to honor individual scientists and engineers or organizations for exemplary actions that help foster scientific freedom and responsibility. The award recognizes outstanding efforts to protect the public’s health, safety or welfare; to focus public attention on potential impacts of science and technology; to establish new precedents in carrying out social responsibilities; or to defend the professional freedom ofAnd no one is more deserving.scientists and engineers.
Dr. Michaels was also visible in the debate over a proposed executive branch policy that was designed to give the Office of Management and Budget more oversight and control over regulatory decisions based on scientific or technical data. He, along with others, objected to the initial proposal on the grounds that it could harm scientific research. Another aspect of scientific integrity to which Dr. Michaels has directed his energies is what he terms “manufacturing uncertainty.” He contends that both industry and the government undermine science that points to the need for additional regulation by overstating the uncertainty that accompanies all science. By emphasizing the uncertainty and ignoring scientific consensus, those opposed to new or stricter regulations are strengthened in their public positions.But before all that, Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health at the U.S. Department of Energy from 1998 to 2001, David helped earn recognition and compensation for the thousands of American veterans of the cold war nuclear weapons industry who had been suffering from cancers and other diseases due as a result of their exposure.
They were seeking compensation for chronic and often fatal illnesses that may have been caused by exposure to materials used in the U.S. weapons program. The now-aging workers were required to litigate their claims on a case-by-case basis, a process that could take years to reach a resolution. Although they were experiencing life-threatening occupational illnesses at a higher-than-expected rate, the government insisted on keeping secret the very information that could have helped prove the validity of their claims.Some career for such a young guy.
Seeking justice for these individuals, Dr. Michaels took on powerful interests in his own agency and in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to uncover previously secret records documenting exposure to radiation and beryllium at work sites, as well as more than two dozen scientific studies demonstrating the high risk of cancer deaths among these workers. His efforts led him to be cited as the architect of a historic initiative, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act of 2000, which guaranteed that workers be compensated for illnesses likely caused by occupational exposure. The knowledge that Dr. Michaels gleaned from the long-secret documents led him to successfully fight for stricter limits on exposure to beryllium, once again overcoming objections from DOD and industry.
Make clear that the next director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) needs to be someone with a history of advocating for miners' safety and health, not someone with a history of advocating for the interests of mine operators.A Charleston Gazette editorial picked up on the same themes. The Gazette has been meticulously identifying multiple the multiple failurs of MSHA and the Bush administration that led to the conditions that have caused the deaths of 18 miners this year, 16 in West Virginia alone:
Richard Stickler has spent the overwhelming part of his career as a mining company executive. His only experience with public enforcement of health and safety standards was marked by repeated attempts to limit regulations and reduce health and safety protections for miners in Pennsylvania. We cannot rely on Mr. Stickler to root out what Senator Byrd calls the "culture of cronyism" at MSHA, in which the special interests of mine operators take precedence over the health and safety of miners, because his nomination exemplifies the problem.
SixteenWest Virginia miners died during the first 33 days of this year. If any cause deserves serious attention from the federal government, you’d think that coal mine safety would be it.
Yet President Bush has nominated a longtime coal executive with a poor safety record to head the federal agency responsible for keeping miners safe. Richard Stickler was this administration’s nominee well before 12 West Virginia miners died after the Sago explosion in Upshur County.
Despite widespread belief that more communication equipment and better safety enforcement might have saved at least 11 of those men, Stickler told U.S. senators that current mine safety laws are “adequate.” A day later, two more miners died in separate incidents in Boone County. Yet Stickler remains the administration’s pick.
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President Bush’s administration is out of step with the rest of the country. He should find a qualified MSHA nominee to send before the U.S. Senate.
The United Mineworkers also announced last month that they would oppose Stickler's nomination.
Stickler was a mine industry executive before being appointed to run Pennsylvania's Bureau of Deep Mine Safety in 1997. Prior to running the agency, the mines he managed had injury rates that were double the national average, according to government data assembled by the Mineworkers. Stickler was head of Deep Mine Safety during the 2002 Quecreek mine disaster where nine miners were saved from a flooded mine. His agency came under criticism for not red-flagging mapping problems that were blamed for miners at Quecreek breaching an abandoned mine that released millions of gallons of water.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is expected to hold a vote sometime in March on the nomination of Stickler, as well as Ed Foulke to be head of OSHA.
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The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.
Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.
Congressman George Miller is probably not overstating the problem when he calls it "One of the greatest train robberies in the history of the world,"
President Bush has made changes in the treatment of asbestos claims a legislative priority, and the Senate action was a major setback for the White House.Frist, who had warned earlier that this was the last chance for the bill, suggested that it might be brought up for another vote following Presidents Day because one Senator who supports the bill, Daniel Inouye (D-HI), was absent.
The bill, more than two years in the making, became a casualty of powerful business interests opposed to it, as well as of a forceful coalition of conservative and liberal senators. The conservatives argued that the measure could lead to a new and expensive federal entitlement program. The liberals maintained that the asbestos fund was not large enough to compensate victims and was a bailout for asbestos companies and their insurers.
