More on MSHA Nominee Richard Stickler

The Charleston, West Virginia Gazette has a long article on the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Mystery Man, Richard Stickler, who President Bush nominated last week. Most of the article is just a review of Stickler's career, from being captain of the Barrackville High School basketball team that won 27 games in a row, from mine laborer to management of Beth Energy’s Boone County holdings in West Virginia, to being a manager for Performance Coal, and finally to a government position in Pennsylvania where he ran into a bit of controversy:

In March 1997, Stickler was named director of Pennsylvania’s underground mine safety agency, a post he held until July 2003.

Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said that Pennsylvania made “great strides” in mine safety during Stickler’s time with the state agency. “He clearly has a great deal of experience with mine safety and health,” Raulston said.

While he was in the Pennsylvania job, nine coal miners were trapped for three days in a flooded underground mine near Somerset, Pa.

Various investigations have said that state and federal regulators — including the agency that Stickler was running — could have done more to prevent the Quecreek flood.

For example, a state grand jury issued a report that said, before approving a permit for the operation, the state could have required Quecreek Mining to confirm the location of a flooded underground mine that the workers accidentally drilled into, causing the flood.

(you can read more background of the Quecreek incident here.

It's hard to tell exactly what to make of Stickler. He's held a number of management positions, as well as one government job. (And does anyone know what he was doing after he left the Pennsylvania job in 2003?) As former Clinton MSHA director Davit McAteer said

Stickler is “a guy with a history in the mining industry, and this is a job that requires you to represent everybody — not one side or the other. I hope he meets that challenge.”

I hope so, but most of Bush's nominees have failed (miserably) to meet that challenge. New OSHA nominee Ed Foulke, of the union busting firm Jackson Lewis, doesn't exactly make me optimistic about these new appointments.

Go ahead, prove me wrong.

Steelworkers: DuPont Doesn't Walk the Talk on Safety

The National Safety Council bestowed its prestigious "Green Cross" on the DuPont Corporation last week as an organization that has "distinguished itself over a period of years for outstanding achievement in workplace and off-the-job safety and health programs."

The United Steelworkers, however, noted in a report and press release that, while DuPont may disginguish itself, it didn't do so in a good way:

Unfortunately, despite all the slogans, DuPont’s history is not commendable. Instead of practicing openness and ethics, DuPont entrenches itself and resists taking responsibility for current and past trespasses, which continues to put citizens, the environment, and most of all, workers at risk. DuPont’s safety program blames the worker for on-the-job hazards and its goal of zero accidents encourages a system of non-reporting.

DuPont talks the talk but in reality does not walk the walk. It continues to be one of the dirtiest and most dangerous companies in the United States, and possibly, the
world.

DuPont’s True Record:

• Violations for failure to report industrial accidents to OSHA
  
• One of the “Dangerous Dozen” for putting over 9 million people at risk
  
• 20 Superfund sites and thousands of sick plaintiffs
  
• Number one producer of toxic dioxins in the U.S.
  
• Sued by the EPA for withholding evidence showing potential harmful effects of its Teflon-chemical, C8

Steelworkers dressed in orange shirts proclaiming DuPont puts "U.S. Jobs and the Environment at Risk," demonstrated in front of the National Safety Council conference. They were protesting DuPont's award and the company's "STOP" Program, a behavior-based safety program which is based on the theory that almost all injuries are caused by workers' unsafe acts.

In contrast, the USW research has shown that multiple root causes related to hazards and unsafe conditions, not multiple unsafe behaviors, cause accidents.

"We felt it was vital that members of the health and safety community understood the truth regarding DuPont's safety record," said DuPont worker and rally participant Jim Rowe. "What this company sells to other corporations and what actually happens at DuPont plants are two completely different things. In fact, we have found many safety folks here at the conference have been sympathetic to our message."

The USW represents 1,800 workers at six DuPont facilities.

Sewage House of Horror

One of my first workplace inspections at AFSCME was a wastewater treatment plant following a confined space fatality. In subsequent years, I inspected a number of plants, some terrible and some, well, less terrible. But I don't think I ever came across one as bad as this:

Makeshift catch basins direct flowing rainwater through battered, crumbling ceilings. Workers trudge through moats of raw and semi-treated sewage to repair damaged equipment. Water rises around high-voltage electrical boxes. There's mold. Disease. Flooded tunnels. Open manholes. Chemical spills. Exposed wiring. Human waste.

Unfortunately, the only way to make the public (and public officials) pay attention was for the workers to secretly video conditions at the plant and release them to the media, despite previous complaints to the state's public employee OSHA office.

And, as usual in these cases, harassment of workers accompanies serious health and safety problems:

As early as next week, the union could file health and safety grievances against the county. He also promises to examine the alleged intimidation tactics employed by management to keep workers quiet.

"I'm being told that our employees are being stifled from showing these violations and reporting these violations, and they're being intimidated, coerced and threatened by the superintendent," says [Jerry Laricchiuta, president of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 830 of Nassau County]. "Whatever legal resources or whatever we have in our power, we're going to use against that kind of bully management."

[Tim Corr, a CSEA administrative assistant in charge of member health and safety] urges members who witness specific violations but are afraid to report them to OSHA for fear of retribution to file their complaint through the union. Union leaders will put their own names on the form instead of the employees'.

[Peter Gerbasi, Nassau's deputy county executive of parks and public works] says this shows the union "reacting to a small group of disgruntled employees who rather than working to make things better would rather create crises that don't exist."

Damn troublemakers. Grrr!

Actually, if a worker requests it, OSHA complaints are supposed to be kept confidential. Nevertheless,workers are often still intimidated, figuring (often accurately) that management has ways to figure out who filed the complaint. And althouth the Occupational Safety and Health Act(OSHAct) technically protects workers against retaliation for exercising their right, justice is often slow and ineffective.

One of the good things about the OSHAct is that it gives "worker representatives" (unions) certain rights to represent workers -- filing complaints, walking around with OSHA inspectors on inspections, and (limited) participation in any settlement negotiations after the employer is cited.

