Court Rules Against Smithfield Packing In Union Case

And speaking of meatpacking plants, a federal court decided yesterday that Smithfield Packing Company had repeatedly broken the law in fighting the United Food and Commercial Workers union's (UFCW) attempt to organize its pork-processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. nine years ago.

I wrote more about the plant (or actually I wrote more about NY Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse's article about attempts to organize the plant) here earlier this year.

Concluding that Smithfield had engaged in "intense and widespread coercion," the appeals court upheld the labor board's ruling that one worker was improperly coerced when he was ordered to stamp hogs with a "Vote No" stamp.

The appeals court ordered Smithfield to reinstate four fired workers, one of whom was beaten by the plant's police the day of the election. The court concurred with the labor board's findings that Smithfield's managers were not credible when they insisted that the four workers were fired for reasons other than their support for the union.

The circuit court noted that Smithfield had illegally confiscated union materials, spied on workers' union activities, threatened to fire workers who voted for the union, and threatened to freeze wages and shut the plant if the employees unionized. The Smithfield plant has 5,500 employees and is the world's largest pork-processing facility.

As I wrote before, instead of calling for a new election, the union is putting together a coalition of churches, civil rights groups and colleges students to press the company for neutrality in the unionization fight. Not surprisingly, the company opposes those tactics, boasting about how well management and employees work together, that they don't need a "third party", that neutrality would "bar the company from telling employees about the downside of unionization," workers would be "shielded from the facts," and wouldn't learn the "full story."

The New Jungle: They Don't Kill Cows. They Kill People

The good news is that conditions in meatpacking plants have gotten better since Upton Sinclair published The Jungle 100 years ago.

The bad news is that things are still pretty bad.

He works in a world of long knives and huge saws, blood and bone, arctic chill and sweltering heat. For Martin Cortez, this is life on the line as a meatpacker.

It's no place for the squeamish. Some workers can't stomach the gore - chopping up the meat and bones of hundreds of cattle, day after day. Cortez has been at it more than 30 years. It also can be very dangerous. Some workers have been slashed, burned or scarred. He has not.

Even so, Martin Cortez, a soft-spoken man with sad eyes, doesn't recommend the work. The thrashing animals, the heavy lifting ... all that goes into putting steak and hamburger on America's dinner tables, he said, makes for a backbreaking day on the killing floor.

"You know what I like to say to newcomers?" he said. "They don't kill cows. They kill people."

Now we have Mexican and Central Americans,along with immigrants from Somalia, Sudan and Vietnam, whereas 100 years ago the immigrants working in the plants were from Eastern Europe.

And although things have gotten better over the past 100 years, they're not where they should be in 21st century America:

"It's not as bad as it was in the sense of the sheer brutality of 100 years ago - before labor laws and food safety laws," said Lance Compa, a Cornell University labor law expert who wrote a stinging Human Rights Watch report on the meat and poultry industry last year. "But for the times we're in now, the situation is much in line with what it was 100 years ago."

"It's extremely dangerous when it shouldn't be," he said. "Workers are exploited when they shouldn't be. The companies know it."

Others also say even with better regulation, if the meatpacking industry is judged against other workplace progress, it falls short.

"It's a new "Jungle," measured not against the standard of yesterday, but the standard of today," said Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Many of the safety problems are still there. According to a recent Government Accountablity Office report,

The industry still is plenty dangerous with knife-wielding workers standing long hours on fast-moving lines, chemicals, animal waste and factory floors that can be dark, loud, slippery or unbearably hot or bitter cold.

The risks are many: cuts and stabbings, burns, repetitive stress injuries, amputations and worse. Knife accidents blinded one meat worker and disfigured the face of another, the GAO said, citing OSHA records.

And other things are getting worse as well.

In the new meatpacking capitals, he said, paychecks have been shrinking. In 2004, the average annual wage for a worker in a slaughtering plant was about $25,000 - compared with $34,000 for manufacturing, according to federal figures.

It wasn't always that way.

The workers had their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, when the union flexed its muscle and helped push up wages, turning meatpacking into a stable, middle-class job.

"For blue-collar people without much education, packinghouse workers were able to have second homes, send their kids to college so they don't have to do (the same job)," Horowitz said. "It became the American success story."

It didn't last.

In the late 1970s into the 1980s, big changes came. A new tough breed of competitors, mostly nonunion, led by Iowa Beef Processors - now part of Tyson Foods - emerged. Old-line companies went bankrupt. The master contract, one that covered several plants with a standard wage, vanished.

Meatpacking wages that were 15 percent above the average manufacturing salary in 1960 dropped to 20 percent below by 1990, said Don Stull, a University of Kansas anthropology professor and industry expert.

Related Stories

• Meat, Lies and Op-Eds, September 6, 2005
• Smithfield Foods Under Investigation For Illegal Retaliation, August 24, 2005
• The Daily Toll Of Meatpacking Workers, August 3, 2005
• Who Knows What Evil Lurks On The Floor Of Smithfield Packing Co? Not OSHA., March 6, 2005
• Stronger Inspection and Monitoring by OSHA Recommended In Meatpacking Plants, January 30, 2005
• All US Has To Offer Meat and Poultry Workers Is 'Blood, Sweat and Fear', January 25, 2005
• Repetitive Stress in Wallula: Injuries Happen, November 25, 2004

"Workers should not have to risk their lives to earn a living"

Ron Caputo, Long Island district representative of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades has been paying attention to what's going on in this country.

Last week's hearings on safety at the Sago Mine in West Virginia put the dangerous conditions faced by coal miners into sharp perspective. But workplace safety is an issue in our own backyard, too. Picture yourself hanging by a rope, dangling off the Robert Moses Bridge while painting it without an appropriate safety harness or protective gear. Imagine yourself on a pharmaceutical assembly line in Melville, day after day, performing the same repetitive motion and wondering if the strain on your body will make today your last day on the job.

These sorts of conditions are what many American workers face. In the environment of work speedups, worker layoffs and relaxed safety regulations, millions of people each year work under impossible and dangerous conditions and are injured or killed on the job.

And that not enough is being done:

Workers should not have to risk their lives to earn a living for their families. Companies whose negligence and oversight are penalized with nominal fines are only encouraged to increase their profits by exploiting their workers.

The average penalty is only $906 for companies on Long Island in a serious citation for conditions creating substantial probability of death or serious physical harm to workers. These penalties are clearly not enough to change the behavior of many employers.

Happy Ending To Australian Mine Collapse

But Questions Remain: Was Collapse an Act of God or Act of Man?

Two Australian gold miners, Todd Russell and Brant Webb, were rescued from a mine shaft in Tasmania, yesterday after 13 days trapped 3,000 feet underground. The collapse was caused by an earthquake on April 25. 14 miners managed to escape but one miner, Larry Knight, was killed in the rock fall.

Russell and Webb were in a 4-foot tall safety cage that was sheltered by a fallen slab of rock that formed a roof over the cage. They lived off a single cereal bar and water they licked from rocks for five days until rescuers located them and bored a hole through which food and other supplies were provided.

News reports blame the initial collapse on an earthquake. One of those mother nature, Act-of-God things, right? But of course, nothing is as simple as it first seems.

Several miners from the Beaconsfield goldmine — including some who were involved in the dramatic rescue -- said that mine managers had failed to leave enough of the deeper levels unexploited to provide support.

"There were simply not enough pillars left in the whole mine because of the value of the ore," one miner told The Australian. If they found an ore body, they’d just take it out."

Some believe that the earthquake may have been linked to the mine blasting.

The Australian Miners Union blamed the collapse on a law passed in 1998 that allowed a self-regulatory approach to safety regulations in the Tasmanian mining industry.