Lawful or not, the delay will cost lives. Were it not so deadly serious, it would be amusing to follow the twisted logic used by MSHA to try to show that the long delay won’t really harm miners forced to breathe toxic levels of diesel fumes for five more years. MSHA’s main argument was that the lower limit isn’t feasible anyway, a conclusion belied by the preamble to the original standard, and by the extensive research MSHA and NIOSH have done since then. We believe that MSHA fully understands that the standard is feasible, and that it only remains to enforce it. We suspect that the delay was ordered by the Office of the Secretary of Labor.In addition to his testimony about the administration's rollback of diesel fume protections, Wright also had this to say about the Bush administration's workplace safety "philosophy":
Even the announcement of a proposed delay has already harmed miners. Regulation spurs innovation; deregulation can stifle it. Alternative fuels are one way to reduce diesel emissions. Biodiesel is one such fuel. Another is a proprietary emulsified fuel blend called PuriNOx. However, the company that makes it has decided to exit the business at least temporarily – in part, because they now anticipate less of a market in the mining industry, due to the proposed delay. Fortunately, there are many other ways to meet the standard, and all our past experience with rulemaking teaches that once a new standard becomes law, the market will create ever-cheaper and more effective ways to meet it.
this Administration has made it clear that it believes in “voluntary compliance.” Well, we all believe in voluntary compliance, but every mine inspector – indeed every parent – knows that the way you get voluntary compliance is through strict enforcement. You can’t have the one without the other. Yet this Administration persists in seeing voluntary compliance and strict enforcement as incompatible. A favorite phrase is that “we have replaced confrontation with cooperation.” The Sago mine could have used a little more confrontation.Meanwhile, the diesel fume controversy has also caught the attention of Washington Post regulatory columnist Cyndi Skrzycki, who illuminates the powerful forces behind the administration's proposal to delay the protections:
The mine industry opposed the rule, citing differences over how diesel fumes affect health, how diesel particulates should be measured and what level of reduction is feasible.Coincidence? I think not.
Led by Patton Boggs attorney Henry Chajet, a group called the Mining Awareness Resource Group Diesel Coalition filed two lawsuits. One was over the rule and one was over the handling of an epidemiological study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the National Cancer Institute .
"The rule adopts a limit that is invalid, has no scientific basis and is not achievable from an engineering standpoint," Chajet said. "We have been stuck with this giant failed high school science project for five years."
The coalition is made up of mining companies and gets financial support from the National Mining Association, the industry's Washington trade group. The coalition and the NMA met with officials from the Office of Management and Budget in August to voice their concerns about the rule, one participant recalled. A month later, MSHA proposed postponing the effective date of the rule.
My husband's body laid underground for 43 days before it was ever brought out. And I'm going to tell you: That is a long, long wait.Scott Lepka, a miner currently at the Peabody Coal Federal No. 2 Mine in West Virginia. Lepka described how he was forced to drive himself miles to a hospital after almost severing his thumb in a mine accident:
And it has terribly, terribly tore our family apart. And I cannot tell you the condition that it has left me in, mentally and physically. And my life will never be the same.
This is the man that I met and married at the age of 16, and he was 18. And he was the light of my life.
We are from McDowell County , West Virginia . David had 34 years underground working in the mines. He was U.S. Steel's youngest foreman ever. David never had an accident underground.
And he was a good foreman. He cared for his men. He never asked his men to do anything that he wouldn't do. I guess you could call him a union foreman. His men loved him. In fact, he was made a honorary member of the UMWA after his death. That says a lot for David Blevins.
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And why is David Blevins dead today? Because of communication. There was no communication that day. There was no way of calling. Those men scrambled around that day in that mine like a pack of rats looking for communication. And because of lack of communication, there were 13 men dead -- lack of communication, a simple thing like communication, and 13 lay dead -- dead. Why? Communication.
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So did my husband die in vain? I don't know. But he should have never died. My husband should have never died. My life should not be in turmoil right now. My grandchildren should have had their grandfather. I'm telling you, this is unfair to me.
My husband should not have died in vain. And I'm asking you to become his voice.
And I've worked in union mines. I know for sure had this been a union mine first aid would have been administered immediately, an ambulance would have been called and waiting for me when I got outside and someone would have been appointed to monitor my condition and transport me outside.Randel Duckworth, a miner currently at the Federal No. 2 mine in West Virginia:
I'd like to speak about another safety issue, also.
In the union mines, you have the right to a safe workplace, you have the right to withdraw yourself from a dangerous situation. You also have a safety committee that you can address about safety concerns or problems. In the non-union mines, you have the right to withdraw yourself under federal law. However, I can tell you from experience, most men won't due to fear for their jobs, and most men don't feel comfortable pointing out safety issues because if they complain too much, they're singled out and given less attractive jobs or even fired.
I went to work for a mine emergency service out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And in the course of my duties, I was required to travel extensively across the country and the country's coal industry, mainly.Chuck Knisell, mineworker who used to work at the Sago mine:
And I would work in both union and non-union mines alike, so I got a good taste of both sides of the spectrum.
I have come to find out, and based only on my personal experiences, that when I was at a union-represented mine, I was greeted with a safety committee appointed by the union to oversee the health and welfare of those employees.
And the material I worked with was considered hazardous, and it was properly marked. And the company I represented at the time followed the guidelines. And they did a good job letting people know what they were up against. They provided the mine safety data sheets which simply explains what the material consists of that we worked with.
