At OSHA: Truth Stranger Than Fiction

Oy.

So last night I write a story about OSHA awarding "Star" status to W.R. Grace, one of the country's biggest corporate outlaws, a company that has knowingly sentenced thousands of workers, their families and their neighbors to painful illness and early death from asbestos exposure.

But the wierdness over at OSHA continues. In March 2004, I wrote a spoof on OSHA's drive to create an Alliance with every existing life-form on the planet. I thought this was one of my funnier lines: "Two weeks ago, OSHA announced the formation of 134 new Alliances when each of OSHA's ten regions formed alliances with every other region."

Apparently someone at OSHA didn't know I was joking:

OSHA’S COLUMBUS, OHIO OFFICE IS LABOR’S FIRST VPP SITE

8/24/2005

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Columbus, Ohio office is the Department of Labor’s first Voluntary Protection Program site, OSHA announced Monday.

The VPP emphasizes combined effort from management, employees and union representatives to identify and eliminate unsafe working conditions and practices to reduce the number and severity of job-related injuries and illnesses.

OSHA’s Columbus-area office is a “shining example of excellence attained in safety and health in the workplace. OSHA’s mission echoes that of [this] VPP participant, which is to strive for continuous improvement in occupational safety and health,” said Jonathan L. Snare, deputy assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.

OSHA’s Columbus-area office is a “shining example of excellence attained in safety and health in the workplace????

WELL I SHOULD HOPE SO!!!

I mean, come on guys, you must have better thing to do than this. I mean while than 5,500 workers are dying in accidents every year in American workplaces and tens of thousands more die from occupational diseases, it would currently take federal OSHA 108 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once.

And you all are out inspecting each other for VPP status???

Smithfield Foods Under Investigation For Illegal Retaliation

Corporate outlaw Smithfield Foods is being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for retaliating against two workers who stood up for safer working conditions. In June, Smithfield fired Angel Santos Muriel and indefinitely suspended Jesus Munoz Marquez after the two workers took part in a work action for improved safety on the job.

In March, workers, including Santos Muriel and Munoz Marquez, voiced concerns to management for their safety due to the working conditions and line speed. A majority of workers in the loins boning section of the production line refused to return to work until management either slowed the production line or hired more workers. The company initially responded to the workers' concerns, but conditions quickly began to deteriorate when Smithfield forced workers to work too close together wielding knives.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) filed a charge with the NLRB on behalf of Santos Muriel and Munoz Marquez, alleging Smithfield engaged in unlawful action in retaliation against them for speaking out about safety conditions.

Smithfield is not a nice company:

Smithfield has a long history of exploiting workers and creating a climate of fear, intimidation, and abuse at its hog kill and processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. In April, the NLRB found the company and its cleaning contractor, QSI, Inc. guilty of violating workers' rights by threatening arrest from federal immigration authorities, physical assault, and falsely arresting a worker. Human Rights Watch, an internationally renowned human rights organization, issued special reports in 2000 and 2004 citing Smithfield's record of worker abuse and utter lack of disregard for workers' rights and human rights.

As a reward for their model behavior, Smithfield executives received very generous bonuses in fiscal year 2005


Related Stories

• The Daily Toll Of Meatpacking Workers, August 3, 2005
• All US Has To Offer Meat and Poultry Workers Is 'Blood, Sweat and Fear' , January 25, 2005

Parallel Universe: OSHA Reconizes W.R. Grace For "Exemplary Occupational Safety and Health"

If you were to take the time to draw up a corporate Hall of Shame, high up on the list would be WR. Grace. Seven of Grace's current or former executives and department heads were indicted last February for attempting to hide the fact that asbestos was present in vermiculite products at the company’s Libby, Montana plant. Approximately 1,200 residents of Libby had been identified as suffering from some kind of asbestos-related abnormality. And that's not all. The asbestos laden vermiculite was processed at factories all across the country, exposing workers and contaminating communities like Hamilton, NJ and then they lied about cleaning it up.

Given Grace's history, I generally expect the word "Grace" to be associated in the media with words like "death," "fatal illness," "crime," "criminal," and "outlaw." So imagine my traumatic mental whiplash when I saw this headline: Grace Plant Awarded Star Certification By OSHA.

Read it and retch:

New Orleans -- The Grace Davison Lake Charles, Louisiana plant of W. R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA) has earned membership in the prestigious "Star" Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

According to OSHA, the VPP recognizes and promotes effective workplace safety and health management. Membership in the VPP Star is OSHA's official recognition of exemplary occupational safety and health. VPP Star worksites must submit annual self-evaluations and undergo periodic onsite reevaluations every three to five years to remain in the program. The Lake Charles plant is one of approximately 1,143 VPP Star worksites out of more than 20 million worksites in the United States.

No, this did not come out of the Onion. They wouldn't be so ridiculous.

Back when I worked for OSHA, we had a vetting process. When the Secretary or Assistant Secretary of Labor was going to appear publicly with a company representative, or give them some kind of award, DOL worker-bees would quickly and thoroughly research the company to make sure there were no skeletons that would embarrass the government of United States of America (or any of its officials). I remember one time we were checking up on a company and someone found that they had a branch in South Korea where one of the company's employees had intentionally set himself on fire on the company steps. Being politically sensitive individuals, we decided that if working conditions were so bad that workers were killing themselves, it probably wasn't the kind of company that we wanted to recognize in any way.

So what the hell's going on over there? Have they at long last no sense of decency? Are they completely politically tone deaf? I mean, I know they won't rest until they've given VPP status or established a partnership or Alliance with every company in America, but you'd think they'd draw the line somewhere.

