.3 million in FY 2003. According to Occupational Hazards, compliance assistance was the biggest winner, gaining, as it did last year, the largest percentage increase in funding. The 10 percent increase, or $6 million, was the largest increase in total dollars among OSHA programs as well. Spending on enforcement programs will rise $4 million to $167 million, while the safety and health standards budget remains constant at $16 million.

The best news is that the bill maintained OSHA training grant funding ($11.1 million) and included legislative language mandating that OSHA fund the Institutional Competency Building Grants for another year at current levels. This is a major victory as the Bush administration has attempted to cut short the 5-year grant program initiated during the Clinton administration. Despite all odds we've been able to maintain funding for these programs for the full five year term and maintain the entire program at $11 million despite the Administration's attempt to cut the program down to $4 million and replace it with a program that would emphasize web sites and CD's instead of direct worker training.

The bill sets funding for MSHA at $270.8 million, compared to $272.9 million in FY 2003. (However, the FY 03 appropriation included a onetime appropropriation of $9.9 million for mine mapping).

For NIOSH, the bill provides a total of $278.9 million (including $41.9 million for NORA), compared to $273.4 million for FY 2003.

Vote Early, Vote Often

The voting still seems to be open for Best Single Issue Blog. It's not too late. It's your chance to strike a blow for all the blow strikers.

Department of Energy Decides When It Comes To Safety, Contractors Know Best

Bush Administration Wants To Let Contractors Decide Their Own Safety Standards

A remaining legacy of the Cold War are defense nuclear facilities that make materials for nuclear bombs, but are run by contractors for the Department of Energy. Oversight of workplace health and safety conditions at these plants comes under the jurisdiction of DOE, rather than OSHA. Traditionally, while DOE contractors were required to comply with all OSHA regulations, DOE did not have the authority to fine contactors for violations....until the 2003 Defense Authorization Act was passed, requiring DOE to fine contractors who violated OSHA regulations.

Last month, the DOE issued draft regulations implementing this new law. Instead of following the intent of Congress which was to strengthen health and safety protections for workers at these facilities, DOE has twisted its reading of the law to issue a regulatory proposal that significantly weakens worker protections.

First, requirements that contractors comply with OSHA standards would now become unenforceable guidelines. Second, instead of being able to fine contractors for violating any OSHA standard, DOE would only be able to fine contractors that violate health and safety standards that the contractors themselves have decided they want to comply with. Their health and safety programs would have to be approved by DOE.

What's the problem with that?

The government often gives contractors financial incentives to complete projects ahead of schedule, and tough safety standards could slow contractors down, said Leon Owens, a worker and past president of the local union at the government's uranium plant in Paducah, Ky.

"I don't feel that a contractor would be as inclined to develop rules that would go the extra length to provide adequate protection for workers," Owens said.

In other words, according to Richard Miller of the Government Accountability Project, "It's like you're driving to a meeting, but you're late, so you get to change the speed limit to 80 mph to get there on time."

The new rules would prohibit DOE from citing or even inspecting for hazards that the contractor decides are not covered in the plan. Miller's testimony pointed out that if the a workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation were exposed to toxic fumes venting from tanks that had not been included in the contractor's original plan, DOE would not be able to inspect or cite the contractor even if the exposures exceeded OSHA limits. "Please explain why this exemption makes for good safety policy, or will keep workers from getting sick from workrelated exposures," Miller asks.

According to Assistant Secretary of Energy, Beverly Cook, the proposed regs are part of a continuing effort to get contractors to focus on hazards specific to their sites rather than on dangers that don't exist everywhere.

"But why," Miller asks, "Should DOE contractors not have to comply with the same health and safety floor that every other employer in the U.S. has to comply with?"

The DOE proposal has not only been criticized by Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland (OH), but also by conservative Republican Jim Bunning (KY).

And Jack Conway, chairman of Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an advisory panel that oversees safety at the Energy Department, said the proposal would weaken safety standards covering more than 100,000 workers at the facilities. "The way it's written, I don't like it at all," said Conway.

Private contractors are writing their own safety regulations, corporate lobbyists are writing environmental regulations, small business association representatives are bankrolled by taxpayer dollars.

I'm not sure what form of government this is, but somehow it doesn't seem like the kind of democracy that most people still think we live under.

We've Got More Mail!

How We Deal (at great length) With Concepts Like "Moderation," "One-Sidedness," "Objectivity," Pro- and Anti- Regulation "Radicals" and "Bringing People Together"

This comment comes from Donald Johnson at Businessword.com:

I first covered the creation of OSHA and its early implementation as a reporter for a manufacturing publication back in the early '70s. And now as the owner of a little manufacturing business, I try to live by the spirit of OSHA and EPA as well as ADA and labor laws. This costs money but allows me to sleep nights, and we've had no serious injuries or other complaints.

That's good. Really.

I am an economic Republican and a blogger.

Which makes you a sleepless person with too much to say, no one to listen, a serious anger management problem who can't live within his means.

With that background and partial disclosure of my conflicts of interest and experiences, I have to ask a few policy wonk, news junky questions:

1. Are there "objective" experts on OSHA and workplace safety?

Of course. You're reading one of them.

Seriously. What is "objective?" I consider those experts to be "objective" who spend time in workplaces, talk to workers, study the causes of hazards and how to prevent them use the evidence to establish best practices, guidelines and OSHA standards. I don't consider those experts to be "objective" who, for example, call ergonomics "junk science" and OSHA "the gestapo?" Nor those affiliated with the National Coalition on Ergonomics who criticize legitimate ergonomists for being "unabashed advocates" of "the disputed theory that physical risk factors are a primary cause of musculoskeletal disorders"

2. We know unions and employers are on opposite sides of these issues and that academic and consulting "scientists" frequently are caught standing up for their grants and sponsors rather than for science. So how can either side sell its answers to the working public?

To read more go here.