In the union-represented mine, I would have at least two union miners. At least one would be on a safety committee situation. They would be there the whole time and they would require me to provide all the information: how to handle the substances, how to utilize the material, and all of that. They oversaw that.
My focus is not so much on union versus non-union, but it is on the truth that union mines provide another voice concerning safety and welfare for the workers.
I would just like to start out with a quote from John L. Lewis, the former president of the United Mine Workers and one of the leaders of the Health and Safety Act.Amber Helms, daughter of Terry Helms who died in the Sago mine:
The quote is: "Coal has been splattered by the blood of too many miners, and that same coal has been washed by the tears of too many widows and their families."
That quote -- I'm not exactly sure when that quote was written down on paper -- 50 years ago probably. And here we go again: 16 deaths in a month.
It's time now for the government to stand up and take care of this problem. These coal companies are getting away with murder. And I'm not embarrassed to say that statement, because that's the facts.
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I can go on and on all day about the things that I've seen. Talking about gases: Someone mentioned about methane detectors on mining machinery. One of the coal companies' tricks was to take a Wal-Mart bag and place it over what they call the sniffer on the miner, which snuffs out -- it's not able to "sniff," I guess you'd say, for the methane.
And that was one of their tricks. And that was enforced. I was the miner operator at one of those mines, and that's what I was told to do.
On top of all in my dad's life, his family always came first. He would rather buy my brother and I a trendy pair of shoes or a nice shirt before he'd buy himself something. He needed clothes, and he never did buy anything.Sarah Hamner, daughter of George Junior Hamner, one of the 12 Sago miners killed last month, reading a note left by her father:
He was my pillar of strength. He was the person I went to when I was upset or whenever I thought that I wasn't going to do something right or I wasn't doing something in my full potential. He was always there to say, "You can do it."
I could've walked on the moon by myself. I could've flown there in his eyes. I could've done anything.
And my dad was more than just a dad to me. He was my best friend, he was my leader, my companion. He had my whole heart wrapped around his little finger.
If I never got married, and if I just lived with him the rest of my life, I'd be the happiest person in the world.
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Yet these men work as we speak -- right now today there are men underground working in conditions and with equipment that are so outdated -- I mean, it's ridiculous that I can get a computer and I can make a full Web site in an hour and have it up and running so the whole world can see it, but no one can find my dad or no one can track these men.
The technology is out there.
In Australia , they have tracking devices that cost as little as $20. What's $20 to a company?
In Canada , how they have underground safe houses that contain water, food, first aid, oxygen. My only question is, "Why don't we?"
In America, coal is the number one single most important material that helps heat America's homes, light our very rooms and are the energy source -- I think I believe it was 52 percent, something like that. So why don't we protect these men who get this material?
Coal mining is a vigorous job that takes a true toll on a human's body, so we can at least try to protect these bodies that obtain America's number-one energy source.
I understand that nothing that I say today or nothing that happens in the future's going to bring my dad back.
But my uncle Johnny, my uncle Mike, my cousin Rocky, as well as every other miner that is underground and every other son who's getting ready to go into the coal mines because that's where the jobs are in West Virginia and maybe some of these other states, we can prevent their families for going through this. We can prevent them -- their lives. We can help them.
And it's time now to look to the past to prepare for the future, because the miners of the future are what matter now. And we can learn from everything that has happened, from miners that have to take their selves to the hospital because no one will help them.
I never want another family to go through the pain and heart ache as our families have went through.
"Hi, Deb and Sarah.Deborah Hamner, wife of George Hamner:
"I'm still OK at 2:40 p.m.
"I don't know what is going on between here and outside. We don't hear any attempts at drilling or rescue. The section is full of smoke and fumes so we can't escape. We are all alive at this time.
"I just want you and Sarah to know I love you both and always have. Be strong and I hope no one else has to show you this note.
"I'm in no pain but don't know how long the air will last. Tell everyone I'm thinking of them, especially Billy, Marion, Will, Bill and Peg. I love you all.
"Junior Hamner, 1/2/06 ."
Besides showing Junior to be a loving man, I think there's a wealth of information contained in that note.Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mineworkers of America:
First of all, we can learn that the miners were still alive eight hours after the explosion; and, second of all, that they made an assessment that the section was too full of smoke and fumes and they could not escape.
They barricaded themselves at the face of the mines to confine the good air. And I understand that the materials needed to build a better barricade were not available on the section.
It breaks my heart to know that there's modern technology that could have prevented my husband's death and the Sago mines wasn't equipped with it.
I'm left with so many questions. One is why wasn't there a wireless communications system with the outside so that my husband and the other miners could have been told that the best chance for survival was to walk out?
Why weren't the escape ways well marked so the miners could have seen their way through the smoke and escaped?
Why hasn't MSHA required mines to be equipped with chambers or at least to require extra air supplies on the sections?
I think we all remember the Canadian miners that were able to escape because of the chambers. Why does Canada have better protection for its miners than we have in the United States, the most advanced country in the world?