Miners have told The Australian and the AWU that the accident could have been prevented if a basic safety measure - the retention of unmined levels and areas, known as pillars - had been sufficiently followed.

They believe pillars were not left where they should have been in the mine because of the richness of the vein of gold found in the ore.

There have also been suggestions management had come under intense pressure from elements of the mine's joint venture company to reduce the high cost of taking a conservative approach to mine safety.

Former Beaconsfield Gold NL director John Miedecke has told The Australian Mr Gill had in the past been criticised by elements of the joint venture for taking a cautious approach to safe extraction of the ore.

The union is calling for an independent investigation.

The situation recalls this country's "miracle" rescue of the Quecreek miners trapped below ground in a flood in 2002. As Indiana University of Pennsylvania Professor Charles McCollester wrote about that near disaster:

God may well have had a hand in the rescue, but the flooding can’t be pinned on the deity. Human avarice and more than a century of fierce manipulation and corporate struggle for profit and control were behind the wall of water that swept into the Quecreek mine.

Foulke Still Doesn't Get It

He did it again. While the blogosphere was buzzing about the ridiculous speech OSHA Director Ed Foulke made blaming dumb workers (who do the darnedest things!) for workplace accidents (my article here, and others here, here and here), he was down in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida making a variation of the same speech to the Association of Georgia's Textile, Carpet and Consumer Products Manufacturers.

What's the matter with him? Doesn't he read Confined Space first thing every morning? (Everyone else at OSHA does).

I wonder if I can see a show of hands here -- How many people remember a fellow on TV back in the 1960s called Art Linkletter? He had a program called "Kids Say the Darnedest Things."

When it comes to workplace safety and health, it may be just as true that "ADULTS DO the darnedest things," as you'll see from some pictures that I have brought with me.

Taking the fifth place award for dangerous workplace practices is this fellow. It's hard to believe anyone would take a chance at injuring themselves at work by standing on one foot on an unstable ladder that is leaning against power lines - but there you are!

***

All kidding aside, workplace safety and health is a serious subject, and at OSHA we take our responsibility very seriously.

Yeah, ha, ha. Actually, Ed, if you were really taking your responsibility seriously, you'd be talking about putting managers in jail if they ever allowed anything like what was portrayed in those pictures and someone got seriously injured or killed.

Instead, the rest of the speech was the usual drivel we've come to expect from this administration: A half part enforcement and 10 parts "safety pays," Alliances and compliance assistance: read our website, order our publications and we know you'll do the right thing.

Plus, safety makes people happy :)

Let me give you something else to consider: Businesses with effective safety and health programs are the most cheerful places to work. I know this quality is hard to measure, but you know it when you see it.

And safety keeps jobs at home:

Think of it this way: In today's highly competitive global economy, when employers are looking for ways to increase their profit margin, any savings is important. In many cases, even a one percent increase in profits can mean the difference between a company succeeding here or facing the unhappy choice of shipping American jobs out of the country -- just to compete.

But I'm not talking about saving one percent. The American Society of Safety Engineers estimates that workplace injuries rob employers of 25 percent of all their pretax corporate profits. That's a tremendous impact on the bottom line.

I always like the "safety pays" argument. Makes good business sense. What always bothers me though, is what if certain safety programs decrease profits a little in the short term, which is all business seem to be interested in these days? Nevermind?

Some of the rest of the speech wasn't too bad. He sincerely sympathizes with the families of workers killed on the job:

Having been involved in numerous OSHA investigations in my career[on management's side, but who's counting?], I have seen the devastating effects that a single workplace fatality has on a wide circle of people connected to one employee.

That's good, but let me give you a tip Ed. People are more likely to think you really care if you don't ridicule them first.

Why OSHA Regulations Are Good

In the United States we have an OSHA regulation that keeps workers from getting killed in confined spaces. (Well, for some workers. OSHA is still working on a confined space standard for construction workers.) One focus of the Confined Space standard ensures that potential rescuers don't get killed trying attempting to rescue the original victim.

Before we had this regulation, tragedies like this were not uncommon:

Toxic gas kills six workers
Shanghai Daily News
2006-05-08

SIX employees of a drainage company were killed by toxic gas in China's northwest when one fell into a well and five coworkers tried to rescue him, the government said Monday.

The disaster occurred Sunday in Qiemo County in the Xinjiang region of China's northwest, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing local authorities. It identified the gas involved only as "marsh gas."

One worker fell into the well and was overcome by toxic gas, and six coworkers succumbed to the gas when they tried to rescue him, the report said. It said five of the coworkers died and one was hospitalized in serious condition.

BP: Killing Them Softly

BP's Texas City refinery does more than just blow people up, it also apparently poisons them softly with toxic emissions -- more all the time:

The nation's worst polluting plant is the BP PLC oil refinery where 15 workers died in an explosion last year, raising questions about whether the company has been underreporting toxic emissions. BP's Texas City refinery released three times as much pollution in 2004 as it did in 2003, according to the most recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The increase at BP was so large that it accounted for the bulk of a 15 percent increase in refinery emissions nationwide in 2004, the highest level since 2000.

***

The company reported that it released 10.25 million pounds of pollution in 2004, up from 3.3 million pounds the year before, according to EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, which tracks nearly 650 toxic chemicals released into the air, water and land.

***

Most of the increase in pollution was from formaldehyde and ammonia, which can form smog and soot and irritate the eyes, nose and throat.

That would come to about three times the toxic pollutants released by the second place polluter, an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery in Baton Rouge, La.

BP has been having a hard time lately. They killed 15 workers in a March 23, 2005 explosion, earning them a 21.3 million OSHA fine and an ongoing criminal investigation. Last month, OSHA fined BP North America $2.4 million for unsafe operations at the company's Oregon, Ohio refinery near Toledo.

BP denies that the releases actually took place, blaming some kind of paperwork discrpency:

These were on-paper calculations -- not based on real measurements through valves or stacks," spokesman Neil Geary told the newspaper.

I don't know what they mean by that. And I'm not the only one:

The Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-D.C. based advocacy group, said the increase shouldn't be dismissed as merely an increase on paper.

"It's real; it just never got reported before," said Eric Shaeffer, a former EPA staffer and the organization's founder. "You can argue that it's not an increase, but the next sentence has to be, 'We've always been bad.'"

OSHA Director Ed Foulke Blames Workplace Carnage On Dumb Employees

Usually, the Bush-appointed leadership of our nation's workplace safety and health agencies just make me mad. Edwin Foulke, our new Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, is starting to make me sick.

Foulke, the man charged by the President of the United States with ensuring the safety of America's workers, made a speech last week entitled "Adults Do The Darndest Things" which displayed a shockingly profound lack of understanding of some of the most fundamental principles of workplace safety, combined with an astonishing insensitivity to the tragic losses that thousands of American families face each year.

The speech marked the launch of North American Occupational Safety and Health Week, also known as: "North American Blame Stupid Workers For Getting Themselves Killed Week." The highlight of the speech was a bunch of photos showing workers doing some of the dumbest things you've ever seen. In fact, you'd almost suspect some of them are staged.

These photos -- the workplace safety version of the Darwin Awards -- have been traveling around the internet for years. And yes, they're funny. I laughed the first few times someone sent them to me. But it's one thing for you or me (or even Ed Foulke) to have a chuckle when these first arrive in an e-mail, but it's quite another for the Assistant Secretary of Labor, the highest workplace health and safety position in the country, to highlight these photos to launch (what's supposed to be) a major health and safety event, sending a message out to employers across the country (there are no unions that participate in North American Occupational Safety and Health Week) that the main reason we have almost 6,000 workplace deaths (and rising) in this country every year is that "workers do the darndest things."