Steelworkers Criticize OSHA BP Settlement

The United Steelworkers who represent the workers at BP's Texas City refinery that was fined $21 million yesterday, criticized OSHA for reaching a settlment with the company before the citation was issued:

"We will never know what OSHA traded away to get the settlement," said Mr. Gerard. "The families of the victims, workers in the plant, and the surrounding community deserve to know all the problems OSHA uncovered. And the workers who face those hazards every day on the job should have had a voice in the settlement talks."

"The penalty is the largest in OSHA’s history," said Gary Beevers, Director of the USW’s Region 6. “We are grateful for that. But by itself, the penalty will not deter future misconduct. Penalties are supposed to hurt, and this one represents less than half a day of BP’s corporate income. It doesn’t even cover what BP saved by not making the safety improvements that would have prevented the March 23 explosion.”

Had the citation been issued before settlement discussions, not only would all of the original penalties be known, but the union would have been able to participate in settlement discussions.

Bush's Petulance: Appointing Incompetents

Mollie Ivins sees some common threads reaching from "Brownie" to Bush's pick for OSHA, Ed Foulke:

There’s a doctoral dissertation to be written about Bush appointees named during the administration’s frequent fits of Petulant Pique. These PP appointments are made in the immortal childhood spirit of “nanny-nanny boo-boo, I’ll show you.”

***

The PP appointments are less for reasons of ideology or even rewarding the politically faithful than just in the old nyeh-nyeh spirit.

You could, for example, put any number of people at the Department of Labor who are wholly unsympathetic to the labor movement — Bush has installed shoals of them already. But there is a certain arch, flippant malice to making Edwin Foulke assistant secretary in charge of the health and safety of workers.

Republican appointees who oppose the agencies to which they are assigned are a dime a dozen, but Foulke is a partner from the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country. What he does for a living is destroy the only organizations that care about workers’ health and safety.

Here’s another PP pick: put a timber industry lobbyist in as head of the Forest Service. How about a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional in charge of the public lands? Nice shot. A utility lobbyist who represented the worst air polluters in the country as head of the clean air division at the EPA? A laff riot. As head of the Superfund, a woman whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfund regulations? Cute, cute, cute. A Monsanto lobbyist as No. 2 at the EPA.

A lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute at the Council on Environmental Quality. And so on. And so forth.

The Federal Trade Commission was finally embarrassed enough by demands from Democratic governors to start an investigation into recent price gouging by oil companies. But a former lawyer for ChevronTexaco will head the investigation. Is this fun or what?

Is anyone surprised who'se been paying attention for the past five years?

BP Fined Over $21 Million For Refinery Explosion That Killed 15

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP Amoco more than $21 million for over 300 violations related to the March 28 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170.

The citation included 170 "Egregious Willful Violations" at the maximum $70,000 each for total of $11,690,000. Willful violations are those committed with an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to, the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and regulations. "Egregious" means that instead of one citation for a number of violations, each individual violation is cited at the maximum. There were five additional willful safety violations and two willful health violations.

OSHA Regional Administrator John Miles said that the agency is considering whether to refer some violations to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. OSHA is only allowed to file criminal charges when a willful violation results in a fatality. But according to an earlier article in the Houston Chronicle, the law limits OSHA to filing criminal charges when a company kills its own employee(s). In the BP case, only employees of a contractor were killed.

Because the explosion also released 19,000 pounds of hexane and other toxic substances into the air, however, it is possible for the Environmental Protection Agency to prosecute under the Clean Air Act (CAA), which has much stronger penalties. The CAA states that a person “negligently places another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury” can be sentenced to one year in jail, and a person who at the time knowingly places another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury can serve up to 15 years in jail.

In the settlement with OSHA, BP also agreed to:

• complete a review of the ISOM unit to determine how it can be operated safely and alert OSHA if and when a decision is made to start up the unit in the future;


• retain a firm with expertise in process safety management (PSM), including pressure relief systems, safety instrumented systems, human factor analysis and performing process safety audits, to conduct a refinery-wide comprehensive audit and analysis of the company's PSM systems;


• hire an expert to assess and report on communication within and between management, supervisors, and authorized employee representatives and non-management employees and the impact of the communication on implementation of safety practices and procedures;


• submit to OSHA and BP Products' authorized employee representative, every six months for three years, logs of occupational injuries and illnesses ("OSHA 300 Logs") and all incident reports related to PSM issues;


• notify the OSHA area office of any incident or injury at the Texas City facility that results in an employee losing one or more workdays during the same three-year period.

Under the agreement, BP does not admit the alleged violations or agree with the way OSHA has characterized them.

Although BP Products North America President Ross Pillari stated he was pleased to have reached an agreement with OSHA and fully endorsed the corrective actions, a BP statement cautioned that "Under the agreement, BP does not admit the alleged violations or agree with the way OSHA has characterized them."

In a preliminary report, BP claimed that the explosion was the fault of "deeply disturbing" mistakes by the workers. Despite BP's casting of blame on its employees, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has found that several alarms and other equipment had failed on the day of the explosion and that The BP had been having problems with the process for five years before the explosion.

The CSB issued an urgent recommendation to BP last month to commission an independent panel that would review a range of safety management and culture issues stemming from the explosion. BP agreed to set up the panel. OSHA's Miles agreed that "the health and safety culture at the BP plant was lax, which contributed to the blast."

Personally, I'm surprised and pleased at the size of the penalty which is far higher than I had predicted. On the other hand,

• The clear lesson for employers is not to kill too many workers at one time. After all, the fine amounts to $1.4 million per fatality. How often does a fine come anywhere close to that amount when an employer's willful actions results in the death of only one or two employees?


• Despite the record size of the penalty, it's a mere pimple on the total profits of the company. BP had $285 billion in revenue and $17 billion in profit for 2004. For example, corporate giant Tyson Foods, with a 2004 profit of $403 million was fined only $60,000 for the 1999 deaths of two workers at its animal feed plant in Robards, Ky. As I said before, only a fine in the neighborhood of $20 billion would have a punishing financial impact on the company.

More BP stories here.

Katrina Evacuees Scab At San Francisco Hospital Strike

[Note: See update below. --JB]

It just keeps getting worse. Employers and the Bush administration are using Katrina to gut environmental protections, cut workers' pay and now even break strikes:

About a dozen evacuees from Hurricane Katrina are filling in for striking workers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, hospital officials said Saturday.

