The Weekly Toll

Ky. Oil, Gas Well Blast Kills Three

BULAN, Ky. - An oil and natural gas well exploded in a small eastern Kentucky community, killing three workmen, authorities said. The well continued to belch flames and black smoke Thursday.

The well exploded into flames Wednesday afternoon with a force that shook nearby homes; investigators were not sure what sparked the blast. Flames and heat from a fire that raged for more than 24 hours may have destroyed any clues to the cause.

"We may never know," said Rick Bender, director of the Kentucky Division of Oil and Gas, the agency that regulates the state's drilling industry.

William Douglas Bell, 37, of Helenwood, Tenn., died Thursday at Cincinnati University Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. Two others, Bill Chandler, 36, of Lost Creek, Ky., and Patrick Jeffers, 29, of Winfield, Tenn., were killed Wednesday.


Bossier City officer killed, suspect found dead

BOSSIER CITY, La. Funeral services are scheduled Saturday for a Bossier City police officer, who was shot to death as he arrived at a house to investigate a 9-1-1 call. Police say the suspected gunman was later found dead inside the house.
Bossier City and Shreveport police, sheriff's deputies and state police converged on the neighborhood yesterday and surrounded the gunman, who had barricaded himself inside the house.

The patrolman, Trey Hutchison, was airlifted to L-S-U Hospital in Shreveport where is died.


Painter Dies From Flash-Fire Burns

TAMPA -- The painter who was severely burned at a water treatment facility Tuesday in East Lakeland died Wednesday morning at a Tampa hospital, police said.

James Morton Dierker of Lake Hamilton Boulevard in Winter Haven died about 7:10 a.m. at Tampa General Hospital, said Lakeland police Sgt. Mike Ivancevich.

Dierker, 47, suffered severe burns on 60 percent of his body in the flash fire at the Northside Water Treatment Facility, which is not in operation yet.

Dierker, a contract painter with Universal Painting in Lakeland, was working alone inside a 20-foot by 80-foot, partially underground tank when the fire took place.

Investigators suspect heat emitted from a halogen light in the tank may have sparked the fire. Fumes in the air likely provided the fuel.


Fatal Accident At Tulsa's Wastewater Treatment Plant Still Under Investigation

A 28-year-old husband and father of three was the victim of a toxic gas accident in Tulsa. Terry DeBuhr died Tuesday evening when he was overcome by toxic gas at the city of Tulsa’s wastewater treatment plant near 51st and Elwood.

DeBuhr worked at L and L Construction, which has done work for the city many times. And they still don't know how the accident happened that killed his employee, 28-year-old Terry DeBuhr.

DeBuhr and a fellow worker Chuck Nelson had been working for several hours inside a 12-foot deep chamber called a junction box, which was about half-filled with a water-sewage mix. The accident happened as they were wrapping up for the day, when one or perhaps both of the men went back in to retrieve a ladder.



Friends, Family Honor Police Officer Killed Sunday

CHICAGO -- Friends, family and fellow officers paid their respects to a Chicago police officer who was hit and killed Sunday by an alleged drunken driver.

Dozens attended a vigil for 30-year-old Michael Gordon Tuesday night. Flowers, crosses and stuffed animals were left near the accident scene at Sacramento and Jackson. The alleged drunken driver, who also died in the crash, was coming home from a baptism party, NBC5 reported.


I-70 construction accident claims worker

A construction worker was killed early Tuesday when he was pinned between a paving roller and a parked vehicle.

Robert John Lynn, 54, of Paradise Avenue, Fairhope, Washington Township, was pronounced dead at 1:25 a.m. at the scene of the accident by Westmoreland County Deputy Coroner Gerald Fritz.

According to state police at Belle Vernon, Lynch was directing Gary Miller, of Ellwood City, at 12:30 a.m. as Miller backed the roller along the westbound Smithton off ramp of Interstate 70 in South Huntingdon Township. The roller surged backward when Miller could not get it into neutral, pinning Lynch against a disabled vehicle parked on the berm.