Take these pictures below, for example. What do the represent? Workers too dumb to live, or managers too cheap to purchase or rent lifts or cranes?


And any true safety professional (which Foulke obviously isn't), or anyone who knows anything about workplaces -- particularly construction workplaces -- (which Foulke obviously doesn't), would be asking (after the initial chuckle) "Who the hell is managing this place?" "Have these people ever been trained?" In other words, the humor fades fast.

What we're dealing with here is the same old tired "behavioral safety" theory hiding behind "funny.' Behavioral safety theories say that most workplace accidents are caused by worker carelessness or misconduct, and by disciplining workers for making mistakes, or praising them for reporting fewer injuries, accidents will cease to happen. But behavioral theories don't hold up to a closer look at the root causes of most workplace accidents: generally management system and organizational problems that lead to unsafe working conditions. Punishing (or praising) workers for fewer reported injuries may result in less reporting, but not fewer injuries. (Confined Space has covered the issue numerous times before -- Here, here, here, here, and here to name just a few)

So who's laughing at these photos? Probably not Irene Warnock or Coit Smith whose young sons were electrocuted at work. And probably not Mary Vivenzi , whose boyfriend, Kevin Noah was killed falling from Golden Gate Bridge in 2002 while working on an earthquake retrofit project, nor the families of the construction workers killed in the recent Boston scaffold collapse. And I doubt if Tammy Miser, whose brother burned to death in a combustible dust explosion, is rolling in the aisles. Nor Holly Shaw, whose husband fell from a dredging barge and drowned. No life preservers. Pretty amusing.

I know for a fact that Donna Spadaro isn't laughing because she told me. Donna's brother, Gary, fell 25 feet from a cement tower, while shoveling gravel off the hopper to clean it. He had no fall protection or training.

This pathetic attempt at humor insults the families of those killed on the job and dishonors our dead who gave their lives trying to eke out an existence in George Bush’s America, a country where corporate cronyism has replaced competence in our regulatory agencies, to the peril of our nation and its citizens.

And how did Foulke miss this photo? I'm sure Michelle Marts and Jim Walters whose son Patrick was crushed in a trench collapse, or Michelle Lewis whose stepfather was buried alive would have been quite amused, as would the family of Lorenzo Pavia, who was crushed in a trench collapse and then decapitated in the rescue attempt.

Maybe the families of the 15 BP workers who were blown to pieces and burned to death think these photos are amusing. Or the families of these workers or these or these or....

Of course, Foulke is not completely to blame. He's learning from the best. In fact, he was probably just taking a cue from his boss in the White House who showed those hilarious slides of himself looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction under furniture in the Oval Office at the 2004 White House Correspondent's Dinner. I'm sure the families of the thousands killed and wounded in Iraq are still chuckling about that one.

And OSHA isn't the only clueless agency around when it comes to blaming workers for their own injuries and deaths. Last year, the Mine Safety And Health Administration launched a campaign called "Make the Right Decision," which was supposed to be "a safety and health initiative that helps miners and mine operators focus on human factors, such as decision-making, when at work." I'm sure the families of the 12 dead Sago miners, and the other 22 miners who have died this year are mad as hell at their loved ones who must have made the "wrong decision" that got themselves killed.

One more upsetting thing. The other point of the speech was to honor kids who won a workplace safety poster contest. Foulke compared the "funny" workplace photos with the winning kids' posters to remind us

that sometimes kids are a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. These posters here on stage illustrate this clearly. Kids don't always know what their parents do all day at work, but they instinctively understand the importance of them working safely. In contrast, adults could stand to learn a thing or two.

OK, the kids are sweet and posters are cute, except that they all focus on the same "Let's be careful out there" theme. Great, so we're teaching a generation of kids to think that if their parents die in the workplace it's because they weren't being careful? OK, maybe they're too young to get the concept of root cause analysis, management systems and the difference between unsafe working conditions and unsafe behavior, but the Assistant Secretary in his 50's shouldn't be quite so ignorent.

Mary Vivenzi has a better suggestion for a poster:

Refuse the work when safety's not first

your job isn't worth coming home in a hearse.

I like it.

My idea for a winning kid's poster doesn't rhyme so nicely: I think there are thousands of families out there who deserve an apology from Mr. Foulke. And Ed, when you're done writing the letters, go take a health and safety class or two. Listen to the kids: "adults could stand to learn a thing or two."

If you'd like to send Assistant Secretary Foulke your thoughts about his speech, the phone number is (202) 693-2000 and the fax number is (202) 693-2106 or 2107. You can also mail a letter to:

Edwin Foulke
Assistant Secretary of Labor
U.S. Department of Labor
Office of the Assistant Secretary
Occupational Safety and Health Administration - Room: S2315
200 Constitution Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20210

Related Stories

• MSHA Makes The "Wrong Decision" To Blame Workers For Accidents, July 27, 2005
• Behavioral Safety Out of Control and The KFM Flu, April 12, 2005
• Blaming The Worker: In Texas City and On the Rails, May 18, 2005
• Bloody Pocket Syndrome in the Steel Industry, April 6, 2005
  
• Deaths and Injuries at US Steel: Blame the Workers?, February 24, 2005
• Nothing Funnier Than A Trench Collapse, November 30, 2004
  
• Behavioral Safety Comes To The Railroads, November 15, 2004
  
• So Cal Edison Screws Itself With Safety Incentive Programs, October 22, 2004
  
• Safety Bingo: Bad Behavior, October 1, 2003
• Worker Error Department (cont'd), April 14, 2003
• Worker Error Department, Part 2 April 11, 2003
• Worker Error Department, April 10, 2003

For more on union responses to Behaviour Safety in the US and worldwide, check out Hazards.

Safe Lifting Laws Make Progress

Anne Hudson, Director of the Work Injured Nurses' Group (WING USA) sends out regular updates of state legislative efforts to pass laws that "halt needless injuries to nursing staff, patients, and residents from hazardous manual patient lifting." In addition to recent laws passed in Texas and Washington state, Anne adds:

Massachusetts legislation for safe patient handling was introduced in 2004 and continues in the Massachusetts Legislature. California legislation for safe patient handling, vetoed twice by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 and 2005, has been introduced for the third time, in January and February 2006, into the California Senate and Assembly. Rhode Island and Florida each introduced safe patient handling legislation in February 2006 into both the House and the Senate. New Jersey introduced safe patient handling legislation in March 2006.

Importantly, the safe patient handling laws enacted by both Texas and Washington provide for healthcare workers to refuse to perform patient lifting or movement activities, without fear of reprisal, if they believe in good faith that the activity would expose the healthcare worker or patient to an unacceptable risk of injury. This protection is also included in legislation introduced by several other states.

Check out Anne's site as well: http://www.wingusa.org and get on her mailing list.

NEW NIOSH PUBLICATION

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has just issued a new publication, Safe Lifting and Movement of Nursing Home Residents, which seems much easier to understand and use than OSHA's nursing home guidelines. For one thing, the NIOSH publication actually describes the scope of the problem, something OSHA refused to do in its guidelines:

These conditions contributed to the 211,000 occupational injuries suffered by caregivers in 2003 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003). Because of the rapidly expanding elderly population in the U.S., employment for nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants is projected to increase by 25% between 2002 and 2012, adding an estimated 343,000 jobs (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2004). Due to the ongoing demand for skilled care services, musculoskeletal injuries to the back, shoulder, and upper extremities of caregivers are expected to increase.

NIOSH also describes the current scientific literature on the causation of back and other musculoskeletal injuries, whereas OSHA offer only this statement:

More remains to be learned about the relationship between workplace activities and the development of MSDs.

A Ship A Day, A Death A Day

America Public Media's Marketplace did a story Friday called "Dead ships, toxic business" about how breaking up decommissioned ships has become big business for the city of Alang, on the northwest coast of India.