Yeah, I know, I'm still an innocent, a hopeless idealist. I still believe that despite everything, people are really good at heart. I want my virginity back.

Alas....

APHA Letter To Homeland Security Protesting Fake OSHA Sting

Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, has sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff expressing the APHA's "deepest concern" about the July 6, 2005 sting where Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE) officials misrepresented themselves as Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officials as part of a roundup of undocumented immigrant workrs at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.

We believe this action was both inappropriate and counterproductive. It will significantly damage the credibility of OSHA and undermine citizen confidence in government. By making workers fearful of attending workplace safety programs it will set back our efforts to prevent injury and death on the job. This is a national goal, which we have worked tirelessly with employers, unions and government agencies, to ensure.

Benjamin also noted the broader public health impact of the ICE's action:

This action also has the serious potential to undermine your efforts to ensure the biosecurity of our nation, as well, by driving underground individuals who may be exposed to infectious diseases or prohibiting the occupational health personnel from providing critical preventive services that protect all Americans from new and deadly infectious diseases.

Sting operations of this type have the serious potential to damage national efforts to prevent workplace illness and injury, to improve access to health care services, and to protect the public health.

The letter called on the ICE to "take broad and prompt action to ensure this does not happen again" and to "adopt and publicize department policy prohibiting ICE from misrepresenting itself as OSHA or other public health and safety agencies in future operations."

Related Stories

• Immigration Scam Causing Concern in Texas, August 6, 2005
• OSHA or Immigration? How To Tell The Difference, July 17, 2005
• NY Times Covers OSHA Impersonation Story, Saturday, July 16, 2005
• Betrayal in North Carolina: Unions Condemn OSHA Impersonators, July 14, 2005
• Stupid and Deadly: Undocumented Workers Lured into Arrest With Promise of Safety Training, July 11, 2005

Positive Reaction To Chem Board's BP Amoco Recommendation

The press in Texas and across the Atlantic are responding favorably last week's urgent recommendation from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board that BP Amoco set up an independent panel to study the company’s safety culture and management safety systems.

The Houston Chronicle thought it was high time:

First came the horrific blast at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 and injured more than 170. That was in March. In July, fire broke out at another unit of the refinery. On Aug. 10, a high pressure valve sprang a leak, releasing 100 barrels of gas oil and 100 pounds of hydrogen sulfide. The latter two incidents caused no injuries, but nearby residents were advised to shelter in place. Hours after the leak at the Texas City facility, an explosion occurred at BP's petrochemical plant near Alvin.

That series of accidents, following others that have plagued BP plants for years, demands a thorough, independent examination of BP's safety features and operations, followed by decisive action to correct deficiencies. Last week, that is what a federal agency recommended.

***

BP CEO John Brown promptly accepted the investigation board's recommendation and promised to implement any changes the independent reviewers identified. The safety of BP's employees and that of the many nearby residents and schoolchildren depends on it.

The Austin American Statesman points out that it’s not just lives at stake, but refining capacity as well:

The United States can ill afford to lose any refining capacity these days, given the tightness of petroleum supplies and rising prices. But it is more dangerous in the long run to let refineries operate until they blow up, killing and injuring dozens of workers as well as losing the productive capacity of the refineries themselves.

The board was right to act, and it should be ready to take the same quick action if similar problems develop with other refiners.

Meanwhile the CSB’s action has stirred up some attention across the pond where British Petroleum is headquartered, Jason Nissé at the London Independent says that BP Chair Lord John Browne has not been putting its money where its mouth is. Eight years ago, Browne “became the first head of a major polluter to admit that his company was harming the environment, and committed BP to doing something about it.” Between the accidents at US refineries, the loss of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling in environmentally sensitive areas in Asia and plans for the Alaska Nationa Wildlife Refuge, and opposing tougher controls on pollutants in the recently passed US energy bill, BP’s environmental and safety consciousness leave something to be desired

People should be judged by what they do, not what they say. And by that measure, BP's reputation is unravelling.

The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board accused it last week of "systemic lapses" in safety at its Texas City plant, where an explosion in March killed 15 people and injured 170. It called for a review of safety at all five of BP's US refineries.

Reports after the Texas City disaster appear to reveal a culture of poor controls - not only to do with safety but also in the environmental area that BP has staked out as its "unique selling point".

.And then there’s the London Sunday Herald:

IF you chose to drive an ageing car at breakneck speed on a critical journey, you would scarcely be surprised if you were involved in a nasty accident. There are parallels with the oil refining industry where ageing plants are working at 95% of capacity and struggling to keep pace with soaring demand. The refining industry has flirted with danger for too long, cutting costs and corners and failing to learn the lessons from accidents.

Last week, the US Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Bureau accused BP of “systemic” safety lapses following a series of incidents at its Texas City refinery, the most serious of which occurred in March, when an explosion killed 15 workers and injured a further 170. It was the most serious US industrial accident for 15 years and BP was ordered to form an independent panel to examine its safety culture. Also last week BP reported another accident in Texas City, the third since March. Across the US the picture is grim, with estimates of at least 20 refinery accidents and stoppages in the past month alone. They have not all involved loss of life, but they have reduced output at a time of runaway demand. Ageing infrastructure is a serious problem and the issue of fresh investment in refining capacity to maximise efficiency and address critical safety concerns must be tackled urgently.

There has not been a single new refinery built in the US since 1976 and none in Europe for a decade. That means too much creaky plant is struggling to operate at full throttle. There is worrying evidence of failure to invest in modern systems such as safety flares and failure to follow safety protocols. Blaming workers, as BP has done on more than one occasion where safety has been questioned, is an inadequate and reprehensible response from management.