The workers -- among them janitorial staff and nursing assistants from the storm-ravaged gulf -- are employed by a temporary employment agency, CPMC Medical Director Allan Pont said.

"We learned they were Katrina refugees through word of mouth," Pont said. "Our staff is hearing what an ordeal they've been through"

Pont said the hospital had little recourse but to hire temporary workers to care for patients and provide upkeep for the hospital, but union members walking a picket line outside the hospital were aghast to find out the hospital was using evacuees from Hurricane Katrina to fill their jobs.

About 800 cafeteria workers, health aides and represented by SEIU on strike last week against three campuses of Sutter Health, CPMC's parent company

"It's such an extraordinary irony," said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU United Health Care Workers West.

"SEIU is sending nurses and psych techs to New Orleans to care for people there. We're engaging the government to establish training programs there for workers who are unemployed."

Sutter has hired a scab supply company -- Healthcare Contingency Staffing Services (HCSS) to supply workers to fill in for the strikers. HCSS is run by the unsavory scabmaster Gary Fanger, who the Bay Guardian calls "the perfect guy for the messy, unpleasant, and all around ugly job of quashing a strike.":

a 52-year-old ex-felon who's been convicted on fraud, forgery, and drug charges and accused of stealing trade secrets and failing to pay child support.

Fanger portrays himself as a decent guy who's made some mistakes over the years. "I did some stupid things back then," he says. But, "I think I've been a contributor to society by employing hundreds of people.... I'm a good boss, a good dad."

· · ·

You can chart the career of Gary W. Fanger, a bulky man with blond hair, a soft voice, and a passion for sailing, by trolling the court records and criminal databases of California, Colorado, and beyond.

Fanger, who was raised in Los Gatos, first appears in the system in 1981, in Colorado, when Aspen police accused him of writing a bad check for $1,666.66, according to a search-warrant affidavit. At the time, Fanger was running what appears to have been a barter business called Executive Exchange. The case was closed and prosecution deferred when Fanger agreed to repay the money along with a $250 fine and court costs, court records show.

By 1984 he was wearing handcuffs again, accused by Denver cops of second-degree forgery (four counts), criminal impersonation (three counts), and check fraud (a single count). At trial, court reports indicate, he was found guilty on two forgery charges and sentenced to four years in the state pen; he appealed the conviction and was released on bond.

While out on bond, he was popped a third time, for "conspiracy to dispense" cocaine, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Probation records say he pled to a single count of "Criminal Attempt to Possess a Schedule II Controlled Substance," and got another four-year sentence, to be served consecutively with his earlier term. Fanger tells us he did three years in the Colorado pen and used the time behind bars to pursue college degrees.

His probation officer didn't have particularly flattering things to say about him, concluding, in a written report, that he was driven by "greed" and "the opportunity to turn $100,000 into half a million dollars in three to four weeks time." The probation officer was also concerned that Fanger was $25,000 behind on child support payments to an ex-spouse, with whom he'd had four kids.

"It's amazing," says one source who knows Fanger. "Every person around him gets screwed."

UPDATE: I recently received a call from Gary Fanger asking me to take down this post, disputing some of the allegations made in the Guardian article, and noting that even some of the accurate points were long in the past. Also note that Mr. Fanger has apparently left the "strike staffing" business.

While I have a policy of not taking down posts, I do have a policy of letting everyone have their say. I am publishing Mr. Fanger's letter below.

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for taking the time to talk about the Scab Master post this morning. I wrote a letter a couple of days ago to the publisher of the Guardian asking him to take the article down. The article was interesting because the next issue had a full page inside front cover ad for the SEIU. I don’t know if they were rewarding them for the article but my issues with the SEIU are behind both of us. Their negative information about me was pulled down by them voluntarily last year. I am hoping you can do the same.

I understand that you don’t normally take your postings down but this is a little different since the information was taken from the Guardian and it was not substantiated like it should have been. They called me hours before it went to press and even though I gave th em plenty of references, my son who is an attorney, an ex wife, an employee and other business associates they did not take the time to interview them.

The article covers the strike but mostly talks about my life and portrays a lot of negative information, some which is false and some that was true many years ago about past taxes and child support that was due and now paid. The article mentions a criminal record that is over 20 years old which I paid a price for but this article and its content continues to haunt my life. I have several children I am supporting, I pay all my taxes and I have no child support that is due. I have overcome a lot of obstacles in my life but still this article coming up on the top of a Google search is causing me personal and professional problems.

One of my employees voluntarily wrote a counter follow up commentary that ran in an issue just after this article. It helped because it would show up under the Scab Master article but it does not show up any more. I ignored the posts for years but lately they have caused me some real problems professionally and even when I was trying to get a loan.

I appreciate your time and attention and hope that you will consider my request.

Sincerely,

Gary Fanger

Foulke's Future: OSHA Alliance With Weight Watchers?

From Confined Space Roving Correspondent Bill Kojola

Our soon-to-be nominated and likely future leader of OSHA has recently been on a kick to get "fat" out of the workplace. That's right, Ed is zeroing in on what he thinks is a major workplace problem - OBESITY. It's the cause of much of our problems in the workforce according to Chairman Foulke -- things like decreased productivity, increased workplace violence and musculoskeletal disorders -- and may lead to the destruction of our workers' comp and health care systems and the ruin of the business community!

Sound preposterous?? Not at all - let's follow the bouncing ball. Ed is active as a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and it's Employee Health, Safety & Security Committee and he's been speaking out:

The obesity epidemic is a smoldering time bomb on HR's (human resources) doorway. The problem has been identified, but so far, real solutions haven't been discovered. Unless they are -- and soon -- the economic fallout will be devastating. The health care and workers' comp systems may collapse, many employers will be driven out of business...or all of the above.

And in July 8, 2004 testimony before the House Small Business Subcommittee on Tax, Finance, and Exports on HR 1818, the Workforce Health Improvement Program Act, Chairman Ed says:

First, for those employers and employees who take advantage of this bill's provisions, it is almost guaranteed that their employees will suffer less health-related on-the-job injuries. Specifically, with more frequent exercise, employees will strengthen their muscle tone and as a result will be less susceptible to back injuries and muscle strain.