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Now there are private and secret interviews being conducted by MSHA, and they are to resume tomorrow. Many of the witnesses will be employees who are represented by lawyers paid for by ICG. I will not be allowed to attend. The miner may ask the UMW to step out, but the company's paid-for attorney can stay. Does this seem like a fair process to get at the truth?
I'm begging each of you to contact David Dye, MSHA's director, to make sure these interviews are public so that family members and their representatives may attend.
Let me speak, if I could, to the issue of ventilating the mine with belt air. The law is very specific with respect to ventilating the mine with belt air. It is illegal to do that. You can't do that. Congress said you shouldn't do that.
But through rulemaking, that has been allowed to happen.
And let's speak to how that rulemaking has led us to these families having to come up here today with tears in their eyes and with widows who should be wives speaking to you in a very tearful and emotional manner, and children talking about how much they loved their fathers.
It is a failure of this United States government to protect the coal miners in the United States of America -- is what's wrong today.
Starting in 2001, we placed in charge of this agency -- that's supposed to protect coal miners -- a coal mine executive, which has already been mentioned today.
In 1969, when Congress wrote this act, they would have never said, "We've written this act and we've come to grips with the fact that this industry can't police itself, but now we're going to create an agency and give it to the industry to run."
They would have never done that in 1969, but we did it in 2001.
Not only did we do away with certain specific rules to protect coal miners' health and safety that were pending, we altered and changed the written law itself with respect to some of the common practices that protected coal miners at that time.
I suggest to you we're about to consider the exact same thing.
The president of United States has appointed another mine executive as his nominee to run this agency. And I suggest to you that we have written the president of the United States and said, "That's not a very good idea."
We should follow the lead of the governor of Virginia who, just today, is announcing he's appointed a coal miner -- a coal miner -- to run the state agency in Virginia.
And the federal government would be in a better position to say they care about coal miners if they looked at doing something exactly like that.
I want to say today that no one can say for sure that any accident or fatality or any tragedy could be prevented. But if I suggest to the United States Congress in joint session that we're going to cut off all the oxygen in the chamber and we're going to have a vote -- we're going to vote -- on: Would you like to have an hour's worth of oxygen or little more, would you like to have a situation where there's eight hours of oxygen or 10 hours, there would be bipartisan support in that chamber, 100 percent vote for oxygen to protect the members of Congress.
I think the coal miners in this country are just as good as any single member of Congress or anybody residing in that White House today. They should have the same types of protection that they would vote for themselves.
show that "so many of the things that the union leadership accuses business of and demonizes business for probably can be turned around, and the unions can be shown to be duplicitous and two-faced about their accusations."Berman clearly hasn't been following the recent mine disasters or reading about meatpackers in North Carolina or hotel workers or....well, he hasn't be reading Confined Space:The site includes statistics about what it calls the "size, scope, political activities, and criminal activity of the labor movement in the United States of America." It emphasizes the number of labor racketeering investigations and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints against unions and also lists rights workers have in dealing with their unions. Members can click on their own union on the Web site to see the union's executive compensation, budgets, political donations and "the shady tactics they practice," the site says. It also highlights how to end a union's right to represent employees at a workplace.
"The way unions are presently structured is often anachronistic," said lobbyist Rick Berman, who started the group. "They don't want to recognize that the world has moved on. Management isn't treating employees like they were in the 1930s or '40s. Unions don't have anything to sell anymore."And who's funding this noble effort?
Mr. Berman said various companies and a foundation had contributed to his nonprofit group, but he refused to identify them. He said he hoped to spend more than $5 million a year on the campaign.And what's the real purpose behind the campaign?
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A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials said the president of a state chamber of commerce told them that at a conference in Florida on Jan. 26, the state chambers had pledged several million dollars to back Mr. Berman's effort. But Mr. Berman said that when he spoke at the conference, he neither asked for nor received contributions. Rather, he said, he asked chamber officials to recommend that businesses in their states donate to his efforts.
Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that as far as he knew neither the United States Chamber nor any state chambers had contributed to the Center for Union Facts.
Mr. Johnson said he had served as an adviser to the center.
The center was founded as several unions had grown more aggressive about unionizing workers, often pressuring employers not to fight organizing drives. In addition, many unions are pressing companies to agree to recognize them, not through representation elections, but through a process known as card check, in which companies grant recognition as soon as a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union.It all makes perfect sense to the AFL-CIO:"In card check campaigns, unions tend to control the information that the workers hear," Mr. Johnson said. "We think the Center on Union Facts is useful for workers to have access to more information on unions."
Mr. Berman said his center hoped to help enact a Republican-backed bill that would prohibit unions from organizing workers through card checks.
A spokeswoman for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Lane Windham, said: "It's clear that corporations are fighting back against workers' efforts to roll back corporate power. It's no accident that corporations are doing this against us when unions are trying to make sure that employers pay their fair share on heath care and when we're taking on giant corporations like Wal-Mart."Well, Dickie old boy, all I can say is keep running those ads, every day -- until you're out of money. I'm sure the miners, meatpackers, hotel workers, health care workers and janitors of America are listening carefully.
businesses that defrauded the unions-- ie. the union leaders were the victims not the criminals....In fact, almost all of the big money associated with the $400 million figure in labor racketeering was committed by private industry AGAINST unions, not by union officials.