If A Worker Dies of Asbestos Related Disease and No One Tells, Does Anyone Care?

This is for those of you who still think that someone other than workers gives a shit about workers health.

Since 1980, at least 29 Minnesota taconite mine workers have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, a fatal lung disease caused exclusively by exposure to asbestos. So did the mine's owner, LTV Steel Mining Company or Cleveland-Cliffs, which managed the LTV mine for 15 years before it closed, tell the Mine Safety and Health Administration when it discovered the disease? Of course not.

A loophole in a 1977 agency rule requires companies to report possible work-related illnesses only among active workers, said Carol Jones, MSHA's former Health Division chief. Because it takes 20 to 40 years after asbestos exposure for mesothelioma to strike, the deadly disease mainly strikes retirees, she said.

The taconite companies say their employees' health and safety is their foremost priority, yet none of the 29 mesothelioma cases was reported.

And if the regulation says they don't have to report, then why should they?

Of course, it turns out that the companies probably knew about the disease even before some of the workers retired:

Family members of two of the victims -- Tony Plevell and Jim Stanisich -- say companies knew of their illnesses before they retired.

Jill Plevell, an Arizona psychologist, said managers of the LTV Steel Mining Company's pit near Babbitt "absolutely knew" her father had mesothelioma because he was on disability for weeks before he retired on March 1, 1996. He died two months later.

And LTV wasn't the only evil-doer:

U.S. Steel Corp. did not notify MSHA of the December 2003 mesothelioma death of Jim Stanisich, a 47-year-old maintenance worker who was employed for more than 29 years at its Minntac plant, according to the records. Stanisich "was working in the mines when he was diagnosed" and "retired after he died," said his widow, Judy Stanisich, of Eveleth.

Citing privacy reasons, U.S. Steel spokesman John Armstrong said he could not comment.

Boy, I guess they're in trouble, right? Think again. Maximum penalty for failure to report an illness: $60.

Where Computers Go When They Die (And who pays the consequences)

I spent part of last night packing up an old computer to send back to the manufacturer of my new computer. For only $25 they'll take the CPU and the old, scratched monitor off my hands and send them to the great computer graveyard in the sky.

Recycling my computer is agood thing, right?

But then, by coincidence, Rory over across the pond, sends me an article from the China Labor Bulletin about The Plight of China's E-Waste Workers about the men, women and children in China who spend their days pounding apart computer parts and separating out the valuable components without any sort of protection:

The health hazards faced by Li Xiu Lan and other workers in the E-waste trade are as numerous as the list of toxins found inside an average PC. Metal plates inside the chassis are often coated with hexavalent chromium. Circuit boards and their components usually contain a toxic mixture of beryllium, mercury and cadmium, with individual components held together with lead solder. Old-style cathode ray tube monitors contain barium, phosphorus, hexavalent chromium, and a substantial amount of lead in the radiation shielding of the glass and lead solder used on wires and connections.

It's because of the recognized dangers of handling these components that E-recycling is more costly in the first world, and this is why the bulk of electronic waste is shipped to the developing world. Though China has specific and detailed laws designed to protect workers in hazardous industry, enforcement is either lax or non-existent. E-waste workers in Guiyu use bare hands to disassemble hazardous electronic detritus, soaking circuit boards in tubs of acid and heating motherboards over open fires to recover trace metals. Safety equipment is rarely present, and images of workers melting plastic off an IBM motherboard using a coal brazier, and sorting cathode tubes and microchips into plastic buckets, present an ironic juxtaposition of low and high-tech.

The health consequences to workers involved in processing high tech waste are many and varied. The toxic effects of lead to the kidneys, nervous and reproductive system are well known. Exposure to mercury contributes to brain and kidney damage, as well as being linked to birth defects. Barium can cause brain swelling, muscle weakness and damage the heart, liver and spleen, and dioxin is a known carcinogen. And then there are other elements found in E-waste; phosphorus, branded by the U.S. Navy as 'extremely toxic', and beryllium, recently classified as a human carcinogen, are both found inside of computer hardware.

Long-term health studies of China's E-waste workers have yet to be conducted. However, according to a report from the Medical Sciences College of Shantou University, health checkups of Guiyu's E-waste workers revealed that 88 percent of them suffered from skin diseases or had developed neurological, respiratory or digestive ailments. Furthermore, Greenpeace China reports that the majority of workers they spoke to while doing environmental studies in Guiyu complained of illnesses ranging from respiratory ailments to skin disease.

Oy. Maybe I should just bury the damn thing in the back yard.

Unions Outlived Usefulness? Write a letter!

Last weekend I responded here to an anti-union letter to the editor in the Hampton Roads (VA) Daily Press. I also sent roughly the same response to the paper as a letter to the editor. Lo and behold, the paper not only published my letter, but two even better letters as well.

There's a lesson here: Small papers will print your letters.

I write about ten letters to the Washington Post every year and I'm lucky if I get one published every two years. Hampton Roads is a relatively small city deep in a red state. One anti-union letter to the editor spawned three pro-union letters. I write frequently about the poor reporting (with occasional exceptions) about unions and worplace safety in this country. We need to be not just talking with reporters, but also monitoring and responding to letters to the editor and writing op-ed columns.

Come on, us bloggers can't do all the work.

After A Death: Better Vests For Officers Becomes a Priority

It's a general truth in the health and safety field that nothing much changes until you've got a body count -- and not even then, unless you're organized.