Furthermore, reducing obesity in the workplace will in turn reduce some psychological disorders such as depression. This in turn could reduce violence in the workplace.

Whew! Such enlightenment. A future OSHA standard on obesity?? The standards writing shop needs something to do -- and now here's a standard the Bush folks might like.

OSHA Nominee Ed Foulke: A Gift to Workers From A Union Busting Law Firm

So it turns out that the nomination of Edwin Foulke as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA last week is looking more and more like a typical Bush administration move: Appoint a Republican political operative to head an agency that he's spent most of his career working to undermine. Except in this case, there's an extra twist. Foulke is not just a Republican mover and shaker in South Carolina, he's also a partner at Jackson-Lewis, one of the most notorious union-busting lawfirms in the country. How appropriate for a Bush Administration Assistant Secretary of Labor.

I realized that when I wrote the original post that Jackson Lewis resided on the dark side, but I didn't have time to do much research that evening. Little did I know how easy the research would be. Just Google "Jackson Lewis" + "union busting" and you come up with 322 hits. Substitute "union busting" with the more polite phrase "union avoidance" and you get 304 hits.

Jackson Lewis publishes a newsletter called Preventive Strategies and one of their main Practice Areas is Labor Relations, including Preventive Practices"

Committed to the practice of preventive labor relations through issue assessment, supervisory training, policy development, and positive communications, Jackson Lewis has assisted many employers in winning NLRB elections or in avoiding union elections altogether. (emphasis added)

Much of Jackson-Lewis's evildoing, or "preventive labor relations" came to light nationally in a New York Times article last year that described how Enersys, a company that had hired Jackson Lewis to help it "avoid" a union, sued the law firm for malpractice, accusing Jackson Lewis of advising it to engage in illegal behavior.

You've really got to read the entire article. It's a nightmare about how the workers at the plant chose to organize with the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), despite the anti-union campaign organized by Jackson Lewis for the company. The company then fired a union steward and broke numerous other labor laws leading to an NLRB complaint citing 120 violations of federal law, among them wrongly firing union leaders, assisting the anti-union campaign, improperly withdrawing union recognition and moving production to nonunion plants as retaliation. The company then refused to sign a contract and threatened layoffs unless the union agreed to a "gainsharing program," that would provide bonuses based on productivity increases. The company never provided the bonuses and it was later discovered never had any intention to. (More on Enersys here.)

Even Tonight Show host Jay Leno doesn't think much of union busting firms like Jackson, Lewis:

Unionists have a good reason to watch "The Tonight Show". Its host, comedian Jay Leno, just busted the number-one union busting law firm, Jackson, Lewis, out of a lucrative deal.

Leno was scheduled to appear at the Society of Human Resource Management's annual convention in Las Vegas on June 25-28 - that is until union research Rick Rehberg found out about it. Rehberg, a corporate researcher for the Food & Allied Service Trades, an AFL-CIO department, kept coming across Jackson, Lewis in the 25 or so union campaigns he's worked on.

That's not surprising since the notorious law firm has defeated organizing drives in over 30 states. And they've done it mean and dirty. For example, the New York Daily News reported the law firm was responsible for setting up armed guards at factory gates in at least three states to stop union organizing campaigns. And Jackson, Lewis routinely advises companies to set up forced overtime when union meetings are scheduled, watch workers during break time to detect potential organizing drives, and prohibit workers' communication to thwart the distribution of union material.

Companies pay big money to Jackson, Lewis and other union busters for exactly that kind of information. In fact, union busting is a billion dollar industry. Jackson, Lewis charges $1,200 to $1,600 a person for running seminars titled, "How to Stay Union Free in Today's Era of Corporate Campaigns" and "Best Employer Practices to Stay Union Free in the Millennium". But thanks to Leno, Jackson, Lewis, won't be garnering a hefty check at this year's SHRM conference.

You can also find stories about J-L's participation in notorious campaigns against the unionization of Borders Bookstores, Berlin Health & Rehabilitation Center in Berlin, Vermont, Episcopal Church Home, nursing home in Rochester, NY, and Patient Care in New York City and many, many more. Infuriated after losing a 2002 election at Saint-Gobain Abrasives factory in Worcester, Massachusetts, Jackson Lewis even went so far as to file an unfair labor practice suit against Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) because he told workers that they should vote for the union (which they did.)

Foulke isn't directly part of J-L's union-busting practice. He belongs to the "Workplace Safety Compliance, including Violence Prevention" practice:

To assist in compliance efforts and to reduce the likelihood of a citation, we advise employers in developing safety programs and conducting preventive self-audits to pinpoint and remedy potential legal vulnerabilities.

Yes, you read that right. The purpose of Jackson Lewis's safety programs and self audits is not to protect workers from getting injured or killed, but to "pinpoint and prevent potential legal vulnerabilities." We all have our priorities.

And then there's the Violence Prevention part, which from J-L's perspective seems to be instruction in how to lay off troublesome employees without having them come back in and blow your head off. No mention is made of the overwhelming cause of workplace violence like retail store robberies and assaults of mental health and social service workers.

Foulke was also a member of J-L's Management Training practice, which includes programs on "maintaining union-free status."

Whether or not Foulke participated directly in Jackson Lewis's union busting activities, he certainly didn't have a whole lot of good things to say about one of labor's priorities throughout the 1990's, OSHA's ergonomics standard that was repealed by the Bush administration in 2001:

"It should be called the OSHA Lawyers' Full Employment Act," says Edwin Foulke, himself an attorney who specializes in OSHA-related issues for the Jackson Lewis law firm based in Washington, D.C. "I would have liked to have seen voluntary guidelines. Most employers want to do the right thing, but this will just be a big record-keeping exercise."

Foulke and other skeptics claim there isn't enough science yet to prescribe precise fixes for problems....

While Foulke was basically J-L's OSHA guy, questions need to be asked (preferably by Senators at his confirmation hearing) about what Foulke thinks about workers' right to organize. Was he in sync with the union busting activities of Jackson Lewis? Are union organizing campaigns that focus on health and safety issues a healthy sign of worker involvement or a sign of trouble? What does he think about behavioral safety programs that blame workers for accidents?