[Smithfield spokesman Jerry] Hostetter said nothing was stopping the union from seeking a new election tomorrow. "If our employees want an election at Tar Heel, we know of no reason why it would not be fair and free for all concerned," he said.He knows of no reason? How about this?
In 1997, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union lost a unionization election at the sprawling plant, built in this rural town 75 miles south of Raleigh. But it was not until 2004 that the National Labor Relations Board upheld an administrative law judge's decision that threw out the election results.Need another example?
The labor board found that the Smithfield Packing Company not only had prevented a fair election by illegally intimidating, firing, threatening and spying on workers but also had a union supporter beaten up the night of the vote count.
Lorena Ramos, 29, an immigrant from Honduras, said Smithfield's managers and consultants often told the workers that the union only wanted employees' dues money and would cause strikes that could lead to violence, job losses and even closing the plant.Finally, it's good to see that health and safety conditions are a major part of this campaign (attention John Sweeney)
Her right arm was badly injured when it got caught in a conveyer belt as she was scooping dry ice into packing boxes. She and her husband were outspoken union supporters, and they said they were shocked and embarrassed when the plant's internal police force arrested them, handcuffed them and paraded them through the plant, accusing them of setting a fire in one of the plant's cafeterias. The county's district attorney dropped the charges for lack of evidence.
Ms. Ramos quit the plant after the arrest, too scared to return. The union hired her as an organizer because of her popularity, courage and communications skills.
"Right now if the workers want something to change at the plant, the plant's not going to listen to them," she said. "If the workers have a union, then they will be listened to."
"A union would help reduce all the injuries — people are getting hurt left and right," said Edward Morrison, 42, an Army veteran who quit his job on the kill floor in October after tearing his knee while straining to push a rack that had five hogs hanging from it. "A union would also give the workers a say-so."Ergonomics is one of the major issues in the campaign (Thanks George Bush):
For workers, line speed is one of the biggest issues. On each processing line on the kill floor, a hog passes about every three and a half seconds, translating into about 1,000 hogs an hour, 8,000 a shift. Many workers complain that injuries are caused by the line speed and by having to do the same task thousands of times daily. Workers sometimes even stab one another or themselves by mistake.Yeah, I'll bet. Anyway, at least Hostetter has a sense of humor.
Smithfield officials said the plant's injury rate was no worse than the industry average. "Our first concern in setting line speeds is the safety and health of our employees," Mr. Hostetter said.
In recent decades, the hotel industry has witnessed the rapid consolidation and expansion of international hotel corporations. The hotel industry used to be dominated by local players and local markets. But today the industry is dominated by multimillion dollar national and international corporations. Hotel companies such as Starwood, Hilton and Marriott are present in most major cities, and employ thousands of workers.Actor Danny Glover and former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards are joining hotel workers for a four-city publicity tour starting Wednesday in San Francisco, and then moving on to Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston.
These workers—largely minority and immigrant women—work hard to create a welcoming home away from home for business travelers and tourists. But many are suffering serious physical injuries from the workloads imposed on them by large multi-national companies like Starwood and Hilton. Severe understaffing coupled with an increase in room amenities like heavier mattresses and linens are hurting these workers.
The hotel campaign marks the first major push by Change to Win, the new labor federation that broke away from the AFL-CIO last summer. The 5.4 million-member group, which includes the Teamsters as well as UNITE HERE, wants to stanch labor's decline by mounting national recruiting drives involving entire industries. "We're challenging our industry to make service jobs middle class," says John W. Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE's hospitality division, which represents 90,000 of the 500,000 employees at full-service U.S. hotels. Nationally, nonunion hotel housekeepers earn an average of $8.67 an hour, vs. $13 for those in the union, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.UNITE-HERE hospitality division President John Wilhelm has made no secret of the possible impact of such a strike:
Over the past several years, UNITE HERE has been aligning the expiration dates of its contracts in major cities so they renew this year. As a result it can mount simultaneous strikes in Hilton and Starwood's most lucrative markets, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and San Francisco.
A nationwide labor dispute involving 60,000 hotel workers in major North American cities could be averted if the hotel industry were to adopt some of the policies major casino companies use, the national union chief for lodging and food service workers said Thursday.Meanwhile, back in the hotel rooms... A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle described the conditions hotel workers labor under:
In a conference call sponsored by Wall Street investment house Bear Stearns, UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm told stock analysts and portfolio managers who follow the hotel industry that a nationwide strike by hotel workers could wipe out all the financial gains lodging companies have achieved in the past few years.
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Labor contracts at almost 200 hotels in six cities, operated by such national companies as Hilton Hotels Corp., Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Marriott International and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, will expire this year. Wilhelm said not much has happened yet in the way of negotiations.
At the Oakland Marriott, where housekeepers make about $12 an hour, the women -- and housekeepers are almost exclusively women -- must clean 16 rooms per day. For Herrmann, that means changing 26 beds, each of which has five to seven pillows, a duvet and all the accessories.So, if you're worried about getting fat when you travel, fear not. You may be able to get plenty of exercise walking the picket line over the next year.