True to form, a week and a half after officer Wayne "Cotton" Morgan was shot and killed by the wife of an escaping prisoner, Kentucky governor Phil Bredeson announced yesterday

that he will work to make sure all Tennessee corrections officers are properly equipped.

"That is something that I am going to look at, to see how we can get the proper equipment into the hands of the people," Bredesen told reporters after delivering a speech to an education conference. "I took that away as a to-do from this whole experience."

Morgan wasn't wearing a vest when he was shot. According to his partner, officers had stopped wearing the vests because they were too bulky.

Morgan was Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME Local 2173 and AFSCME is also getting involved:

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which represents correctional officers in Tennessee and around the country, plans during a convention tomorrow in Albuquerque, N.M., to call for federal correctional officer safety legislation in response to Morgan's death.

"When a department mandates a policy and a procedure for our officers to follow, we should have the equipment that is necessary to follow through with that policy," said Mike Marette, the union's assistant director for corrections.

One other issue this story raises: Personal protective equipment (PPE) -- respirators, gloves, ear plugs, etc -- , while often necessary, are considered to be the least effective means of protection. This is partly because PPE is not generally as effective as engineering controls or eliminating the hazard. But part of the problem with PPE is that workers often don't like to use it because its uncomfortable or presents other hazards, such as goggles that fog up, earplugs that make it hard to hear warnings, or bulky vests that make it hard to maneuver. This leads to employers complaining about careless, lazy, pigheaded workers who refuse to use their safety equipment, when actually it's often a rational choice that workers make given the problems with the equipment and the (often correct) feeling that there are better ways to control the hazard.

When PPE is necessary, as bulletproof vests generally are, the least they can do is find some that fits properly.

Chem Board Tells BP To Form Independent Safety Panel

As George Bush might ask: "Rarely is the question asked, is our refineries learning?"

Well, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is asking. Today the CSB issued an urgent recommendation to BP Amoco to commission an independent panel that would review a range of safety management and culture issues stemming from the March 23 Texas City explosion that killed 15 and injured 170, as well as a number of other incidents at BP facilities in the United States. It's the first time in the CSB's history that the Board has issued an urgent recommendation.

CSB Chairman Carolyn Merritt

cited the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which investigated in the 2003 Space Shuttle reentry disaster, as one of the models for the independent panel.

She said the CSB was requesting that BP develop an implementation plan for the recommendation within 30 days and complete all work within six to twelve months. The CSB will not serve on the panel but will track and evaluate progress in implementing the recommendation, with periodic reporting to the public.

The Board recommended that the panel appoint an independent chairperson and include a diverse membership, including employee representatives, as well as experts from aviation, space exploration, nuclear energy, and the undersea navy, as well as the process industries.

BP owns five refineries in the U.S., two of which, like Texas City, were acquired in the late 19990's when the company purchased Amoco and Atlantic Richfield Co. Since the March explosion, BP's Texas City plant suffered two other serious incidents which caused no injuries or deaths, but the CSB maintains that all three incidents, as well as a fatal incident that occurred before the March explosion raised questions about the adequacy of BP's safety systems.

BP has announced that it would accept the recommendation. BP Group chief executive John Browne stated that

Today’s recommendation from the CSB is a welcome development and we take it seriously.

"We will move speedily to appoint an independent panel and offer it every help to do its job. When it reports, we will act with equal speed to deal with its recommendations."

BP cautioned, however, that its acceptance of the recommendation "does not mean the company agrees with all of the information or conclusions contained in the preamble to the CSB recommendation.”

The preamble that Lord Browne is having problems with contained several findings by the CSB investigative team, some of which had been presented previously, including the finding announced by the CSB at the end of June that key alarms and a level transmitter failed to operate properly and to warn operators of unsafe and abnormal conditions within the raffinate tower and the blowdown drum. Highly flammable hydrocarbons had escaped from the tower into the blowdown drums where they overflowed and ignited, causing the explosion, but the indicators and alarms that should have warned the workers were not functioning properly.

In addition, BP admitted that it knew the blowdown drums weren't safe and had bypassed numerous opportunities to replace them with safer flare systems. Nevertheless, BP, blamed the explosion on "surprising and deeply disturbing" mistakes made by plant workers who did not follow proper procedures, instead of poor maintenance or malfunctioning pumps, indicators and alarms that caused the problem.

New findings announced today in the preamble of the CSB's recommendation included evidence that BP had known since at least two weeks before the March 23 incident that the alarms and transmitters weren’t functioning and that a critical pressure-control valve did not function in pre-startup equipment checks. The CSB also revealed in the preamble of the recommendation that BP had been having problems with the process for five years before the explosion.

The majority of 17 startups of the raffinate splitter tower from April 2000 to March 2005 exhibited abnormally high internal pressures and liquid levels – including several occasions where pressure-relief valves likely opened – but the abnormal startups were not investigated as near-misses and the adequacy of the tower’s design, instrumentation, and process controls were not re-evaluated.

Gary Beevers, Director of United Steelworkers Region 6 that represents the workers at the Texas City refinery, announced that the

"urgent" call leaves little doubt that BP’s firing of three union members in the aftermath of the March 24 explosion that killed 15 contract workers “was little more than a shameless ploy to cover up its corporate-wide failure to deal with safety issues that routinely put our members in harms way.”

What Are Safety Management Systems and Workplace Culture?

The CSB recommended that BP “assess and report on the effectiveness of BP North America’s corporate oversight of safety management systems at its refineries and its corporate safety culture.”