What does he think about the role of the "worker representative" as described in the OSHA law? Is it a good thing if workers exercise their rights to push management into improving safety conditions? Coming out of such a virulently anti-union firm, will he be able to work with unions? Unlike any other Republican administrations since OSHA was created in 1971, the Bush appointees have refused, with rare exceptions, to work seriously with unions. Will he continue this practice?

So what does all this mean for OSHA over the next 3 ½ years?

The bottom line is that we’re somewhat lacking in actual health and safety expertise in OSHA's front office. We now have attorneys in all of the top three jobs: Foulke, an attorney from a union busting lawfirm, a local Republican Party chairman and an officer in the Republican National Lawyer’s Association; Deputy Assistant Secretary Jonathan Snare, a former Texas political operative, member of the Republican National Lawyer’s Association and former lobbyist for Metabolife, maker of the killer drug ephedra; and Deputy Assistant Secretary Steve Witt, an attorney who has worked at a variety of positions in OSHA's Washington headquarters since 1985.

What all this means is no major regulations except those ordered by the courts, more emphasis (if that’s possible) on costly, unproven voluntary programs like VPP and alliances, continued frosty relations (or no relations) with labor unions, enforcement will continue muddle along increasingly strained for resources and there will be little, if any, Congressional oversight unless the Democrats take back one house of Congress next year.

In other words, status quo.

Take Confined Space On The Road With You

As those of you who have been reading Confined Space for a while know, I have a few major reasons for sacrificing my sleep and other spare-time pursuits: to satisfy my political obsessions, to get health and safety information to workers, and to help create a movement in this country that will force the powers-that-be to take worker safety and health more seriously.

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 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 home url 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.

Flight Attendants Sue FAA Over OSHA Protections

By strange coincidence, I wore my OSHA NOW shirt to the gym today. It was given to me in 2000 by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) when then Assistant Secretary for OSHA Charles Jeffress signed Memorandum of Understanding with then Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Jane Garvey, promising to address the workplace safety and health problems of flight attendants.

Today, five years later, the AFA-CWA filed a complaint in District Court against Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and FAA Administrator Marion Blakely "for their failure to ensure the health and safety of flight attendants and other employees working in the airline industry."
The root of the problem is Section 4(b)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act which states that if a federal agency claims that it has jurisdiction over the health and safety of its employees, then OSHA can't enforce the law in that agency -- even if the agency is doing a lousy job. In 1975, the FAA claimed jurisdiction over the health and safety of crewmembers on civil aircraft, yet has failed to enforce basic standards. OSHA, nevertheless, was kicked out of the picture.

Flight attendants suffer from a number of workplace health and safety problems and no one is dealing with them:

Flight attendants encounter a wide variety of occupational hazards while working aboard commercial flights including turbulence, severe changes in cabin air pressure, unwieldy service carts, exposure to toxic chemicals, unruly and sick passengers, threats of terrorism and emergency evacuations. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, flight attendants suffer injuries and illnesses four times more frequently than workers in private industry and more than twice as often as those in construction.

After the FAA had repeatedly ignored flight attendants' requests to address these problems, the Association of Flight Attendants filed a petition in 1990 asking the agency to adopt selected OSH Act safety regulations. Seven years later, the FAA responded that AFA-CWA’s issues did not constitute an immediate safety concern and denied the petition due to "budgetary constraints."

But in 2000, Jeffress and Garvey signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) under which both agencies agreed to establish a procedure for coordinating and supporting enforcement of the OSHAct with respect to the working conditions of employees and aircraft operations, and for resolving jurisdictional questions. But that process has fallen apart under the Bush administration.

AFA-CWA’s complaint asksthe court to issue an order declaring that the FAA has failed to exercise its asserted jurisdiction to establish occupational health and safety standards for flight attendants and crewmembers. And, as a result, the Secretary of Labor has failed to fulfill her statutory duty under the OSH Act to ensure healthful working conditions for flight attendants.

And so the neverending story of public employees being treated like second class citizens continues.

Chemical Katrinas: Are We Prepared? (3 Guesses)

As a result of laws passed by Congress over the past twenty years, Americans have the tools to be knowledgeable about the chemical hazards in their communities, and, working with public authorities and the companies that use the chemicals, should be able to respond effectively to any releases. But the events surrounding Katrina, as well as a number of lesser known chemical-related incidents raise serious doubts about the success of those efforts.

But way of background, in 1986 Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), partly as a result of the 1984 Bhopal disaster. EPCRA established requirements for reporting on hazardous and toxic chemicals, but also requirements regarding emergency planning and “Community Right-to-Know” to help increase the public’s knowledge and access to information on chemicals at individual facilities, their uses, and releases into the environment.

Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 Congress and EPA's resulting Risk Management Program regulations, companies that use certain chemicals are required to file chemical accident prevention plans that include worst-case and other and more likely accident scenarios; the facility's accident prevention practices and emergency response program.

Meanwhile, since 9/11, homeland security funds have become available to states and subdivisions that develop "All Hazards" Emergency Operations Plans that are supposed to address chemical, as well as other hazards from terrorism to chemical releases to hurricanes.

How well are these programs working? Not so well in San Antonio.

When deadly chlorine gas spilled from a derailed tanker on the outskirts of San Antonio, city and county fire crews rushed in hoping to rescue trapped survivors.

But as panicked residents choked on fumes, the operation stalled for more than six hours as confusion and poor communication stymied the joint effort.

City firefighters had all the best protective gear, but weren't familiar with the terrain. County firefighters knew the terrain but lacked the gear. And neither group could talk to the other by radio.

The June 2004 chlorine spill, which killed four and injured dozens, exposed many of the same vulnerabilities as the 9-11 attacks, when police outside the World Trade Center couldn't use their radios to alert firefighters that the first tower had collapsed.

Now, more than a year after the train wreck and four years after the terror attacks, many of the lessons of 9-11 have yet to be heeded — a point driven home yet again by the sluggish relief effort along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Then in Greenville County, South Carolina last week

Residents felt their homes tremble, workers sniffed the acrid air and parents The problem is that there is more money (for equipment and training) than coordination and organization that would result in actual preparedness. searched hurriedly for their children after a fatal chemical plant blast sent heavy black smoke billowing into the sky.

Confusion reigned in the aftermath.