This is where the world sends its ships to die. American cruise liners and Soviet war tankers are belched up on this gray industrial shore like whale carcasses.

Workers wrench apart their toxic insides: steel plates insulated with asbestos, and engine rooms filled with PCBs. The wood will be resold and reappear later, as hotel room furniture. The steel will be melted down and refashioned as water pipes and refrigerators.

At the height of India's ship breaking industry, the motto at Alang was "a ship a day, a death a day" — and that referred to the number of workers killed.

Protests by enviromental and workplace safety advocates have improved conditions, but also sent much of the shipbreaking work to less regulated countries -- Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Three Workers Killed In Construction Collapse

Bal Harbour: fancy hotels, high end shopping and death:

Three die in Bal Harbour construction accident

BY DAVID OVALLE, CHARLES RABIN AND MARTIN MERZER

Three workers were killed Saturday when the roof of a condominium under construction in Bal Harbour partially collapsed and buried them in drying concrete that ultimately crushed them, authorities said.

Hours after the accident, workers tethered above the victims swung pick axes to hammer away at three-foot-deep concrete so they could extricate the bodies from the 26-story construction site at 10295 Collins Ave., just south of Haulover Inlet.

''These people were basically buried alive in concrete,'' said Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue Lt. Eric Baum.

A fourth victim was hospitalized, apparently with a heart problem.

''The sad part is I could hear men crying for help,'' said Dana Phillips, 66, who lives in a complex across the street and was on her balcony when a loud sound and billowing cloud of dust startled her shortly before 10 a.m. "t was an excessive big boom.''

Bird Flu Hits Florida

And it looks bad...

Criminal Negligence: Auto Mechanics Exposed To Asbestos While Feds Fiddle

I'd bet a fair amount of money that if you stopped ten people in the street (a street far away from Washington DC) and told them this story, at least nine of them would say it couldn't happen in 21st century America.

***

When Washington Senator Patty Murray asked OSHA nominee Ed Foulke at his January 31st confirmation hearing whether he thought it would be a good idea to ban asbestos, Foulke replied that he wasn't aware that the cancer-causing product was used anymore in the United States. Murray sharply corrected him, listing automobile brake pads as one of the many products in which asbestos can still be found.

And the problem of asbestos in brake pads is getting worse. Experts estimate that there has been an 83 percent increase in imports of asbestos brakes and brake material over the past 10 years. Most auto mechanics, however, are just as ignorant about the asbestos threat as the new head of OSHA -- but for the mechanics, ignorance can mean a painful death.

But that's not even the worst part: OSHA scientists are well aware of the growing hazard that auto mechanics face and have prepared an information bulletin. And then, according to Baltimore Sun journalist Andrew Schneider, the Bush administration refused to issue it.

In late 2004, asbestos experts from OSHA's Directorate of Science, Technology and Medicine completed a five-page Safety and Health Information Bulletin. By March 2, 2005, the bulletin had been peer-reviewed, deemed accurate and reviewed by OSHA political appointees, according to documents obtained by The Sun.

OSHA reviewed the proposed warning again with officials of the Office of Management and Budget in August 2005, said two OSHA managers who asked not to be identified.

Some of those at OSHA and at the EPA who were working on the issue say it was at that meeting that the warning was killed. OSHA did not respond to questions about the meeting.

In October 2005, OSHA's [Dan Crane, who oversees asbestos analysis at OSHA's Salt Lake City laboratory] submitted another technical review, supporting release of the bulletin.

OSHA declined to issue a new warning. A spokesman, Al Belsky, said agency officials had concluded that development and publication of a safety and health information bulletin on asbestos in brakes "is not warranted."

The agency issues warnings when it becomes aware of new hazards that need to be brought to the attention of workers and employers, Belsky said. (emphasis added)

Only "new" hazards? It's been twenty years since the Environmental Protection Agency issued the so-called "Gold Book" along with a video that warned auto mechanics about the dangers of asbestos. It's been out of print and the revised version has been promied for years. But "new" hazard, "old" hazard, or whatever -- it still kills, mechanics don't know about it, and OSHA's job is to make sure workers don't get sick (or at least that's what the law says.) Dr. Barry Castleman, a former Baltimore County health officer and a leading researcher on medical and legal issues involving asbestos estimates that thousands of workers die every year from exposure to asbestos from brake pads.

Joel Shufro of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health accurately states that "It borders on criminal negligence for OSHA to have produced a new alert addressed to mechanics but refuse to publish it because it does not conform to a so-called guideline."

"Borders" on criminal negligence?

So what's going on here? The same old tragic story.

David Michaels, a health and safety official in the Clinton administration, said industry is "calling the shots" at OSHA and EPA "on all changes involving health or safety."

"Except when ordered to by a federal judge, OSHA has stopped issuing regulations or even guidance telling workers how to protect themselves," he said. "It has been that way from the moment President Bush took office. The political appointees continue to place the desire of industry before the safety of workers."

Long time readers of Confined Space may remember back to November 2003 when the lawfirm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, representing asbesetos manufacturers, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency "to stop distributing warning booklets, posters and videotapes that give mechanics guidance on the need to protect themselves from asbestos."

The main target in their petition is a thin gold-colored EPA pamphlet titled "Guidance for Preventing Asbestos Disease Among Auto Mechanics." Tens of thousands of copies of the Gold Book and other asbestos warning material have been distributed to schools, garages, auto dealers and unions since they were first published 17 years ago.

For two years in the mid-'80s, the EPA and asbestos experts from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration gathered extensive research on exposure to mechanics from leading government and civilian scientists.

The petition says that the EPA has it all wrong and that brake repair work is safe.

"The continuing availability of the Gold Book, and its alarmist and inflammatory tone continues to hinder a fair-minded assessment of the hazards, if any, imposed to users of asbestos-containing friction products," the petition states.

Inflammatory?

Dr. David Egilman, a specialist in occupational medicine who has been a consultant for the brake industry and for the families of workers who have died, said that calling the Gold Book "inflammatory" is ludicrous.

"It's the same thing as calling a stop sign inflammatory. It warns people of possible danger. The government warnings do the same thing," he said.

EPA has been promising for at least three year to re-release a revised version of the Gold Book. Latest word is that they hope to have it ready for public comment by this summer.

Meanwhile auto mechanics continue to get exposed while the federal government fiddles....

PS: One more thought. You know how this is administration is so hot on "compliance assistance" -- instead of issuing regulations -- under the thory that if you give employers information, they will naturally do the right thing? Well, here we have a case where there's already an asbestos regulation, all they have to do is educate employers (and employees) about how to implement it for auto mechanics. But can they manage to do that? Apparently not. Hypocrites.

Related Articles

FLASH! Auto Mechanics: Don't Worry, Be Happy. Asbestos is Safe, November 12, 2003

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer article from almost six years ago describing the extent of asbestos contamination in auto repair shops can be found here.

NY Times On Sago Mine Disaster

They may have ignored Workers Memorial Day, but the NY Times editorial page has this to say about the hearings current taking place on the Sago Mine disaster.

Among the open questions is why it took 11 hours to attempt a rescue. Why the equally intolerable delay in drilling an air passage to the miners? And what caused the explosion? The company's theory that it was storm lightning remains pure conjecture, particularly considering the mine's alarming history of safety citations and worker injuries. The survivor raised the question of whether a dangerous methane pocket discovered three weeks before the blast was ever properly secured.

Underlying these questions is the sorry record of company, federal and state officials responsible for miners' safety. The Bush administration has presided over the attrition of scores of critical mine regulatory jobs, plus the patronage appointments of mining industry officials to safety agencies. It's no wonder that the victims' families fear the Sago hearings will prove to be merely a means of venting the community's grief and frustration.