So what does this mean for BP, especially considering that the company has announced that they have already made quite a few “corrective actions ” at the Texas City plant? Since the March explosion, BP has replaced a number of managers (and fired several line workers, an action not mentioned in BP’s report), re-emphasized who’s responsible for what, announced that it would replace the blow-down drums with a safer flare system, and prohibited the occupancy of office trailers within 500 feet of blowdown drums or flares. (All 15 workers killed were contractors working in or near the trailers.)

Among the references cited in its recommendation, the CSB cites the 2003 Report of Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Chapter 7 of that report, “The Accident’s Organizational Causes” leads one to believe that BP may be missing the boat in addressing the root causes of the incident and appropriate responses. It warns that

Many accident investigations make the same mistake in defining causes. They identify the widget that broke or malfunctioned, then locate the person most closely connected with the technical failure: the engineer who miscalculated an analysis, the operator who missed signals or pulled the wrong switches, the supervisor who failed to listen, or the manager who made bad decisions. When causal chains are limited to technical flaws and individual failures, the ensuing responses aimed at preventing a similar event in the future are equally limited: they aim to fix the technical problem and replace or retrain the individual responsible. Such corrections lead to a misguided and potentially disastrous belief that the underlying problem has been solved.

Regarding BP's personnel changes and firings, Chapter 8, "History as Cause: Columbia and Challenger

Changing personnel is a typical response after an organization has some kind of harmful outcome. It has great symbolic value. A change in personnel points to individuals as the cause and removing them gives the false impression that the problems have been solved, leaving unresolved organizational system problems.

So what is “organizational culture?”

The Columbia report defines it as

the values, norms, beliefs, and practices that govern how an institution functions. At the most basic level, organizational culture defines the assumptions that employees make as they carry out their work. It is a powerful force that can persist through reorganizations and the reassignment of key personnel.

Experts in organization safety culture note, however, that "assumptions that employees make when they carry out their work" should not be confused with "behavioral safety," which assumes (as BP has suggested) that most accidents are caused by the improper behavior of employees. Organizational culture, on the other hand, explores why, for example, employees don't follow written procedures (outdated, poorly written, inaccurate?) and how management responds to employee complaints about unsafe conditions.

As an example taken from NASA, Vaughn notes that “NASA culture allowed flying with flaws when problems were defined as normal and routine” and that NASA was operating like a business, with “schedules, production pressures, deadlines, and cost efficiency goals elevated to the level of technical innovation and safety goals."

At the same time that NASA leaders were emphasizing the importance of safety, their personnel cutbacks sent other signals. Streamlining and downsizing, which scarcely go unnoticed by employees, convey a message that efficiency is an
important goal.

All of this makes particularly chilling reading considering the pressures and temptations that rising gas prices (and windfall profits) put on the refinery business. Acording to the Financial Times

With oil prices at record highs, refineries are running at full capacity, and many other oil companies have suffered accidents and disruptions at their plants. Analysts warn that it is tempting to skip routine maintenance on ageing facilities at the top of the cycle.

"It's not surprising that you run into more accidents, explosions, outages when things are running full-out," says John Thieroff from Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency.

BP may have a lot to learn from the investigation. A recent article in the Wall St. Journal, describing previous cost cutting at BP facilities, noted that

BP has denied any connection between cost-cutting and plant fatalities. It contends that overall safety at its American refineries has improved since it acquired them.

"I think the culture of safety, in terms of policies and procedures, was there," said Ross Pillari, president of BP Products North America. "But the implementation of these policies and procedures was clearly not there, because if it was, the accidents wouldn't have happened."

Why it's not possible to have a well-functioning safety culture when your policies and procedures aren’t being implemented is a puzzle that the new panel will hopefully clarify for BP management.

More BP Stories from Confined Space here.

Rod Blagojevich: Workers' Best Governor?

When my daughter got her first job as a wage slave last summer, she was upset that she only got two 15 minute breaks in here 8-hour work-night. "Isn't there a law that says I get more?"

"Honey," I told her. "The law doesn't even give you that much." And the next half-hour was taken up with a little American history lesson about the "folks that brought you the weekend."

Well, thanks to Governor Rod Blagojevich, the state legislature, and UNITE-HERE, hotel attendants in Illinois have finally entered the 20th century with not one, but two paid 15-minute rest breaks per day. Last week, Blagoyevich signed the "Humane Treatment of Hotel Room Attendants Act."

Thousands of women who clean hotel rooms will benefit from a new law passed by the Illinois General Assembly this spring.

The law requires hotels to give two, paid 15-minute rest breaks per day. Room attendants - overwhelmingly female - have been struggling with increased workloads as hotels upgrade their bedding and amenities.

The signing ceremony [featured] room attendants representing their co-workers, who come from Chicago and all over the globe - Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa - to provide for their families.

Blagoyevich is getting a name as workers' best friend. Less than two weeks ago he signed a series of bills aimed at addressing the nursing shortage partly by making nurses jobs safer, including bills protecting nurses from workplace violence and eliminating mandatory overtime.

Workers Comp Insider - Falls and human fall traps: Fatalities in the construction industry

Workers Comp Insider discusses one of the leading causes of injury and death, both on and off the job: Falls.

Part of the discussion focuses on falls that workers can't avoid, because they don't know the hazard is there. He cites an expert

that appeals to architects, engineers, and building contractors to be aware of and eliminate these hazards at the work site. Graphic examples of some of the hazards Ellis discusses are illustrated in a 2004 NIOSH alert that presents five case studies of worker fatalities from falls through skylights and roof and floor openings.