Each bed takes 14 to 15 minutes to change, she said, leaving just 15 or 16 minutes to vacuum, dust and mop; empty the trash; replace the myriad soaps and lotions; and clean the mirror, tub, sink, toilet, walls and faucets. Plus she has to reload her cart with fresh linens from the laundry room, which requires a time-consuming trip to the hotel basement.
It's all part of a mad dash by hotels to capitalize on travelers' obsessive quest for a luxurious night's sleep. Each is upping the ante with more pillows, bigger mattresses and fluffier accoutrements.
And it's even worse in other parts of the country, where housekeepers -- who average about $8 an hour -- must clean as many as 19 rooms.
In Boston, 18-year-old Cristian Ribeiro was stabbed and killed in February, 2004 as he pursued a shoplifter who had stolen from the CVS where he was working. One Girls Inc. member shared her friend’s story: while working at a retail establishment in Lynn, she was raped by a pair of men and then locked inside, leaving her helpless and alone. These incidents have been tragic motivators that keep youth at Girls Inc. and MassCOSH’s teen leaders hard at work developing policy and trainings to protect young workers.Happily, there are people working on preventing these incidents. The Massachusetts Coalition on Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) has recruited team of youth organizers to conduct workshops and other forums for peers to make them aware of hazards on the job and their rights to a safe and healthy working environment.
Frustrated by the serious lack of safety protections for young people, the MassCOSH peer leaders worked with Senator John Hart and Senator Patricia Jehlen to file a bill strengthening the enforcement authority of the Attorney General. The bill would enable the AG to fine employers who violate the Child Labor Laws through a civil process. The bill also requires that teens working after 8:00 PM be provided with adult supervision on site.For their efforts, the MassCOSH peer leaders, along with the Youth from Girls Inc. Career Path Program were honored for their efforts to protect young workers at the North Shore Labor Council’s Annual Dinner last week.
“I don’t want to hear about another teen life being taken away when the situation could have been prevented,” said Raquel Lamons, a 14-year-old Teens Lead at Work peer leader. “We want young people to be safe when they work.”Sounds like the type of program we should be promoting in every community.
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“I thought this was all grown-up business, I didn’t know we could actually pass a bill,” said Kamaya Ray from Lynn’s Girl’s Inc. Belkys Perez added “I feel empowered, in charge, I don’t feel like they look at us like we are just kids to them – but that we actually matter.”
The federal government levied a larger fine — $550,000 — for the 2004 Super Bowl showing of JANET JACKSON'S BREAST than it did for the 2001 deaths of 13 Alabama miners in one of the deadliest mine disasters in a quarter-century. And the $435,000 fine against mine operator Jim Walter Resources was cut by a judge to $3,000.We here at Confined Space can only praise those who insist on bringing up JANET JACKSON'S BREAST in this context, because every time I write about JANET JACKSON'S BREAST, my Google hits skyrocket. Now some may accuse me of dishonestly attracting web traffic by gratuitously mentioning some of the most searched-for words on the web (like SEX, BREAST, JANET JACKSON). But this isn't a totally exploitative thing for me to do because every time a sex-starved young man does a search for photos of JANET JACKSON'S BREAST, he may also find himself enlightened about the fact that coal companies pay some of the smallest fines of any industry for federal violations.
Of course, those looking up the Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Communications Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission may also find their way to this USA Today article where they would discover that while MSHA' highest possible fine is $60,000 for each violation of a mine health and safety standard, the EPA, FEC and SEC can levy fines of $1 million or more for a single violation."That doesn't make any sense," says Steve Webber, who oversaw mining penalties for the federal government from 1999 to 2003, when he retired. "You're rewarding (mine) operators for correcting conditions that should not have existed in the first place."No, especially when the penalties are far less than actually fixing the unsafe conditions. Wouldn't be responsible to your stockholders, wasting money on fixing the place up, when you can just get away with paying insignificant fines?
The Bush administration has said that higher fines are not as effective as forcing companies to close unsafe areas until they are fixed.
Tim Biddle, an attorney for coal companies, said higher penalties won't improve safety. "I really don't think any responsible mine operator makes any decision about safety based on civil penalties," he said.
"It's like fining you or me 25 cents for a speeding violation," says Tony Oppegard, a mine-safety adviser in the Clinton administration. The $268 fine is equal to the price of 4 or 5 tons of coal.And anyway, did the network get its fine reduced because Justin Timberlake quickly covered up JANET JACKSON'S BREAST? Is the FCC going to reduce fines for FULL FRONTAL NUDITY ON TELEVISION as long as actors cover themselves quickly? I think not."You can mine 4 tons of coal in a couple of minutes," Oppegard says. "It's cheaper to exceed the dust limits, expose a miner to black lung and pay the fine than it is to do the right thing."
Mining fines are particularly small compared with recent record profits in the coal industry. The 10 largest publicly held coal companies reported combined profits of $2.4 billion last year on $24 billion in sales.And yes, Virginia, elections do matter. Bill Clinton may have been having SEX IN THE OVAL OFFICE, but...
"The price of coal has increased dramatically and the price of penalties has not," Davitt McAteer, mine-safety chief in the Clinton administration, told a Senate panel recently. Increasing fines "needs to be done and it needs to be done immediately."