Lynch fell to the pavement when the roller moved forward, but the roller then moved backward again, coming to rest against the parked vehicle.


Family of killed road worker urges drivers to be aware

Branson — The family of a Branson Public Works employee killed Tuesday by a teenage driver wants people to be more careful when they see roadside workers.

James Turner, who would have been 61 today, was using a weed trimmer about 10 feet from the curb of Gretna Road about 3 p.m. Tuesday. He was struck by a 1996 Honda Civic driven by Richard Toeneboehn, 18, of Kimberling City, according to a report from the Missouri Highway Patrol.

According to the report, Toeneboehn was driving west on Gretna just east of the Roark Creek bridge. He lost control of the car, struck a median and veered off, hitting Turner, the patrol said. An investigation is continuing.


Lightning kills construction worker

A construction worker was killed by a lightning strike Tuesday afternoon at a home under construction in the Pelican Preserve development of Fort Myers.

Fort Myers resident Alberto Angels was working at a construction site in the 10600 block of Triano Court when he was struck by lightning at about 2:20 p.m., said Kara Winton, a spokeswoman for the Fort Myers Police Department. Angels was pronounced dead at the scene. His age and address were not available late Tuesday from police.

Winton said another construction worker, Aniceto Perez, 25, of Fort Myers was also struck by lightning. Winton said Perez was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital by a private vehicle, but was not seriously injured.


Landis man killed

CLEVELAND -- A man died from electrical burns suffered in an accident at Myers Forest Products Inc. Tuesday afternoon.

Juan Janvario Sola, of 612 S. Chapel St., Landis, was pronounced dead at Rowan Regional Medical Center at 5:16 p.m. The accident in which he was electrocuted happened about 4:30 p.m.

Authorities did not know Sola's age Tuesday night.

According to Rowan County Sheriff's Maj. Tim Bost, Sola worked for Myers Forest Products. Bost said workers there were attempting to restart a machine that had stopped, and Sola went to a breaker box where he came in contact with a pair of 440-volt wires.

"He was not qualified to do what he attempted to do," Bost said. "He was trying to bring (the machine) back up. He didn't know what he was doing."


Worker dies after hair gets caught

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- A 32-year-old maintenance man died Sunday afternoon in one of the most unusual industrial accidents in years, police said.

The man, identified as Ace Feraro of Hayward, was scalped sometime between 7:30 a.m. and noon Sunday after his long hair was caught in the motor of a ventilation system atop a pharmaceutical company's building at 800 Gateway Boulevard.

Feraro, an employee of Elan Corporation, which has two buildings in the Oyster Point area, was changing bearings on the motor with the power off, said South San Francisco Police Sgt. Bill Carter. He turned the machine back on to check his work, bending too far over while the motor revved back to life.


Painter dies in fall from water tower

A man died Thursday after falling about 40 feet from a tower at the water treatment plant near Pompano Beach, officials said Friday.

John Wade, 56, of Fort Lauderdale, was preparing to paint the water tower at 1390 NE 51st Street just after 8 a.m., Broward Sheriff's Office spokesman Hugh Graf said. Wade lost his balance, fell through a skylight and landed on a floor, Broward Sheriff's Office fire-rescue division officials said.

Wade was conscious when paramedics arrived, but they took him to North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach, fire-rescue Capt. David Erdman said. Wade died there later Thursday.

Graf said the death was accidental. Broward County officials notified the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but OSHA and county officials said Broward's risk management department is investigating because OSHA does not typically investigate accidents involving public employees.


Crash kills safety man

INDIANAPOLIS - Before many drivers arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday, there was a fatality on the grounds.

A veteran Safety Patrol member died from injuries suffered from a motor-scooter accident, according to track officials.

The deceased was not identified, pending notification of his family.

The accident occurred about 7:30 a.m. when the Safety Patrol member apparently lost control of a motor scooter and struck a concrete barrier in the infield. He was transported to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where he was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m.

A safety worker also died at Daytona International Speedway during Speedweeks in February. That worker died as the result of being struck by an ARCA car during a caution.