Smoke and Work

Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerrilla reminds the blogosphere that smoking is a workplace safety issue and that links a story about

The woman who won the first successful workers compensation claim for lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke is now losing her long battle with the dreaded disease.

New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Seek To Overturn Workplace Violence Standard

In January 2002, Elizabeth Garcia, age 26 and a mother of three was abducted from Allsup's store in Hobbs, NM, raped and murdered. Garcia had been working alone at night, her first night on the job. The store was not equipped with a security camera. From 1998 through April 2003, a study found there had been 16 murders, 24 rapes, 37 kidnappings and tens of thousands of other crimes reported at convenience stores in New Mexico.

Correctly determining that multiple rapes, murders and kidnappings on the job was a workplace safety hazard, the New Mexico state Environmental Improvement Board, which issues occupational safety and health standards, issued a regulation last February that requires convenience stores open between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. either to have two workers on duty, or one clerk and a security guard, or to install bulletproof glass or other safety features to limit access to store employees. The regulation also requires safety cameras, panic alarms and adequate lighting, and making sure that clerks have a clear line of sight outside the stores. They also require either time-lock safes or some sort of money-drop and limit cash in the register to $50. Employees must receive crime prevention and safety training by the employer or a "knowledgable representative" in a language that is understood by the employee.

Now the New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Association has filed a suit to have the regulation overturned. The state is not backing down:

State Environment Secretary Ron Curry said Wednesday, "Our worker-safety regulations are well-grounded and well within the state's powers to promulgate."

"These safety regulations have been in place for seven months now, and the industry has reported that their stores have already made the necessary upgrades to comply," Curry said. "We are very disappointed that some in the industry are continuing to fight these important, life-saving guidelines."

According to the Bureau of National Affairs (no link), the Petroleum Marketers Association argues that

New Mexico's Occupational Health and Safety Act does not grant the board the authority to adopt regulations to protect convenience store workers and patrons from third-party criminal actions. The appeal contends that the regulations at issue are, therefore, invalid.

In adopting the act, the appeal states, the New Mexico Legislature sought to regulate hazardous materials and processes in the workplace, not to enact a crime-prevention measure.

This takes health and safety practice back about twenty years. I remember in the mid-1980's bringing up the bizarre idea of an OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard and being told that the OSHAct was only intended to deal with machines and chemicals and that kind of stuff. It wasn't until the mid 1990's that we convinced federal OSHA that because workplace violence injured and killed so many workers, and because there were recognized and feasible means to prevent much of the violence, it was an issue that OSHA had to address. In fact, in 1998, OSHA issued Guidelines for Late Night Retail Workers.

Admittedly, federal OSHA isn't knocking itself out enforcing against employers who put their employees into situations where they are vulnerable to violence, but claiming that workplace violence is not an issue that OSHA was intended to address is, well, so last-century.

Shocking! OSHA Says Inspections Prevent Accidents

Reading speeches by OSHA officials is generally a deadly boring activity these days. Witness a speech at the National Maritime Safety Association by my old buddy, and current acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Steve Witt.

Page after page after page of coma-inducing verbiage about the strategic management plan, variations and permutations of partnerships and alliances (and more alliances and patnerships), and other voluntary programs, outreach (oops, did we forget to mention we're trying to eliminate OSHA's worker training grant program?) He even talks about OSHA's standards program (although the text didn't state whether it was done with a straight face.)

But hidden deep in the speech, for those who were still conscious, was a little nugget abou OSHA's Site Specific Targeting Program (SST). Under the SST program, OSHA sends letters to 14,000 sites in high hazard industries that have been determined to have higher than average injury and illness numbers The letter warns them that "their rates are significantly higher than average and suggests strategies for reducing injuries and illnesses among their workers." Several thousand of these are then inspected over the year.

And guess what? Turns out that actual inspections work better than warning letters.

A study in 2004 of Site Specific Targeting shows that it is making a difference. That evaluation, sponsored by the Department, found that companies that received our letter, but were not inspected, reduced injuries and illnesses about 5 percent over the three years following the letter. But the sites that were actually inspected had injury and illness declines ranging from 12 to 13.8 percent over the three years following our inspection.

This may seem obvious to most of you reading this, but for an administration that insists that voluntary programs and compliance assistance -- training, fact sheets, webpages, conferences -- are superior to the heavy hand of government inspection and enforcement, this is interesting stuff.

Maybe OSHA should take a look at its budget pie and start transferring more money from voluntary programs into enforcement, and maybe the White House and Congress should think seriously about significantly increasing OSHA's pie if they're serious about workplace safety.

If they're serious....

Labor, Politics and Republicans, Oh My!

It seemed odd at first that eight months after the newly elected Governors of Missouri and Indiana took collective bargaining rights away from public employees, the Wall St. Journal is getting around to reporting it, along with other transgressions by Republican governors against their states' public employees.

Several Republican governors are trying to weaken organized labor in the one place it has remained strong: representing public employees.

First-term Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt rescinded collective-bargaining rights for state employees this year, undoing an executive order issued by a Democratic predecessor, and has eliminated a state board overseeing union elections for public employees. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a former Bush White House budget director, overturned an executive order that for 15 years provided collective-bargaining rights for that state's public employees. And Maryland's Robert Ehrlich, backed by the state Supreme Court, suspended a 2% pay increase unions had negotiated for state employees with his predecessor.

The three governors, following earlier moves by Kentucky's Republican governor, Ernie Fletcher, say that their actions are warranted in an environment where state budgets are just beginning to recover from severe stress, and that public employees' unions waste resources and block government restructuring efforts.