The disaster should be examined as thoroughly and openly as a plane crash and its lessons promulgated industrywide. For openers, regulators should immediately begin a nationwide inspection of emergency oxygen packs.

There have been 26 mining deaths this year, twice the pace of last year in a booming industry. The lone survivor's report told of the despairing men reciting a "sinner's prayer" and penning farewell notes. Do bureaucrats need to hear more before doing their jobs and protecting miners' lives?

Bureaucrats always need to hear more, but it's not really the career bureaucrats we're worried about here; it's the Bush political appointees who are making -- or not making -- the important decisions. They already "hear" plenty, but it's all from their buddies in industry where they've spent most of their lives, the industries they're supposed to be regulating. Put them under some bad top for a few weeks or threaten them with jail if miners get killed and then see if they think about doing their jobs a bit better.

Take Confined Space On The Road With You

It's Spring and that means it's conference season again -- which provides a great opportunity to get health and safety information to workers, and to use that information to help create a movement in this country that will force the powers-that-be to take worker safety and health more seriously. Which is why I write this blog instead of sleeping or reading books.

In order to contribute to creating some kind of movement, Confined Space needs to reach the screens of far more workers than it does now. For that reason, I'm re-launching a two-pronged campaign to boost circulation.

1. Linked here is a Confined Space flyer. Print up a few hundred thousand and drop them at workshops, meetings, conferences and other places where there are people you think might be interested. (There's also a more "G" rated version here.)



2. Make an effort to forward Confined Space to anyone you think might be interested. You can forward the main link http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/ or click on those little envelop-arrow icons at the top of each post to send individual posts to friends and co-workers.

And if you have any other ideas, let me know.

Thanks.

Confined Space: Pulling No Punches

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

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

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

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

***

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

University of Miami Strikers Win

Custodial workers at the University of Miami have won the right to use card check recognition to win recognition of the union -- no thanks to Donna Shalala. After a two month strike, SEIU and University contractor Unicco Services reached an agreement where the company will recognize the union if 60% of the employees sign union cards by August 1. Although the University raised the worker's wages by at least 25 percent and offered healthcare coverage to the employees, University Preident (and former Clinton Administration Secretary of Health and Human Services) Donna Shalala had refused to help pressure the company to reach an agreement with the union to accept card check, instead of going through an NLRB election.

As Nathan Newman points out in Labor Blog, the fact that the union would settle for signing up 60% of workers on cards, as opposed to a NLRB election would have only required a 50% vote

illustrates how bad the NLRB election process is. The workers preferred a lengthy strike, a hunger strike that hospitalized multiple workers, and a requirement for a super-majority rather than face the buzzsaw of a federal election, where employers manipulate the rules and routinely threaten and fire workers to defeat unions.

And one more thing. This campaign, like the hotel worker campaign that UNITE HERE is running, stressed the poor safety and health conditions that the Unicco employees were forced to work under.

In fact, last week, just days before a settlement was reached, Unicco was included in in the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health's "Dirty Dozen," companies whose reckless disregard for their employees’ safety and health has had tragic consequences for workers and their families.

Coincidence? I think not.

UNITE HERE Issues Report On Hotel Worker Hazards

In the continuing battle to organize hotel workers and improve their working conditions, UNITE-HERE has released a new study titled, "Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain"

Findings show that behind the luxury and comfort that housekeepers provide for hotel guests is a pattern of persistent pain and injury.

The report utilizes the first comprehensive analysis of employer records of worker injuries, including records of the major five hotel companies. The analysis covers seven years (1999-2005) and 87 hotel properties with approximately 40,000 hotel employees. The report finds that not only are housekeepers injured more frequently than other hotel and service workers, but this problem is only getting worse as hotel companies implement room changes including heavier beds and linens and room amenities like coffee makers and treadmills.

We already described a couple of weeks ago how the new "heavenly beds" create a hell of a mountain of pillows, heavy bedspreads, duvet covers and gigantic mattresses while hotel workers still expected to clean the same quota of rooms.

One of the contributing factors to pain and high injury rates is the standard way hotel management organizes housekeeping work. Based on a “room quota” system, housekeepers are required to clean a certain number of rooms each day. The greater the room quota, the faster she must work. If a hotel housekeeper has a 16-room quota, she must clean each room in less than 30 minutes to allow time to stock her cart and travel between floors. Housekeepers routinely report that they must race through their tasks in order to complete them on time. When rushing to clean a slippery tub or lift a heavy mattress, workers are more likely to get hurt.

Further, hotel housekeepers report that clean linen and towels are commonly understocked and well-functioning vacuums are few and far between, intensifing this time pressure. Any obstacles such as these supply shortages disrupt the pace of work and consume valuable minutes.

In recent years, the workload that hotel companies demand housekeepers perform has increased significantly. Chronic understaffing, coupled with the addition of time-consuming amenities—luxury items like heavy mattresses, fragile coffeepots and in-room exercise equipment—have placed housekeepers at greater risk of injury. In order to complete their room quotas, housekeepers are increasingly forced to skip meals and other breaks—rests necessary to prevent injury. Today, housekeepers’ bodies are at the breaking point.

The consequences for the health of these workers, mostly women of color and immigrants, is devastating:

Hotel workers are 48% more likely to be injured on the job than the typical worker in the service sector. Hotel workers also have higher rates of serious, disabling injuries—those that require days away from work or reassignment to light duty. These disabling injuries occur to hotel workers at a rate 51% higher than for service sector workers in general

The response of the hotel industry to the report, as reported by Catherine Comp in the New Standard, was almost amusing (in a tragic sort of way.)

Requests for interviews to the Hyatt and Hilton were not granted, but Joseph McInerney, president of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, an industry membership group, told TNS he does not believe rooms are harder to clean, nor that housekeeper injuries are increasing.

"If there was some problem that we are creating a hazard for the maids, then it would behoove the union to bring it to management’s attention," McInerney said. "Don’t say that there’s a report out there that maids are hurting themselves because it’s harder to clean the room because they’ve added one or two more pillows."

McInerney said that many hotels have made adjustments, like providing special training and upgrading the carts for workers who clean the luxury suites, though he declined to name which hotels. He added that no hotel wants any of its employees to be injured, because "if they are hurt on the job, then they’re not working and then we have to hire replacements and train them."

UNITE HERE's health and safety director, Eric Frumin, notes that although there are ways to make the work safer, the hotels have generally refused to listen to workers' ideas. In some cases, however, organized hotel workers have managed to make some progress:

Some housekeepers in San Francisco have been successful in reducing the number of rooms they clean during contract negotiations, while others in DC have succeeded in negotiating a contract that requires management to consult them before making changes to the rooms. But they add that even minor concessions to alleviate housekeepers’ pain have been hard to come by.

"We’ve had to agree to continue discussions on a detailed basis about all these new amenities," said Fruman. "It was quite obvious that hotels were not prepared to accept the notion easily that these were hazards that needed a progressive program of prevention."

The UNITE HERE report has gotten quite a bit of favorable press attention:

Toronto Globe and Mail

This year, with no fewer than 400 hotel contracts up for renegotiation across North America, their union, UNITE HERE, has launched a hard-nosed bargaining campaign. The union, a 450,000-member giant created in 2004 with the merger of needle trades and hotel unions, aims to persuade the industry to provide its employees not with just higher wages but also with improved working conditions. Specifically, the union is looking for a reduction in the number of rooms an attendant must make up per shift and a guarantee that everyone gets breaks, to stop the practice of "working off the clock."