Worker Dies in Fall From Scaffolding

Washington DC -- A 17-year-old construction worker died and a co-worker was critically injured yesterday after they fell 60 feet off a building under renovation in Northwest Washington, authorities said.

Investigators said that one worker grabbed the other as he fell. Both then tumbled to an alley. Rescue workers found them lying next to each other.

Elkin Galdames of Baltimore suffered massive injuries and died at the scene. Officials said that his co-worker, Freddy Madrid of Baltimore, was taken to Washington Hospital Center. Madrid's age was not released. Both men were from Honduras, a co-worker said.


Man killed after being sandwiched by trucks

MIDDLE TWP., PA -- A Waste Management employee was killed Friday morning when he was pinned between two garbage trucks while emptying a trash can, police said.

The worker died at the crash scene abut 8:15 a.m. on Route 9 in Rio Grande, police said. Authorities did not release the victim's name.

"It is a sad day for all of us," said Judy Archibald, a spokeswoman for the trash-hauling company's regional office in Morrisville, Pa.


Worker Crushed at Bluegrass Station

The Fayette County (KY) Coroner says 19-year-old Andrew Newton of Mt. Sterling lost control of a forklift, that flipped over and crushed him.

Newton was an employee of L3 Communications, a private contractor at the state run military post.

A Bluegrass Station spokesperson says everyone is shocked about losing an employee. Newton had worked there since February.


Armored Car's Bank Courier Slain in Md. Heist

Washington DC -- Hooded gunmen ambushed an armored car courier outside a bank in Hyattsville yesterday afternoon, fatally shooting the courier and grabbing a money bag before stealing a getaway car from a bystander, police and witnesses said.

The courier, a 28-year-old Maryland man, was shot three times shortly before 1 p.m. outside the front entrance of BB&T in the 3500 block of Hamilton Street. The bank is across the road from a busy grocery store and a nursery where about 30 children had just begun their afternoon nap.

Prince George's County police identified the slain guard as Jason L. Schwindler of Anne Arundel County. Police said he was shot twice in the torso and once in the face.


Tire explosion kills employee

Davenport, IA -- A 27-year-old worker was killed on the job Thursday after a combine tire he was filling with air exploded, Davenport police said.

The incident happened at 12:55 p.m. at his place of employment, Firstco Inc., 268 E. 90th St.

Investigators said that the man was filling a combine tire when it suddenly exploded. The blast caused the wheel rim to strike the man in the chest and face. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities had not released the man’s name late Thursday.


Shipyard accident claims man's life

NEWPORT NEWS, VA -- A 23-year-old apprentice at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard was electrocuted Wednesday afternoon as he worked outdoors on an air-conditioning unit.

Charles R. Short of Newport News was a 1999 graduate of Warwick High School, where he starred on the wrestling team and was a Daily Press All-star and Peninsula District Champion. He had worked at the shipyard since April of 2001. He is survived by his wife, a 2-year-old son, his parents and many other relatives in the area.

In the past week, there have been three fatal industrial accidents in Hampton Roads. Last Thursday, a 21-year-old worker from Texas died in an accident at Metro Machine, a ship-repair business in Norfolk, after being pinned between two metal lifts. He was working for the Norfolk Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., which was leasing space from Metro Machine. Then a worker from Chesapeake, John Wheat, died at Langley Air Force Base on Saturday when the walls of an excavation site caved in.

In 1997, three workers died after a pump room in which they were working filled with sewage and deadly gases. The yard was fined $6,300 after OSHA said the workers weren't trained well enough about the dangers of enclosed spaces.

In 1998, a worker was found dead near a shipyard pier. It was later determined that he drowned in an accident.


Iowan electrocuted in Missouri

Savannah, Iowa -- A utility worker from Davis County, Iowa is dead after being electrocuted by a high-voltage power line in northeast Missouri. The accident happened Wednesday evening just outside Livonia in Putnam County.