Some parents weren't sure where their kids were headed after they left three Greenville County public schools that were evacuated. Once they found them, some had to wait up to an hour to claim them.

Nearby workers and residents said they received conflicting messages about whether they should leave and where they should go, although a shelter had been set up for them.

***

"There were a lot of people who were evacuated," [Taylors Fire Chief Bobby]Baker said. "There were a lot of people who were not evacuated, and that's because of the resources."


The mid-morning explosion at Carolina Polymers off Rutherford Road killed a contractor and sent 12 people to Greenville Memorial Hospital, including nine firefighters, authorities said.

***

Linda Humphrey said a firefighter told her the evacuation wasn't mandatory, but a sheriff's deputy told her 20 minutes later to leave. She wasn't told where to go with the dogs, cats and ferrets she keeps as part of pet rescue mission or how long to stay.

"I watched the news for days about what's going on in New Orleans, and for this to happen in your own backyard," Humphrey said in a reference to the much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina.

Baker said he didn't know how many residents evacuated, but the area stretched a half-mile from the plant. About 2,000 children fled Taylors and Paris elementary schools and Sevier Middle School at the request of fire officials, said school district spokesman Oby Lyles.

The problem is that there seems to be plenty of money circulating for equipment and training, but there hasn't been anywhere near enough attention paid to the oversight and coordination from state and federal authorities that actually results in preparedness.

Emergency responders are better equipped, better trained and working together more closely than they once did, and Texas has set deadlines for getting the right tools in the hands of those who need them.

And while the spending has been haphazard, the money has opened up new worlds of technology to police, fire and health departments as well as hospitals.

Firefighters now have access to large caches of protective suits with self-contained air tanks.

At a disaster, emergency workers will strategize inside air-conditioned mobile command centers with GIS mapping systems, high-speed Internet and satellite TV. They'll use laptop computers to monitor changes in the weather, and deploy mobile decontamination tents that pop open with a few snaps.

But for all the spending, what have we bought? How much safer are we?

What happened at the train derailment was "a perfect example" of the consequences of inadequate preparation, training and equipment, said Carolyn Merritt, chairwoman of the Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates industrial chemical accidents.

Merritt said a lack of planning and coordination in responding to emergencies has been more the rule than the exception in U.S. chemical accidents in recent years.

The combination of lax government oversight and lots of free flowing money had predictable results. The San Antonio article describes the situation in Texas, but the problem is hardly limited to the Lone Star state:

In January, a state auditor's report found "significant weaknesses" in how Texas managed its grants for police, fire and emergency workers. The state agency overseeing the program, the Texas Engineering Extension Service, failed to require communities to buy equipment they needed and didn't tie spending to performance or risk, according to the report.

Monitoring was lax. And when auditors visited sites, they discovered that many towns bought equipment that was still stacked in boxes, out of easy reach in the event of a disaster. In many cases, the money wasn't going to the people who needed it most.

At the outset, the grants were set up to push the money out swiftly to the locals, who — theoretically — knew best what they should buy.

"The strategy initially was to arm first responders with what they said they needed to address all threats — not just terrorism but all hazards," said Steve McCraw, the governor's director of homeland security.

What they needed, according to spending records, included equipment that fit everyday uses.

Thousands of dollars were used to buy binoculars, traffic cones and flashlights. Communities spent more than $19 million on vehicles, and since the state didn't limit how many vehicles they could buy, some spent as much as 38 percent of their grants on pickups and vans.

State auditors also found abuses of grant funds, including a Ford Excursion assigned to an executive in Weslaco and $51,000 worth of radios Hemphill County bought from one of its own commissioners, who submitted the only bid.

In at least one instance, the abuses led to criminal charges. The Parker County emergency management coordinator and the county's purchasing agent were indicted on theft charges after a Texas Ranger found all-terrain vehicles bought with homeland security grant funds parked in their garages.

And one also wonders how much attention is being paid to the health and safety of those actually doing the work, the responders:

As time goes on, new problems arise. Chemical testing kits that came with the trailers have expired without replacements. The county also failed to fund upkeep of the equipment, including hazmat suits and air tanks that must be tested periodically.
Some volunteer firefighters who would work inside the hazmat suits, which can get hot enough to overwhelm even the healthiest firefighters, have not received routine physicals. The grants can't be used for physicals, and the county has not yet paid for them.

Some of those who would handle the equipment complain that they lack the training to use it properly. Although city and county hazmat teams have run through a few exercises together, joint training has been limited.

One thing missing from both of these articles is any mention of Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs). EPCRA required states to be divided into emergency planning districts, each of which was supposed to have an LEPC that was required to develop an emergency response plan and provide information about chemicals in the community to citizens. LEPCs were supposed to be composed not just of local government emergency response officials, but also of representatives of industry, the media, hospitals as well as environmental and community groups.

In other words, LEPCs were supposed to be a vehicle for participation of the entire community, not just the "professionals" in planning for emergencies.

Unfortunately, many communities never developed LEPCs and others fell into disuse after a few years of activity. After the renewed interest in emergency preparedness after 9/11, a few LEPCs have become re-energized, although much of their attention has been diverted by "homeland security" concerns to terrorism and away from the more hum-drum, but more common chemical plant releases and train wrecks.

Yes, I know it's unfashionable (or at least it was before Katrina), but while real preparedness for real hazards requires money, it also requires some responsibility, competence and oversight on the state and federal government levels. And that means more than throwing money at local communities because "they know best what the local needs are." It means serious oversight by EPA, by OSHA and by FEMA, as well as a regulatory structure that promotes competence, honesty and agility from Washington DC to all the way down to Columbia, South Carolina and Austin, Texas and then to Greenville County and San Antonio.

We've been warned. Many times.

What's With Greenville County, South Carolina

A few days ago I hadn't even heard of Greenville County, South Carolina. Now in the last week, we have this:

1. A chaotic response to a chemical release.


2. Ed Foulke, Chair of the Greenville County Republican Party is nominated to be director of federal OSHA.


3. A Greenville Technical College administrator who called Hurricane Katrina evacuees "yard apes" has been fired.

What's next, locusts?

There's Money To Be Made: Refiners Put Off Maintenance

Well this makes me feel a whole lot better

US refiners are putting off scheduled maintenance to their plants in response to a White House call to maximise petrol and diesel production following Hurricane Katrina. The move has raised concerns about long-term risks among analysts, energy executives and safety officials.