USA Today:

Hyatt Regency Chicago housekeeper Francine Jones said at a UNITE HERE news teleconference Tuesday that she has worked there 15 years and that a room now takes 15 minutes longer to clean, because of heavier, elaborate bedding and more amenities. The job "takes a whole lot out of a person's body. A whole lot," she said.

Occupational-medicine physician Peter Orris, who helped analyze study findings and is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, says that in recent years in his work at Cook County General Hospital, he has started seeing more housekeepers "complaining of problems" associated with heavy lifting.

"We were not paying much attention (previously)," he says, calling hotel housekeepers "invisible workers" because they toil mostly unobserved and in obscurity.

"This is among the highest-stress jobs (on the body) in the service and production industries," he says. "This is not just a union-generated thing, this is a real problem. And it looks like it's getting worse."

San Francisco Chronicle:

Joseph McInerney, president of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said the union's real agenda is increasing its ranks. He said labor negotiators will use the report to press for easier ways to sign up members, adding that Unite Here should have brought its health and safety concerns to management rather than turning the matter into "a political football.''

In San Francisco, talks are expected to resume in the next few months -- nearly two years after the expiration of the last contract covering 4,000 union workers at 14 major hotels. Hotel executives say there could be labor unrest in major cities across the country, including San Francisco, as Unite Here emphasizes attracting new members.

The union has moved the issue of housekeeper health and safety to the top of its negotiating agenda and may use it to influence bargaining on other topics.

***

Meanwhile, if you're planning on being in Chicago for Mothers Day, May 11, take Mom out to brunch and then head down to Thompson Center plaza to help hotel workers keep their two short daily breaks that the hotel industry is trying to take away from them. Children of these hotel workers will be there to say, "I love my mommy. Give her a break!"

Popcorn Lung Victim Dies: "Knowing That It Could Have been Avoided"

Linda Redman, 57, died Sunday from died after a long lung illness caused by her exposure to the popcorn butter flavoring chemical diacetyl. Redman was among thirty employes at a Missouri popcorn plant who sued International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. and its subsidiary, Bush Boake Allen Inc. for failing to warn the workers at the plant where the chemical was used of its dangers, even though they had information that it caused deadly lung damage.

In other words, Redman was but the latest victim of this nation's failure to overcome the power of the chemical industry and protect workers from hazardous chemicals.

Studies had shown since the early 1990's that diacetyl could cause severe lung damage and that information was known to the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association. Yet the Material Safety Data Sheet that the International Flavors and Bush Boake Allen provided to Redman's employer stated that the chemical had "no known health hazards" and that respirators are "not normally required" for its butter flavoring, unless vapor concentrations were 'high.' "

I described her case over two years ago when the first lawsuits were filed:

Linda Redman started working as a packer at the Jasper popcorn plant in 1995, two years after the original study[that identified diacetyl's health effects]. Within two years, her breathing was so bad that she had to quit.

Redman used to work 12 hours a day and then come home to garden, cook dinner, and do her family's laundry. Now, she lives alone in Joplin, relying on home health nurses four days a week to help with basic chores around the house.

Redman, 55, doesn't have the stamina to change her bedsheets or cook herself dinner, unless it's something out of a can.

Only 15 percent of her lung capacity remains. Redman bides her time while waiting for a lung transplant by taking breathing treatments every four hours. She is constantly tethered to an oxygen tank, but she still gets exhausted walking from the bedroom to the couch.

Redman's sister, Donna Crampton, described the last year of her life:

"She said so many times she would give every penny of it for her health," Crampton said.

Redman worked at the plant for 18 months, starting in 1994 and leaving in 1996.

Crampton said Redman was in and out of the hospital "countless times" during the last year of her life, was bedridden for the last two months, and required round-the-clock nursing care for the last three weeks.

"The hardest thing of all to accept is knowing that it could have been avoided," Crampton said. "We're all pretty bitter."

Ken McClain, the attorney who represented the former and current popcorn workers, said Redman was one of the clients who had the most severe health problems at the time of her trial.

"We knew she would need a double lung transplant, but she continued to decline and was never healthy enough to go through the procedure," he said.

There are no government regulations to prevent exposure to diacetyl and Baltimore Sun journalist Andrew Schneider revealed a couple of weeks ago that OSHA has refused to consider regulating exposure to the chemical despite recommendations by the agency's scientists.

More popcorn lung articles here.

Dying So We Know What's Going On In The World

Last year was the deadliest year on record for the global media, according to a new report from Reporters Without Borders.

A record number of media workers were killed -- 63 journalists and five media assistants -- and more than 1,300 were physically attacked or threatened, according to the report released Wednesday, to coincide with National Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Additionally, at least 807 media workers were arrested on the job.

The organization estimates that more than a third of the world's population lives in countries where press freedom is "minimal."

One of the most dangerous countries for journalists is, of course, Iraq:

The 23 on-the-job deaths in Iraq in 2005, plus six in the first three months of 2006, bring the toll of journalists there to 74 since 2003, according to the Freedom Forum. The organization said that is more than died in either World War II or the conflict in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Massachusetts: Dying For Work Report

MASSCOSH and the Massachussetts state AFL-CIO have issued their annual Dying for Work in Massachusetts report.

This report has been compiled to highlight the fact that work continues to kill and maim workers in epidemic and alarming numbers. The saddest aspect to this loss in lives and limbs is that work-related injuries and illnesses are preventable.

The report noted that:

• Work-related deaths in Massachusetts increased from 72 in 2004 to 78 in 2005. An estimated 700 workers died from occupational disease.
  


• Massachusetts employers only paid an average of $14,065 for OSHA violations associated with the death of one or more workers in their workplaces in 2005. The average fine for a "serious" violation is only $1,034.
  


• More than 350,000 public sector workers in Massachusetts are not protected by OSHA and federal safety regulations because the Legislature hasn’t adopted federal safety rules for the state and its cities and towns.


• Of the 78 workers who died last year, 28 percent of them were immigrants who often work in the most dangerous industries and jobs, exploited by employers and given little or no training or protections. Only 17% of Massachusetts workers are immigrants (as of 2004.)
  

And what is to be done? The press release summarizes the report's recommendations:

The report calls for health and safety laws and regulations on the state and federal level to be strengthened, for job safety agencies to be given increased funding and enforcement powers, and criminal prosecution to be used in cases where employers recklessly endanger workers’ lives. The report also calls on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a bill that would extend OSHA protections to public employees in Massachusetts, and a bill requiring temporary agencies to provide workers with safety equipment and information about the hazards they will encounter. At the worksite level, the report promotes comprehensive worksite safety programs that focus on identifying and eliminating hazards; and calls for safe staffing levels, work loads and working hours that protect against workplace injury, illness or death.

Pandemic Flu: IOM Says "Disposable" Does Not Mean "Reusable"

This is Washington for you...

As everyone in the country (except possibly for Rip Van Winkle) probably knows, we will be facing a flu pandemic sooner or later, probably sooner. If/when that happens, we'll need a lot of healthy and knowledgeable health care workers to care for millions of critically ill patients. They need to be protected from getting the flu themselves, and one of the ways to protect them from inhaling the flu virus is to use effective respirators.

Happily, the relatively inexpensive N-95 disposable respirator will probably do the trick. They are used in both medical and industrial settings to prevent the inhalation of harmful microscopic particles.

Unfortunately, the N-95 at $1 to $3 a piece, is not quite cheap enough for health care institutions that will have to stock millions of them. And the Bush administration, not having learned its lesson in New Orleans that you can't deal with a major disaster on the cheap, is thinking about a couple of alternatives -- using surgical masks instead of respirators, or possibly re-using the disposable respirators. In fact, the current Pandemic Influenza Plan, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, recommends the use of surgical masks instead of NIOSH certified respirators

So, the US Department of Health and Human Services requested that an Institute of Medicine committee study the potential reuse of N-95 disposable respirators and surgical masks in the event of an influenza pandemic.