State, county and city employees do not have the right to bargain collectively under the National Labor Relations Act. Those rights have to be provided on a state by state basis. Only 25 states and the District of Columbia have passed comprehensive public-sector labor-relations laws which provide collective bargaining rights to public employees at state and local levels.

The reason for the sudden interest in the right of public employees soon came clear: the discussion was actually about the alleged rift between the "Change to Win" coalition (primarily SIEU), and the AFL-CIO (primarily AFSCME) over how much support labor should give to Republicans.

The media -- somewhat with assistance of the Change to Win (CtW)coalition -- loves to portray the rift as if one side only wants to organize (CTW) and the other (the AFL-CIO) only wants to play politics.

They also love to point out that SEIU and the Teamsters have given money to Republican politicians and talk of reducing labor's dependence on Democrats, increasing the rift between the two factions.

Last year, SEIU sparked controversy within organized labor by donating more than $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association, one of several ways that its strategy diverged from some other AFL-CIO unions. Organized labor -- particularly public-employee unions -- generally has been more generous to Democrats. Mr. McEntee excoriated the SEIU for funding an association that backs some antiunion governors, including Gov. Blunt. "You have no control over where the money goes," he says.

But generally the media focuses on the issue of labor support for Republicans as a "democracy" issue -- as if it's unfair for unions to strongly support Democrats because there are sizable numbers of members who are Republicans. (This is the alleged reason behind California's upcoming anti-union "Paycheck Protection Deception" initiative, or Proposition 75 which would require public empoyees to annually authorize the use of dues for political purposes.) Of course these articles ignore the fact, highlighted by the Wall St. Journal, that Republicans, with a few notable exceptions, tend to be anti- worker and anti-labor, and that unions would be betraying their members' interests --even Republican members -- by giving money to politicians that attacked their rights. And we're notnot just talking anti-union. We're talking anti-worker, as in opposed to workers -- especially public employees' -- right to bargain collectively, to have a role in their worklife, to have safe workplaces and to be respected as equal partners.

"Missouri taxpayers ought to determine how state employees are compensated, not some arbitrary arrangement between a government bureaucrat and a labor union," Mr. Blunt told the Associated Press shortly after his decision.

Public-employee union leaders are "just concerned with their own welfare," says Spence Jackson, spokesman for Gov. Blunt. "The governor believes that state employees have the best employer in the world -- the taxpayers of this state."

"That's bull," says Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "We have reached out in almost every state to address [efficiency issues]. Who better knows the problems in the states besides public employees?"

AFSCME is often villified as a union too focused on politics because, after all, critics say, they get to elect their bosses. Of course, having worked for AFSCME for many years, the fact is that AFSCME often supports politicians who turn out to forget that support when they're finally elected, and AFSCME will support Governors and Mayors -- Republican or Democrat -- when they treat the unions with respect, and just as vigorously oppose Mayors and Governors -- Republican or Democrat -- when they don't.

Mr. McEntee rejects claims that AFSCME can't work with Republicans; it is the type of Republicans that matters. "We're going to support moderate Republicans, if we can find them," he says, citing relationships with "fair-minded" Republican former governors such as George Voinovich of Ohio, James R. Thompson of Illinois and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania. Those governors presided over states that have been union strongholds. Almost half of the nation's 15.5 million union members live in six states: California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

After all, for all the media's talk of SEIU shunning politics in favor of organizing, the union was no piker in the last election, spending an estimated $65 million to get John Kerry elected. Nor are they avoiding electoral politics now.

The fact is that while there are always going to be questions about how to split the pie, all unions need to organize and be involved in politics at the same time. The real issue may be more of emphasis. Both sides admit that both politics and organizing are important. CtW argues that you can't be politically effective if you don't organize more members, whereas ASFCME and the AFL-CIO argue that until we straighten out the political situation, we'll never be able to organize enough members to make a difference.

And the fact is -- and there is little disagreement between either union group -- that Democrats are generally more pro-labor than Republicans. Of course, as usual, real life is more complicated than that. While it's undoubtedly better for labor to have Democrats in power than Republicans, to what extent do you punish Democrats for supporting anti-labor issues like CAFTA or repeal of the Ergonomics standard? Do you punish Democrats who vote wrong even though it may make it harder to win a Democratic majority? Do you reward Republicans that have supported you even if you're making it harder for Democrats to regain a majority? Do you contribute to entities like the Republican Governors Association because maybe it will earn you some good will after the election even if they use the money to support clearly anti-labor candidates?

These are not easy questions, and union continue to struggle with them, although there seems to be new resolve to punish Democrats who don't support labor on such issues as CAFTA. Nor are the issues so black and white between the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. Both have to play politics -- during elections and in Congress -- if they're going to represent their members well. There are far too many vital legislative issues -- on all levels of government -- that directly affect their members to ignore politics. So both the AFL and CtW are going to continue to wrestle with these issues discussed above -- at the same time they try to organize new members. The decisions will be interesting to watch -- between coalitions, between unions and within unions. One thing is true, however -- no union and no group of unions is swearing off politics or organizing. They've all got to do both to survive.

The War At Home

Readers of the New York Times yesterday may have seen this article about the shortage of effective body armor for our troops in Iraq:

For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents.

The ceramic plates in vests worn by most personnel cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use. But more than a year after military officials initiated an effort to replace the armor with thicker, more resistant plates, tens of thousands of soldiers are still without the stronger protection because of a string of delays in the Pentagon's procurement system.