Thirty-one-year-old Steve Watson of Savannah was killed after coming into contact with a 72-hundred-volt electrical line. Watson was a lineman with Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Lancaster. The accident happened while Watson and a co-worker were responding to a power outage just off Route FF about two miles southwest of Livonia.


Hotel mum on worker's death

The death of a 39-year-old electrician who was injured at a substation that feeds the Logan International Airport Hilton Wednesday saddened airport workers and angered hotel employees who said they were denied grief counseling and ordered to keep silent about the tragedy.

Roger LeBlanc of Newton, N.H., was a married father of several children.

A hotel worker speaking on condition of anonymity said workers were not only stunned by the episode, but baffled when a hotel manager ordered a group to refrain from discussing the matter Thursday, he said. Asked about grief counseling, the manager said there would be none, the employee said.

A Hilton spokeswoman refused to discuss the matter - even the hotel manager's response. She added: "Obviously our prayers and condolences go out to (LeBlanc's) friends and family."

Janice Loux, head of the hotel workers' union, called the lack of grief counseling "outrageous." (More here.)


Salina road worker killed in Texas

Salina, KS -- A Salina road construction worker was killed Thursday morning in Texas when a paving machine rolled over him.

Tony L. Humphries, 24, was an employee of Ballou Construction, 1100 W. Grand, which is resurfacing a section of Interstate Highway 10 about 40 miles west of Houston.

Cheryl Kollatschny, Precinct 3 justice of the peace in Austin County, Texas, said Humphries was the front man on the paving crew and was under the paving machine, installing a part, when the machine was moved forward, over Humphries.


Clues sought in cause of painter's fatal fall

Westfield Police and Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials are investigating the death of a worker who fell while painting the marquee of a movie theater.

Danny E. Potts, 45, Indianapolis, was painting the marquee of the Regal Cinema about 3 p.m. Tuesday when he fell about 40 feet, said the Westfield Police Department.


Man Falls From Trailer, Dies

Redding, CA -- An unidentified laborer from Mexico was killed Wednesday in what's being called an industrial accident.

The man, whose identity was not released pending notification of family, was killed after he fell and was apparently run over by a flatbed trailer being used to spray vegetation on private property near Platina and Gas Point roads in western Shasta County.

The man, who Deputy Coroner Wayne Booker said was in his late 20s, was a member of a work crew spraying vegetation on the property.

The flatbed trailer, which was equipped with a large tank, was being pulled by a truck on Bully Choop Road when it apparently hit a bump in the road, causing the man to fall off and land underneath the trailer, Booker said.


Investigation Into Meeting House Electrocution Continues

A federal safety agency and town police this week were continuing their investigations into a fatal industrial accident on July 26 at the Meeting House at 31 Main Street, which killed one painter by electrocution and seriously burned another painter, when an aluminum ladder that they were handling made contact with an 8,000-volt live power line on the south side of the building.

Ivan Patricio Tenecela-Velez, 25, of Port Chester, N.Y., died in the accident. Mr Tenecela-Velez was pronounced dead at Danbury Hospital. Following an autopsy, the state medical examiner's office confirmed that Mr Tenecela-Velez died due to accidental electrocution.


Keller man is killed at construction site

A 30-year-old construction worker was killed in a forklift accident Tuesday at a south Fort Worth food distribution center, police said.

Dale Aaron Eckhardt of Keller was pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m. at Ben E. Keith, 7650 Will Rogers Blvd., according to the Tarrant County medical examiner.

"It appears to be an accident," homicide Detective C.D. Brannon said.

Eckhardt had just stepped off the forklift when the operator began repositioning the machine to pick up a spool of electrical cable, police said. Eckhardt was struck by the right rear tire.


Worker dies after being hit by beam

BOULDER - Another worker was killed in the Green River Basin natural gas patch, struck by a support beam at a drilling rig.

Leroy Fried, 49, of Riverton, died at a medical clinic in Pinedale after Monday's accident, according to the Sublette County Sheriff's Office.

The accident happened around 4 p.m. Monday about 5 miles south of Boulder. The rig was owned by Cyclone, and Fried was a Cyclone employee.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration planned to investigate.