The Energy Department told refiners informally that they should boost production after the storm severely damaged oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, sending petrol prices rocketing to record highs. Although the refiners say no formal request has been made, they admit that the White House made its position known. Several US refiners have since said they would cut back on maintenance.

"We plan to review all planned maintenance and will defer any maintenance projects unless a delay will jeopardise the safety or reliability of our plants," said Mary Rose Brown, a spokeswoman for Valero, one of the biggest US refiners.

Yet analysts note maintenance, by its very nature, is essential to keeping refineries in proper working order.

"Deferring refinery maintenance has its risks," says JP Morgan's analysts. "Working a refinery at full capacity and without necessary tune-ups can damage units, resulting in potentially very costly and extended unplanned repair work, which would be very unwelcome, given the tight market conditions."

Indeed, one energy executive said liability issues could arise if an accident takes place, leaving the White House open to blame.

Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said several oil executives had told Samuel Bodman, the energy secretary, that they would put off maintenance. His response was, if that was something they needed to do, that was fine, but he would never condone any activity that would put workers in danger, Mr Stevens said.

Or, as Richard Nixon said, "We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure."

Of course, if anything does go wrong, it will be the workers' fault.

Record OSHA Fine Expected In BP Blast

As OSHA's September 23 deadline approaches, the Houston Chronicle says that agency is preparing for a recordbreaking fine for the March 23 BP Texas City explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170. The problem is that apparently settlement talks are under way with the company which could mean a sharply lower fine and that OSHA's complete findings may never be released.

The closed-door meetings between BP and the government agency angered the nation's largest industrial union, which strongly opposed the settlement talks when notified of them by OSHA earlier this week. Victims of the blast also were displeased.

"The families of the 15 who died, the public in general and certainly the workers deserve to know everything that OSHA found before OSHA trades it away," said Mike Wright, director for health, safety and environment for the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh.

"Even if there is negotiation afterward and the company essentially plea bargains, people still deserve to know what OSHA found initially ... ," Wright said. "This is like the police reaching an agreement with a criminal before an arrest."

Art Ramos Jr., whose father died in the blast, said he believed the agency failed to properly monitor the Texas City refinery and its citation — reduced or not — had little merit.

"Honestly, I think OSHA dropped the ball," he said. "My father thought it was one of the most dangerous plants he had ever been in."

The "advantage" of a settlement, from OSHA's point of view, is that there would be no costly, lengthy appeal of the citation.

The advantage to BP would not so much be the decreased penalty, which would be dwarfed in any case by BP's huge profits, but rather the possible removal of the stigma of a "willful" citation. Settlements often convert "willful" citations into "unclassified" citations, which the companies like because it makes them seem less at fault. In addition, OSHA can't initiate a criminal prosecution unless there has been a willful citation that caused a death, although the Justice Department could still go after BP using environmental regulations.

If no settlement is reached, the size of the fine could break OSHA's previous record:

Those familiar with the case say the fine against BP could surpass the agency's record of about $11 million — an amount that may seem small but is much larger than average. OSHA fines rarely break $1 million.

Even if OSHA issues a multimillion-dollar fine against BP, it would have little financial impact on the energy giant, which posted $12.2 billion in profits in mid-2005.

In fact, BP announced in July that it has already set aside $700 million to deal with death and personal injury claims and had paid out $120 million so far.

More BP Stories from Confined Space here.

Katrina Scapegoats: OK, Now Let's Blame, uh the Enviros -- Yeah, That's the Ticket!

Two rather disturbing developments on the Katrina-environment front which may fortell where the administration is going with its cynical attempts to address the disaster -- not the Gulf Coast disaster, but the disaster of Bush's popularity ratings.

In their neverending search for scapegoats, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress have found someone new to blame for the New Orleans disaster: those tree hugging, industry killing, progress slowing environmentalists. And not only did they cause the disaster, now they're even getting in the way of the good faith (and well organized) efforts of the administration to clean up the mess.

As David Sirota and the New York Times report, Senator James Inhofe (R- OK) has proposed a bill that would allow the administration to waive any environmental law for three months to assist the Katrina recovery.

As if that wasn't bad enough, NPR's All Things Considered reported Friday night that there is a draft proposal at EPA that would give the EPA administrator authority to exempt anyone from a range of environmental laws and rules in emergency situations. But not just in national "state of emergency" or even emergencies declared by the Governor of a state. The EPA administrator would be able to decide for him/herself what constitutes an emergency. The memo says that such authority is necessary because current environmental laws "could hamper speedy relief and reconstruction."

The adminstration has already used its current authority to waive environmental rules to permit contaminated water to be pumped into Lake Pontchartrain to drain the city of New Orleans, but environmentalists fear that the administration is using Katrina as a pretext to gut environmental protections.

Meanwhile, the Clarion Ledger in Mississippi has obtained documents indicating that the Bush administration is attempting to blame the New Orleans flood on environmentalists.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

The administration's inquiry may have been launched by a recent article in the CATO Institutes webpage that suggests that the Sierra Club may be to blame for the flood because it demanded an environmental impact study in 1996 concerning work being done on the Mississippi River levies.

The Clarion Ledger points out, however, that not only did the Sierra Club not oppose raising the levies around New Orleans, but there was a slight problem with that conclusion.

The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city.

When Katrina struck, the hurricane pushed tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, which borders the city to the north. Corps officials say the water from the lake cleared the levees by 3 feet. It was those floodwaters, they say, that caused the levees to degrade until they ruptured, causing 80 percent of New Orleans to flood.

Bookbinder said the purpose of the litigation by the Sierra Club and others in 1996 was where the corps got the dirt for the project. "We had no objections to levees," he said. "We said, 'Just don't dig film materials out of the wetlands. Get the dirt from somewhere else.'"

But this administration never lets facts get in the way of a good attack against their enemies.

And not to be outdone, the above mentioned Senator Inhofe has also launched an investigation into whether or not environmentalist opposition to Corps of Engineers projects were actually the cause of the entire disaster.