When Congress rewrote mine-safety laws in 1977, fines barely changed. Lawmakers toughened coal mine inspections and required rescue teams at the mines.Now, if I can just figure out a way to connect the PARIS HILTON VIDEO to fatal trench collapses...
The maximum fine stayed at $10,000 until 1993 when Congress raised it to $50,000. It's risen to $60,000 in recent years to account for inflation.
Maximum fines have been imposed in just 12 violations in the last five years, according to Mine Safety and Health Administration records. In the Clinton administration's last six years, maximum fines were levied following 72 violations, agency records show.
OSHA officials repeated yesterday the stance they took after the July raid, saying the agency worked to build trust with Hispanic workers. They also said they did not condone using the agency's name in this type of ruse.But despite a statement last October by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff that impersonations using health and safety were not appropriate, ICE officials are defending use of the ruse.
[ICE spokesman Dean] Boyd said the employment of illegal immigrants at sensitive facilities like military bases posed a serious threat to domestic security. He said that, given their illegal status, they might be vulnerable to exploitation by criminals or terrorists.He promised to "coordinate" with OSHA if they use the tactic again (whatever good that will do...)
"That's why we're aggressively targeting these types of workers at sensitive facilities," Mr. Boyd said. "We've got an obligation under the law to do what we need to do to remove those people immediately from a position where they could do potential harm."
Ana Avendano, a lawyer with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., also criticized immigration officials for not providing the assurances that safety advocates were seeking."We told them that the population of workers that we're dealing with is suffering the highest mortality rate and highest injury rate on the job," Ms. Avendano said. "If immigration officials are going to use OSHA as a ruse, all they will do is reduce the trust of workers to go to OSHA with concerns about safety problems."
On a personal note, I find it amazing how many hostile notes I've gotten from people asking me why I allegedly support illegal activity on the part of undocumented immigrants, but oppose illegal activity by employers who violate health and safety laws? And how can I criticize any tactic that nabs lawbreakers?
The simple answer is that illegal immigration may be, well, illegal, but the penalty is not death or serious injury. And, as one of my [more supportive] commenters points out, one crime is more akin to trespassing, while the other is more like negligent homicide.
Cal/OSHA didn't discover potential underreporting of alleged injuries and an alleged illness on the project because it lacks procedures to ensure the reasonable accuracy of contractor KFM Joint Venture's annual injury reports.The full audit report found that CalOSHA
The audit also found Cal/OSHA failed to adequately follow up on three of six complaints received from bridge workers, including an April 2004 complaint in which it found two alleged serious violations but never issued citations to KFM.
In addition, Caltrans' safety oversight of the project seems sufficient but could be improved, perhaps by increasing attendance at safety training and meetings, the audit found.
did not use its statutory authority to investigate the [welders'] complaint and issue citations for the two alleged serious violations it found. It instead used the compliance assistance approach outlined by its informal partnership with KFM, which precludes issuing citations. In the case of an October 2004 complaint, the division did not investigate at all because of internal miscommunication. In the case of a January 2005 complaint regarding several potentially hazardous situations, the division's response was to query KFM by letter and rely on KFM's assertion the hazards did not exist, even though state law requires it to investigate complaints from employees in a specified period of time unless the complaint is without reasonable basis.The auditor recommended that Cal-OSHA "design procedures to detect the underreporting of workplace injuries." The report also recommended that if the agency was going to continue its "parternship" strategies, it needed to ensure that the activites would provide "appropriate oversight and be aligned with state law."
“Cal/OSHA does not have enough field inspectors to meet its day-to-day responsibilities, let alone effectively investigate complaints at a huge project like the Bay Bridge retrofit,” charged representative Matt Austin of the California Association of Professional Scientists. “A compilation of the agency’s own organization charts shows that there are only 169 Cal/OSHA inspectors in the field for an economy of 17.9 million workers and more than one million workplaces.”This lack of staff directly contributed to the conditions on the Bay Bridge and Cal/OSHA's failure to address the problems, according to CAPS.
“Cal/OSHA’s worker-to-inspector ratio is double that of Federal OSHA’s ratio, worse still than neighboring states like Oregon and Washington, and dramatically worse than Canadian provinces like Ontario and British Columbia,” Austin pointed out. “In fact, there are 66 more Fish and Game Wardens in California than there are Cal/OSHA inspectors.”
“The Bay Bridge is an enormous, 10-year project that could keep a full-time team of inspectors busy morning, noon and night. Instead, Cal/OSHA has only had the resources over the last three years to send out individual inspectors on pre-announced, rotating visits about once every other week. The eight inspectors involved, and their supervisors, all have major responsibilities in their home offices, and none were dedicated full time to the bridge,” Austin explained. “This is how important things – like worker complaints – fall through the cracks.”Indeed, the state auditors report recommended that If Cal-OSHA believes it does not have the resources necessary detect underreporting , it should seek additional funding from the Legislature for this effort.
In addition to the staffing problems, Cal-OSHA hasn't had a permanent Chief since July 2002 and has not had a Deputy Chief for Health since November 2000. In addition, Cal/OSHA only has 25 field compliance officers fluent in languages other than English, despite the fact that at least 4.5 million or 25% of the workforce are immigrants, many of whom are not fluent in English.