Joshua D. Riedel, 23, of Worland, died at the scene of a rig accident on The Mesa south of Pinedale on July 23.


Crane rescue efforts called off

OPELOUSAS, LA — While family members refuse to give up hope, rescue efforts for Arthur Batiste, 46, of Breaux Bridge have been suspended.

Batiste has been missing since Tuesday, when a heavy crane fell into Bayou Courtableau at a bridge construction site on U.S. Route 190 between Krotz Springs and Port Barre.

Rescue divers from the Ville Platte and Lovonia fire departments worked until 1 a.m. Wednesday morning. They were back on the job at 6 a.m. but finally suspended operations at sunset.

“It’s too dangerous. It’s unsafe for them,” said Chief Deputy Laura Balthazar of the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office.

About 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a section of the bridge under construction at Bayou Courtableau collapsed, dropping a section of roadway and one of two heavy cranes into the bayou.

Three men were thrown into the bayou, two of whom were able to swim to safety. No sign of Batiste has been seen since.


BLM WORKER DIES IN ATV ACCIDENT

A Bureau of Land Management worker has died in an ATV accident near "South Shale" Ridge. 62-year old Peter Larson died Monday, during a land health assessment in "Coon Hollow," 20 miles north of Grand Junction. The accident was in steep, rocky terrain. He was wearing a helmet and safety equipment. BLM staffers started looking for Larson when he failed to check in at the end of the day. He had been with the BLM for 3 years, and was previously a staffer with the Colorado National Monument. Larson was a retired teacher in District 51, where he taught for 29 years.


Emergency Call Sheds New Light On Worker's Death

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A 911 tape shed new light Tuesday on the moments after a farm worker collapsed last week south of Arvin, KERO reported.

Asuncion Valdivia was pronounced dead at Kern Medical Center less than one hour after he began feeling dizzy and fainted in a vineyard. He had only been employed at Giumarra Vineyard for five days when he collapsed.

Within seconds of his collapse, a cell phone call was placed to 911 and an ambulance was requested. But, dispatchers were unable to get a location of the vineyard and an ambulance was never sent. More here.


Memorial this week for officer killed in line of duty

CLACKAMAS, ORE. - A public memorial service will be held for a Clark County sheriff's sergeant who was killed last week while responding to a call.

Sgt. Brad Crawford died late Friday night at a Portland hospital just a few hours after his patrol car was rammed by another vehicle.


State To Review Mining Practice

State mining officials say they will inspect all mines that use the retreat mining technique.

Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing director Paris Charles says the review will take place because of the death of 38-year-old Jimmy W. Anderson of Neon. Anderson died Monday after being crushed by rocks at a Reedy Coal Company's underground mine in Pine Top in Knott County.

He was the second miner killed in Kentucky this year during retreat mining.

In retreat mining, also called robbing pillars, miners create limited roof falls by chipping away at large blocks of coal that support the roof of a mine that has been exhausted.

Anderson's death is under investigation by the state mine safety office and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administraton.

In June, 25-year-old Edwin Pennington of Harlan County miner died in a roof fall at a Bell County Coal Corporation mine while he and his crew robbed pillars.


Former FPD officer killed in line of duty in Oregon

A former Flagstaff Police Department officer working as a sheriff's deputy in Clark County, Ore., died in the line of duty Friday.

According to reports from The Oregonian, Brad Crawford, 49, died when a suspect fleeing a standoff with police rammed into his parked patrol car.


Worker killed at Langley site cave-in

A Chesapeake construction worker died in an accident Saturday at Langley Air Force Base when the walls of an excavation site caved in, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

John Wheat, 45, was buried by sand when the collapse happened at 11:55 a.m., authorities said. (More here.)


CONSTRUCTION WORKER KILLED BY FALLING RIG

A construction worker was killed Sunday evening when a piece of equipment fell on him at a site just north of Greensboro where his crew was building a bridge.

The Guilford County Sheriff's Department identified the victim as Moises Perez Villanueva, 29. He died at the scene.