Oh, by the way, if you noticed any other troublesome laws or regulations that Katrina can help get rid of, contact the National Association of Manufacturers which informed its members last week that:

We are also seeking information on other issues which have not yet been addressed but may need legislative or regulatory fixes in light of Katrina. If you have identified any such issues, please let us know that as well.

I can imagine the suggestions that are pouring in....

Other Katrina Posts

• Katrina Workers in Peril: Will We Repeat Mistakes of 9/11 Cleanup?, September 14, 2005 (Center for American Progress)
• NIEHS Comes Through On Katrina Workers' Safety Rights, September 14, 2005
• What Katrina Tells Us About Our Government's Priorities, September 14, 2005
• FEMA to OSHA: Thanks, But No Thanks, September 13, 2005
• New Orleans 2005: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, September 13, 2005
• Hurricane Katrina Workplace Safety and Health Resources, September 13, 2005
• To Be A New Orleans Police Officer, September 13, 2005
• Bush Finds Golden Lining In Katrina: The Opportunity to Screw Workers, September 10, 2005
• Even Serious Bloggers Need To Have A Bit Of Fun Occasionally, September 10, 2005
• From A Doctor Stranded In New Orleans, September 9, 2005
• Chem Board Warns Refineries & Chem Plants to Take Special Precautions When Starting Up After Katrina, September 8, 2005
• Those Who Stayed Behind To Work: New Orleans Police, September 6, 2005
• New Orleans: As If The Water Wasn't Bad Enough..., August 31, 2005
• Hurricane Warning, August 31, 2005

Setting America's Priorities Straight: The View From Over There

My friend Rory over there across the sea doesn’t seem to understand the American justice system, much less the American values system.

See, what makes this country great is the celebrity of our celebrities, and the importance we place on making sure nothing sullies their image. Something happens to that image and major money is at stake.

Workers, on the other hand, are better not seen at all, especially when they do something unpleasant like getting themselves killed in a dirty old septic tank.

So it comes as no surprise to us People magazine addicts that a court would sentence a photogapher to three years in jail for taking topless photographs of actress Cameron Diaz and trying to sell them back to her for $3.5 million, or sentence a teenager to 11 months in prison for hacking into Paris Hilton's cell phone, whereas someone who killed two workers in a septic tank gets fined only $4,700.

Rory is only thankful that Cameron and Hilton weren't killed in the workplace, lest the American justice system let their killers off with a light slap on the wrist.

Silly boy.

Bush Nominates OSHA & MSHA Heads

In a rare twofer, President Bush today nominated Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. to be an Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health and Richard Stickler to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.

Foulke: Not a Nutcase

Foulke, a professional Republican, is currently a partner with the law firm of Jackson Lewis LLP in Greenville, South Carolina. He served as the Chairman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) from 1990 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1995 as a Commissioner. Foulke was also a member of the Bush/Cheney Transition team for the Labor Department.

Wendy, "W" and Ed at a
fundraiser that clearly
paid off

Foulke's position as Chairman of the Greenville Country, South Carolina Republican Party was not mentioned in the President's press release, nor was the fact that Foulke was a Bush Pioneer which means that he pledged to gather $100,000 for the 2004 Bush campaign. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

About the best thing I heard about him from one OSHA observer is that he knows OSHA law, he's fairly mainstream, and that he's "not a nutcase," high praise for Bush appointees these days. Although one wonders when reading his biographical materials produced when running for a position on the Republican National Committee in 2004:

Ed is a life long pro-life, pro-family, social and fiscal conservative Republican. As a true Ronald Reagan Republican, he believes in limited government, lower taxes, a strong national defense and personal responsibility.

Ideologically and policy-wise, Foulke is your typical Republican, frequently wailing over the plight of small business besieged by big bad OSHA inspectors, and extolling the eternal virtues of voluntary programs as the antidote to all that is wrong with the world. He has testified several times on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce on a variety of OSHA issues and written articles warning businesses that the cost of the soon-to-be-repealed ergonomics standard would be "significant and, in some cases, result in severe financial hardship."

Richard Who?

While Foulke is at least fairly well known in the workplace safety and health community (especially in Republican circles), Stickler's appointment, on the other hand, was met by a collective "Huh?" by both labor and management.

Stickler has spent his career in the mining industry, mostly as a mine manager, and as Director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety from 1997 to 2003. Stickler was head of the Bureau during the 2002 Quecreek Mine flood that trapped 9 miners who were eventually rescued.

United Mineworkers spokesman Phil Smith emphasized the need for good communication between MSHA and the UMWA. Communication has been good between the UMWA and current acting Assistant Secretary David Dye, although they often don't see eye to eye. Smith urged the Senate to make sure that MSHA fulfills its mandate as a strong watchdog, especially with the current pressures for increased production and the retirement of experienced miners with inexperienced miners now doing more of the work.

Some mine officials weren't quite as diplomatic, wondering where the hell they found this guy. Those who know him aren't expecting aggressive enforcement and express concern that he had spent two years working for a subsidiary of Massey Energy, which has been battling with the Mineworkers for years.

Former Assistant Secretary for OSHA John Henshaw resigned last December and former MSHA Assistant Secretary Dave Lauriski resigned last November.

Katrina Workers in Peril: Will We Repeat Mistakes of 9/11 Cleanup?

My article, Katrina Workers in Peril: Will We Repeat Mistakes of 9/11 Cleanup?, has been posted on the Center for American Progress website.

(Note the correction on last night's post that the NIEHS is actually the only agency to mention workers' OSHA rights on their materials.) UPDATE: The on-line article has been corrected.

NIEHS Comes Through On Katrina Workers' Safety Rights

I've been complaining recently that none of the web pages on Katrina-related health and safety issues (EPA, CDC, NOISH or even OSHA)mention workers health and safety rights and that it's the employer's responsibilty to provide safe working conditions.

But I just took a look at the Katrina Responder Orientation Briefing slide show produce by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' (NIEHS) Worker Education and Training Program (WETP), and low and behold, this is what I found:

What are employers' responsibilities?

• The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide a safe and healthful workplace free of recognized hazards and to follow OSHA standards. Employers' responsibilities also include providing training, medical examinations and recordkeeping.

For more information about OSHA, go to www.osha.gov

or call 1-800-321-OSHA (6742)

Way to go. You win the Confined Space "Seal of Approval"