Oy.

Now I don't know how much was spent on this study, but I'll bet I could beat the price.

Step 1: I Google the word "disposable."

disposable: Designed to be disposed of after use

There, that took about half a minute. So let's see, at the rate I should be paid for being an Washington DC-based award-winning blogger (let's say conservatively, in the neighborhood of $1000 an hour), that comes to a little over $8. Plus expenses, depreciation, office expenses, utilities, etc, etc., we'll round it off to $25.

But wait. If you've ever read a scientific research study, you'll know that they always end the same way: calling for more research. So, just to be sure, we'd better look up "disposed of" as well (doubling my fee to $50)

disposed of: To get rid of; throw out

OK, well I guess that just about settles it. My exhaustive investigation has concluded that: Disposable respirators are meant to be thrown out, not re-used.

And sure enough, the Institute of Medicine came to precisely the same conclusion (for a bit more money, I'm sure). To make a long story short, the committee could find no way to decontaminate an N-95 respirator without increasing the risk of infection. According to the IOM press release:

Disposable masks and respirators do not lend themselves to reuse because they work by trapping harmful particles inside the mesh of fibers of which they are made. This hazardous buildup cannot be cleaned out or disinfected without damaging the fibers or other components of the device such as the straps or nose clip, the committee found. Moreover, the committee could not identify any simple modifications to the manufacturing of the devices that would permit reuse, or any changes that would dispense with the need to test the fit of respirators to ensure a wearer is fully protected.

Then there's the "debate" between surgical masks and respirators. Surgical masks are soft, clothlike objects that cover the nose and mouth and tie behind the head -- and they only cost 15 cents each. The IOM report describes them as fitting

loosely over the user's nose and mouth and are primarily meant to be worn by health care providers and patients to help maintain a sterile environment by preventing the spread of contaminants by the wearer -- for example, by limiting the dispersal of sneezes and coughs.

In other words, they're fine for the person doing the sneezing to prevent them from coughing droplets of saliva and mucus into the environment, but not the healthy person who's trying not to inhale the viruses contained in the sneeze. (They're called "surgical masks" because surgeons and the surgical team wear them so they don't contaminate the patient.)

Again, the fact that surgical masks do prevent the wearer from inhaling harmful substances is a well known fact for anyone who's ever taken a basic workplace safety and health class. Nevertheless, HHS decided that only the IOM could authorititively determine what everyone already knows. (And let's not forget that hidden deep in the bowels of HHS is a little agency called the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is supposed to be the nation's experts on things like respirators. But nevermind.)

Regarding surgical masks and other cloth face coverings, the IOM simply said that "the effectiveness of such masks and improvised coverings against flu is not known."

In a SARS fact sheet, NIOSH stated that

Surgical masks are not designed for use as particulate respirators and do not provide as much protection as an N-95 respirator. Most surgical masks do not effectively filter small particles from air and do not prevent leakage around the edge of the mask when the user inhales.

Meanwhile, in a not unrelated development, a Johns Hopkins University study found that almost half of health care workers would stay home in the event of a flu epidemic:

Two-thirds of the 308 employees polled said their work would put them at risk of contracting the potentially deadly flu should an outbreak come to pass.

"Forty-two percent of the health care workers surveyed said they would not respond in the event of a flu pandemic," said study co-author Dr. Daniel J. Barnett, an instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health Preparedness in Baltimore

The most important factor was that health care workers didn't know they'd be needed. Only one-third of those polled also stated that they thought they were knowledgeable about the health impact of pandemic flu and 83 percent of respondents said they could benefit from additional training on how to limit their exposure during such an event.

Meanwhile, OSHA has not responded to a petition filed last January by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and several other labor organizations, calling on OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard to protect health care workers against pandemic flu. The petition noted that a Congressional Budget Office report had predicted that hospitals, clinics and doctors offices would be overwhelmed and the system would be strained as health care workers became sick or stayed home to take care of sick family members or to protect themselves.

And given the circus in this town, who can blame them?

"My Son Was Killed" -- Workers Memorial Day, Philadelphia

Below are excerpts from a Workers Memorial Day speech in Philadelphia by Irene Warnock whose 22 year old son, Chuck Carpenter, was electrocuted last year.

My 22-year-old son, Chuck Carpenter, was killed instantly at work July 2, 2005. It was not an "accident", "unfortunate incident", "terrible tragedy", or any of those other politically correct words. My son was killed.

My son was electrocuted at work. He was a mechanic, not a licensed electrician.

My son worked for William Major who owns and operates Funtown Pier in Seaside Park, New Jersey, which is an amusement park at the Jersey Shore boardwalk. It was two days before the big July 4th money-making weekend. It was hot and humid at the Jersey Shore. My son was sweaty and overtired. He had already worked, approximately, 16 hours that day.

We have not received OSHA's report as of this date; but, from what little I understand, not one, but two employees were electrocuted that single day on the Arctic Circle ride, killing my son instantly with 440 volts. Bulgarian work-visa ride operators AND PATRONS were complaining of being shocked. The New Jersey newspaper reporters reported, "by static electricity." I have heard of static electricity while walking on a rug with slippers on a winter day, but - "static electricity" on a hot, humid summer day? Is this what William Major/Funtown Pier, the employer, told the newspaper and television reporters? If so, how could William Major/Funtown Pier have a license to operate these HIGH VOLTAGE machines?

***

The operative cause of my son's workplace death was that the owner of a company using dangerous machinery powered by HIGH VOLTAGE electric power, allowed that these machines be maintained by an unlicenced worker untrained in that field. It should have been obvious that such power installations required the employment of a trained and licenced electrician. Sadly, my son's work ethic contributed to his death. Young, ambitious men are likely to get out of their depth, and sometimes must be prevented from doing so, by their employer and by government regulation.

Even the best- regulated operations, well-trained workers will sometimes be injured or even, sadly, killed. But, it is the job of OSHA and other government agencies to reduce those cases to the absolute minimum. How hard would it be for such an agency to declare that HIGH VOLTAGE power must be maintained by a licenced electrician, to determine that a company uses such power, and to demand to see a copy of the license?

It would seem to me that allowing untrained and unlicenced personnel to work with HIGH VOLTAGE power should be illegal, and probably is, but why was there no mechanism to ensure compliance?

Is it because OSHA positions are politically appointed that the majority of the time OSHA does not impose a jail sentence in a work-related death or impose stiff fines and penalties because of pay-to-play political party donations? Is it possible that such regulations and reporting requirements already exist, but that unscrupulous business owners might gain immunity from them through political influence?

***

In New Jersey a hairdresser or barber must be licensed! Why can we not do so for more dangerous workplace environments?

My son's work-place death began as a crime scene. Is it going to conclude as a criminal investigation? The reality is, probably not. The crime is that right now, probably right at this moment, another family just lost a loved one to a work-place death, which, more than likely, could have been prevented.

In conclusion, per Donald Coit Smith, whose 22-year-old son was also electrocuted in a meat packing facility in Texas last year . . . "Employer negligence is all about money . . . elect legislators who will take the public's best interest at heart and make these law changes to protect the common man. Too much employer PAC money is given to elected officials to (make) employer favorable laws."

It is time to stop the "Pay-to-Play" politics in New Jersey.

PLEASE VOTE WISELY.

The entire speech can be read here.

P.S. OSHA'S web site reports this case as closed, without citation. Stay tuned.

Sago Update: Malfunctioning Alarms, Missing Lightning Arrestors, Weak Seals and an "Improbably Agile Bolt of Lightning"

Workplace accidents generally have many causes. There are the "direct" causes -- someone pushed the wrong button, didn't follow written procedures or ignored an alarm.