Villanueva, a native of the Juanogato region of Mexico, lived on Merritt Drive, said sheriff's Sgt. C.L. Piner. Villanueva's home address was not available.

Disney Fined

Last February, a worker at Walt Disney World in Florida was killed during a parade. Javier Cruz, 38, who was wearing a Pluto costume, was the father of two and had worked at the park since 1995. His foot was caught between sections of a three-part float as it was about to enter the parade route. He fell and was run over by the third section of the vehicle.

Federal OSHA has now fined Disney $6,300 for Cruz's death.

Marin, his sister, said someone who worked with her brother told her that he tripped in front of the float and there wasn't enough time for him to move.

'It's not acceptable'

"We believe it could have been prevented. I believe they should have kept a distance between him as a character and the float," she said.

"OK, it's an accident, but it's not acceptable. They should have prevented this."

Maryland's New Safety Director, Oh My!

My home state of Maryland has a new state commissioner of labor and industry, Robert L. Lawson. Lawson, former safety director at the Potomac Electric Power Co, will oversee Maryland OSHA.

I eagerly read this article about him, hoping for someone to breath some life into the agency -- even if the governor is a Republican -- until I read this:

At the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Lawson hopes to leave his mark overseeing employment standards, occupational safety and health, wage and safety inspection programs, and the safety of Maryland's railroads, amusement rides and traveling amusement parks.

***

And in his new role, Lawson is also hoping that workers change the way they act at work - and at home - by thinking of safety first.

It would probably help if they closed their eyes and clicked their heels together at the same time.

Oh well.

Washington State Ergo Follies: L&I Tosses One Back to BIAW

Paul Trause, director of the Washington Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) has written a letter in reply to the rantings of Building and Industry Association of Washington Executive V.P. Tom McCabe. And it's really quite a good letter.

Trause assures McCabe that L&I will abide by the law and not issue a new standard. He points out, however, that prior to issuance of the ergonomics standard, L&I was able to cite employers for injuries caused by poor ergonomics under Washington's "general rule," referred to as the General Duty Clause by federal OSHA. The General Duty Clause simply requires an employer to maintain a safe workplace. Even without a standard, OSHA can cite employers if it can be proven that a recognized hazard is likely to cause (or has caused) death or serious physical harm and there are reasonable means of abatement.

Trause points out that these general rules were not repealed by Proposition 841 and "these rules remain valid tools for preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders." In fact, Trause explains, the new WISHA directive will mimic federal OSHA's approach to ergonomics following the repeal of the federal standard in 2001, quoting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA John Henshaw who reported that "since January 2002, OSHA has conducted almost 1,500 inspections focusing on ergonomics issues and has followed up with citations and hazard-alert letters informing employers of ergonomic hazards in their workplaces."

Then Trause zings them:

As your organization has previously recognized, it has been proper and legitimate for many years to apply general rules to the hazards associated with musculoskeletal disorders. In fact, one of the arguments made by your representatives and publications in support of Initiative 841 was that because existing WISHA rules gave L&I all the authority it needed to address hazards, the ergonomics standard was unnecessary. For example, on page 6 of the October 2003 edition of your Building Insight publication you summarize a study done by the Washington Policy Center and note that:

"…current safety codes cover ergonomics injuries in the same manner as other workplace risks. Currently employers are required to keep safety records and to share them with L&I. State inspectors are authorized to conduct workplace inspections at any time with no advance warning. Employers with unsafe workplaces – including ergonomically hazardous – may be fined."

Trause closes by reminding McCabe that:

As you know, employers in the residential construction industry, including members of your organization, have among the highest rates of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in the state. We have a great deal to gain by working together.

This blog is occasionally read by children, so I can't reveal here what I would have written...but it would have begun with "Tom, you ignorant slut," and ended with "Why don't you fire the staff that encouraged you to write this letter? They obviously don't have a clue about the law or the conditions under which the employee of your members work, nor have they even bothered to read your own publications."