The effort to replace the armor began in May 2004, just months after the Pentagon finished supplying troops with the original plates - a process also plagued by delays. The officials disclosed the new armor effort Wednesday after questioning by The New York Times, and acknowledged that it would take several more months or longer to complete.

Turns out its not just a problem over there. You may recall the corrections officer, Wayne "Cotton" Morgan, who was shot and killed last week by the wife of a prisoner who was helping him escape.

Morgan, who was also Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME Local 2173, was not wearing a bullet-proof vest. The other officer with Morgan when he was killed, Larry Harris

said the vests were bulky and ill-fitting. Brushy Mountain supervisors put in an order to outfit the guards with personally-sized vests a month ago. The guards are still waiting to be measured, Harris said.

[Correction spokeswoman Amanda] Sluss said TDOC officials always work to make job conditions safer. She said security precautions have not changed in the wake of Morgan's shooting, noting that the department has strict policies in place now.

But, she said, officials review those policies every three years.

The Wrath Of Immigrant Farmworkers in California

Looking for something to depress you? Check out this must-read article by Marc Cooper in the LA Weekly about the plight of immigrant farmworkers in California. It discusses in depth the wretced conditions they live and work under, and the decline of the United Farm Workers over the past four decades. You need to read the whole thing. But here are some tastes.

Breaks:

“In my work, it is also very hard,” Felipa continues. “The foreman demands that each team of three people produce 72 tubs of grapes per day.” A tub holds 23 pounds of grapes, sorted, cleaned, bunched and packed in plastic ready for supermarket shelves. “Sometimes it goes up to 96 tubs,” Felipa says. “We don’t have time to take our breaks. If you turn in less than they ask for, they run you out after three days.”

I ask her if she knows that the law requires farm workers be given at least two 10-minute breaks a day, apart from a 30-minute lunch. Unmoving and silent, she merely smiles back at me — as if to say, “What kind of idiot are you?”

Decline of the UFW and Worker Protections:

Family ranchers and corporate growers have shirked legal and moral responsibilities by outsourcing more and more employment through unscrupulous middleman contractors who feast on the undocumented and the desperate by routinely shortchanging them, forcing them to work unpaid overtime, ignoring safety standards, bilking them for rides and rental of tools, and, more frequently than one can imagine, straight-out stiffing them on payday.

The confluence of labor-contracting schemes, hostile Sacramento administrations, historic strategic mistakes by the UFW, and the flood of ever more desperate undocumented workers have, meanwhile, eroded unionization to the minuscule level of less than 2 percent of the work force.

While the 30-year-old pro-worker provisions of the ALRA still look great on paper, field enforcement by the state has become less than lax. Whether through indifference or through sheer lack of resources — including an almost total absence of representatives who can speak the indigenous languages of many workers — the result is grim. “Nowadays, it takes about nine months for a worker to even get a state wage hearing,” laments Fresno-based CRLA lawyer Alegria de la Cruz, whose grandparents were key players in the UFW. “By then the contractor is usually out of business. It’s basically, ‘Fuck you, I’m not going to pay you.’” For that majority of workers who hold no legal immigration status, there are no hearings, no legal remedies whatsoever.

Pesticides:

[California Rural Legal Assistance lawyer Jeff] Ponting is currently leading a fight on behalf of locals who got doused in a massive pesticide drift. There’s been at least one major drift incident in each of the last four years in this area — most recently last May, when 27 people fell ill. The worst case was in October 2003, when a cloud of the fumigant chloropicrin — the same active ingredient that’s used in tear gas — floated off the Yaksitch Farms and enveloped scores, including 165 who are now suing. "People were vomiting, throwing up on the streets, kids were crying and screaming," Ponting says. "It was chaos. And this happens every year. But medical people don’t know how to deal with it. They don’t speak the language of the workers. The clinics don’t know how to recognize the symptoms. They give the workers aspirins and send them back to work."

And much, much more. Read the rest.

Avian Flu: One If By Land, Two If By....Oh, nevermind

Still hanging out at one of my favorite blogs, Effect Measure, where my friend Revere spends quite a bit of his time and energy riding through the streets of America warning people that the Avian Flu is coming and, to put it mildly, we're not ready.

Unfortunately, those who have the power aren't doing what they should to protect and defend the people of the United States, especially when it comes to finally realizing that we can't rely on the private sector to make sure we have adequate supplies of an effective vaccine.

Now he's getting pissed off.

We need a better Administration. One that would recognize that if the market doesn't work (and everyone agrees in this case it hasn't) we would have taken the necessary steps to do the research, development and manufacture of an influenza vaccine (an ongoing need) with public funds and for an overriding public purpose: the safety and security of our citizenry. The President doesn't mind spending incredibly large amounts of our money for what he thinks is necessary in that regard. Let him do it with a far smaller sum for what everyone else recognizes is necessary.

(Not So) Intelligent Design

Following the "debate" between evolution and "Intelligent Design"?

Cervantes (normally of Staying Alive), who is subbing over at Effect Measure for a while, has the best and funniest perspective on "Intelligent Design (ID) that has ever been written.

He starts off being somewhat reassured that ID means H/She is watching out for us poor humans.

But....

Then there's the whole question of the human body. It has a lot of great features, but a few of them just seem -- sorry to have to say this, but it's true -- not very intelligent. To begin with, there's that stupid appendix, that doesn't seem to do anything except get infected. Then there's the birth canal. It's not a problem for me personally but it is for at leat half of my friends. It's too small for the baby's head, causes no end of trouble. I could go on and on with that. The lower back. I don't expect perfection, everything has to wear out and break down eventually, but there are some pretty obvious improvements you could make there.

Go read the whole thing.