"The negligence of CONSOL, if any, was the result, in whole or in part, of the negligence of the Mine Safety and Health Administration," they write, demanding that the federal government pay any jury award against the companies that might result from the litigation, along with all their legal fees.Mencimer can't help but speculate on the ramifcations:
If it works, you can imagine the creative possibilities for companies in the midst of expensive litigation: Merck sues FDA for letting it sell Vioxx! Ford sues the transportation department for not demanding roll-over tests for SUVs! DuPont sues EPA for failing to notice when it dumped toxic chemicals into people's drinking water! And if the companies win, the federal government can pay all those big jury verdicts. It's amazing they didn't think of this sooner....Talk about frivolous lawsuits...
What don't you understand about the word "illegal?" We should be using any means to deport them. If we keep them out, or send them home, we're actually protecting them. And why should we be spending our tax dollars to protect criminals? This kind of whining just shows why you liberals who support illegal immigration are soft on national security.Being who I am, I can't generally help responding, so to ease the strain on my overused carpal tunnel, I'm going to respond here -- and then just link back here every time I get the usual attacks.
The North American Free Trade Agreement was sold, of course, as a boon to the citizens of the United States, Canada and Mexico -- guaranteed both to raise incomes and lower prices, however improbably, throughout the continent. Bipartisan elites promised that it would stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, too. "There will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home," said President Bill Clinton as he was building support for the measure in the spring of 1993.
But NAFTA, which took effect in 1994, could not have been more precisely crafted to increase immigration -- chiefly because of its devastating effect on Mexican agriculture. As liberal economist Jeff Faux points out in "The Global Class War," his just-published indictment of the actual workings of the new economy, Mexico had been home to a poor agrarian sector for generations, which the government helped sustain through price supports on corn and beans. NAFTA, though, put those farmers in direct competition with incomparably more efficient U.S. agribusinesses. It proved to be no contest: From 1993 through 2002, at least 2 million Mexican farmers were driven off their land.
The experience of Mexican industrial workers under NAFTA hasn't been a whole lot better. With the passage of NAFTA, the maquiladoras on the border boomed. But the raison d'etre for these factories was to produce exports at the lowest wages possible, and with the Mexican government determined to keep its workers from unionizing, the NAFTA boom for Mexican workers never materialized. In the pre-NAFTA days of 1975, Faux documents, Mexican wages came to 23 percent of U.S. wages; in 1993-94, just before NAFTA, they amounted to 15 percent; and by 2002 they had sunk to a mere 12 percent.
The official Mexican poverty rate rose from 45.6 percent in 1994 to 50.3 percent in 2000. And that was before competition from China began to shutter the maquiladoras and reduce Mexican wages even more.
But, the administration's neglect isn't the biggest problem for miners. The real obstacle to safety reform is that miners no longer have a powerful union sticking up for them. History shows that when miners have: 1) been organized and angry; and 2) had the strong national leadership of the United Mine Workers of America backing them up, they've been able to push for the legislative changes necessary for lasting advances in safety conditions. Sadly, neither of those two factors exist today. In fact, mining in the United States is only safer today than it has ever been because organized mine workers pushed hard for reforms a generation ago—reforms that are still in effect. Whether those reforms are enough is now in question.And the fact is that unions save lives:
In 1998, the Louisville Courier-Journal reviewed nearly 25,000 federal health records for Kentucky underground coal mines (96 percent of which, at the time, were nonunion). The newspaper concluded that "small, non-union mines generally pay less, cheat more on dust tests and don't have union stewards demanding compliance with costly safety regulations."
Perhaps more fundamentally, union mines instill—and can at times reward—a greater sense of collective responsibility than nonunion mines. In stark contrast to the Sago disaster, on Jan. 29, the lives of all 72 unionized miners trapped in a Saskatchewan potash mine were saved after a devastating, toxic machine fire trapped them underground. When the workers reached the surface more than 24 hours later, virtually all of them credited the emergency training they had received—including practices and rehearsals. Their union—Communications, Energy and Paperworkers—had pushed for this training, and the union had also agitated to allow miners to earn paid time to prepare for underground disasters.
Aren't these lessons that our schools should be teaching?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told immigration and labor groups during a closed-door meeting Jan. 30 that the department will continue to have its agents pose as officials from other agencies, including OSHA, to nab illegal immigrants at work sites, despite earlier signals the policy would be dropped. The meeting was set up to discuss last year's controversial sting operation where ICE officials posed as OSHA employees, which had prompted an outcry from labor groups and concerns from OSHA.OSHA was not present at the meeting.
ICE officials told attendees of the meeting that the department's first priority is national security and public safety and they would not change their controversial sting policy, according to sources involved in the discussions. In a letter sent to [the National Immigrant Law Center] NILC last year, ICE officials said they would no longer continue the practice, however, they now say they view everything from a threat-based level and would continue to increase their work site enforcement of food production companies and industries related to national security, the sources say.Since when are food production companies "related to national security?" Does the agency fear that an undocumented immigrant may succeed in unleashing the feared
Undocumented workers are killed and injured far more often than non-immigrant workers. They're frequently too afraid they'll lose their jobs to complain about unsafe conditions -- assuming they know where to complain -- and they're often afraid that OSHA inspectors will turn them in to immigration authorities.