Then there are the root, or systemic causes: the pressure to speed productoin that causes workers to rush and neglect safe work procedures, written procedures that don't match the current configuration of the workplace and that no one is trained to follow, alarms that are always malfunctioning, so everyone ignores them.

So when you seen something like this, you need to suspect that there's something bad going on in this workplace.

At 6:10 a.m. on Jan. 2, a light on Sago Mine dispatcher Bill Chisolm’s computer screen changed from green to red.

The red light was an alarm. It warned Chisolm of an increase in carbon monoxide levels along the conveyor belt in Sago’s 1 Left section.

Under mine policy and federal rules, the 26 parts per million of carbon monoxide detected should have prompted an evacuation. Workers should have been cleared from areas deeper underground, probably including a crew headed to work in the next section over, called 2 Left.

But Chisolm ignored the alarm. He was sure it was a malfunction, and not a real signal of any problems underground, according to a sworn statement given to government investigators.

About 20 minutes later, shortly after 6:30 a.m., an explosion ripped through the Sago Mine.

First reaction is "Ah ha! Stupid worker mistake. Fire the bastard and all will be well."

But not so fast.

First, that alarm may not have been warning of the conditions that led to the explosion and fire that killed 12 Sago miners. But more important, further investigation reveals that Bill Chisolm’s failure to heed the alarm points not to an individual mistake, but to serious systemic safety problems at the mine.

Under federal rules, mine dispatchers are required to closely investigate the cause of any carbon monoxide alarm that indicates more than 10 parts per million of the gas. Miners who are not investigating the problem are to be evacuated from the area, the rules state.

At Sago, several mine dispatchers testified that they received very limited training on how to respond to mine carbon monoxide alarms. Several dispatchers were unable to answer detailed questions investigators asked about logs from the mine’s carbon monoxide monitoring system.

Dispatcher Nathan Eye testified that when he took the job, it “was supposed to be a temporary position over there, and I kind of got stuck with it.”

Eye said he did not know what concentration of carbon monoxide would require a mine evacuation.

“It had never really been discussed, but I would figure anything about 20 parts per million would be way too much to leave anybody [inside],” Eye said.

Dispatchers told investigators that the carbon monoxide alarms frequently malfunctioned at the Sago Mine.

“I’ve had CO monitors malfunction for no apparent reason,” dispatcher Vernon Hofer said during a Jan. 23 interview. “They just malfunction.

“And I don’t know the cause of the malfunction or why they — and when they show an alarm, if at the point in time that I check them, everything appears to be OK,” Hofer said.

Dispatchers also indicated they used the alarm system for purposes other than keeping an eye on carbon monoxide levels.

Chisolm told investigators that dispatchers would set off audible carbon monoxide alarms in the Sago Mine, “if you’re having trouble getting a hold of a section, it could be maybe your mom called, she’s in the hospital or anything.”

In interviews with investigators, Sago Mine managers also have revealed that they regularly failed to keep accurate records of the operations of the mine fan that was meant to keep clean air flowing through the underground workings.

Meanwhile the ongoing investigation of the Sago disaster is focusing on what caused the methane explosion in a closed off part of the mine. Sago's owner, International Coal Group (ICG), issued a report saying that a lightning strike caused the explosion. But investigators can't figure out how what the Pittsburgh Post Gazette calls "an improbably agile bolt of lightning" traveled 1-1/2 miles from the mouth of the mine, across the Buckhannon River, then another 13,000 feet to the sealed portion of the mine.

And blaming the explosion on lightning -- even if it's true -- may not get ICG off the hook. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette also reports that

The Sago Mine violated basic electrical safety rules by not installing equipment to prevent lightning from sending a charge into underground mine workings, U.S. and West Virginia investigators have learned.

At least two electrical systems at Sago were not equipped with lightning arresters similar to surge protectors, the mine’s chief electrician told investigators in a sworn statement.

***

Sago Mine owner International Coal Group has pushed the theory that lightning caused the explosion. But company press releases have not mentioned the serious electrical violations related to the lack of lightning-protection devices.

***

Under federal mine safety rules, all power lines and phone cables that lead into underground mines must be equipped with lightning arresters.

Lightning arresters are protective devices that limit surges of electricity from lightning strikes or equipment failures. They prevent damage to electrical equipment and, in the case of underground coal mines, help to prevent lightning from sparking fires or explosions.

Oops.

The investigation is also looking into the blocks that were used to seal the closed-off part of the mine:

The seals were constructed from Omega Block, a cement-and-fiber foam block favored by many mine operators because they are lighter than the traditional cement blocks used to seal abandoned areas of mines.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration first approved the blocks for use nearly a decade ago, but more recently allowed the installation of the blocks without the traditional "hitching" -- the practice of digging a notch into the mine wall and ceiling to secure the seal. Unhitched Omega Block walls were approved after one such wall withstood the minimum 20 pounds per square inch blast pressure during a test of seals meant to be erected during mine emergencies.

But testimony by the men who installed the seals at Sago suggests the wall did not follow the approved plan in all instances and did not match the construction of the Omega Block wall that passed a 20 psi test.

Notably, they testified that they leveled out the floor by laying dry mortar into gaps in the mine floor and then setting the wall atop it. Plans called for all sides of the block floor to be mortared with a special product called BlocBond.

Kathy Snyder at Minesafety Watch reports that a two-day public hearing into the Sago tragedy starts tomorrow in Buckhannon, W.Va. MSHA and the state will be running the hearings jointly. Davitt McAteer, former head of MSHA, is chairing.

AFL and Change To Win: Back To The Future, or Something....

I'm ust getting around to writing about this mildly amusing and ironic story. NY Times labor reporter Steve Greenhouse reported last week about a proposal by Change to Win (the unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO last year) to get together with the AFL-CIO to form another labor federation that would do many of the things they criticized the AFL-CIO for spending too many resources on: political action, grass-roots mobilization, member education, legislative initiatives, and health and safety.

Change to Win Chair Anna Burger sent a letter to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on April 11 suggesting they work together on common issues:

Several important pending issues, including immigration, health care, retirement security, labor law reform and the looming 2006 election cycle make it imperative that we coordinate our strategies and resources in the interests of all working people in this country.

She suggested creating a "permanent structure"

In a response, Sweeney declared himself "mystified" at Burger's proposal to create "a third federation," and although he supports coordinating strategies and resources,

the last thing we can imagine doing -- less than ayear after SEIU, UFCW, UNITE HERE and the Teamsters voluntarily left the Federation -- is investing time and resources in "cofounding" yet a third labor federation, with all the bureacracy, expense and additional staffing that would entail. And we cannot ignore the irony that the united federation of all unions that you propose...precisely describes the work of the AFL-CIO before the disaffiliations last July.

Now I'm not privy to all the inside plotting and planning of all the different sides, but on the surface it looks like Change to Win is figuring out that while greatly increased organizing is essential to ensuring workers' rights, it's not sufficient: you also need to translate some of that energy into policy and political power in Washington where many of the programs are developed and implemented that can help -- or hurt -- working people.

One of those important issues, of course, is workplace safety and health. And although Change to Win unions are doing a good job integrating workplace safety with organizing (in their hotel campaign and University of Florida, for example), they have no political program equivalent to the dearly departed AFL-CIO health and Safety Department (R.I.P.) or even the activities of the remaining AFL-CIO health and safety staff.

So here's my suggestion: Both federations should take note of the life and death struggles that workers are facing every day on the job, and both should establish well-staffed and fully funded health and safety departments -- which could then coordinate their activities in Washington and in workplaces around the country.

Now there's a crazy proposal I could get behind.