As an interesting sidenote, it seems that the several companies cited by federal OSHA over the past couple of years aren't much happier with federal OSHA than BIAW is with WISHA. They're threatening to sue the agency over ergonomics citations. According to Inside OSHA, "Settlement talks in recent OSHA ergonomics citations issued to Coca-Cola, SuperValu Holdings and Pepsi Bottling Group, LLC. have broken down and are spurring the potential legal action."

This threat of legal action has been going on for some time. I wrote about it first almost a year ago. (Link here. Scroll down to "Meanwhile, back at the ranch")

Clearly another case of the federal gestapo threatening capitalism and harassing small businesses like Coca Cola with stratospheric fines of $4,500.

Inside OSHA points out that what's really pissing off the industry lobbyists is that George Bush's OSHA insists on enforcing the law:

Industry representatives say that OSHA Administrator John Henshaw has been disingenuous by talking about compliance assistance while at the same time maintaining a consistent level of citations.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

Don't take it from me. Read this from a witness at the President's recent appearance at a conference of minority journalists.

Now this isn't exactly on the subject of workplace safety, but just imagine what his response might be if some intrepid reporter were to ask him a few questions about workplace hazards.

Might be an idea.

Thinking About Ergonomics? We Will Bury Sue You!

In a letter that gives new meaning to the words hyperbole and hissy-fit, the Building Industry Association of Washington has sent a letter to Paul Trause, Director of the Department of Labor & Industry, objecting to the Department's development of a new Regional Directive that would explain to directors how to handle ergonomics issues.

You may remember that the Washington State ergonomics standard was repealed last year after a scurrilous million dollar campaign based on lies that would have made Joe McCarthy blush. (See here and here.) I can't accurately describe the absurdity of this letter, so it's probably best if I just reprint it in whole:

July 22, 2004

Director Paul Trause
Department of Labor & Industries
PO Box 44001
Olympia, WA 98504-4001

It has come to my attention that L&I is developing an ergonomic WISHA Regional Directive that would serve as a substitute fo the ergonomics standards repealed by the voters in Initiative 841. This is a blatant violation of the law and subversion of the will of the voters. By approving Initiative 841 in 2003, the voters expressly repealed your ergonomics regulations and prohibited future rule making on ergonomics. Any attempt to enforce the repealed ergonomics standard by means of a newly adopted ergonomics policy is illegal. We will sue you.

Moreover, BIAW will file another initiave if necessary to repeal future ergonomic policies adopted by L&I. Initiative 841 was very successful in uniting the press (sic), the public,(sic-er) the workers (sic-est) and the business community against the pseudo-science and overregulation of the L&I bureaucrats. L&I spent million of tax dollars attempting to justify bad science and ignored public comments against the ergonomic rule. Washington state is now a better place to live and work because the ergonomics rule was repealed. Washington State citizens will not tolerate an out of control agency that disregards the will of the voters and its laws.

Sincerely,

Tom McCabe
Executive Vice President

P.S. Why didn't you fire the staff that promulged the ergonomics rule? I warned you they would create mischief which is exactly what they're doing with the WRD. [Oh hell, why don't you just shoot them and get it over with.] (Emphasis and comments added)

cc:
Initiative 841 supporters

Sounds like maybe it's time to raise another million dollars for a referendum that makes it a crime for any state official to even think about ergonomics. The only explanation I can come up with is that McCabe is off his meds and must be getting bored with no ergo bogey-man to fight, having killed the goose that laid his golden egg, and is trying to recreate a reason to exist.

Now I admit that I haven't seen a draft of the new directive. And while it's entirely possible (knowing the subversive scoundrels that drafted the ergonomics standard) that it defies the law, reinstates the standard, declares a workers' state and seizes the means of production, I doubt that it's likely to be much more than a revision and clarification of the original post-referendum directive issued last December which was written to provide "guidance to WISHA enforcement and consultation staff whenever they must address issues involving WMSD hazards and potential ergonomics solutions."

If ergonomic issues come to the attention of WISHA inspectors,

they must not initiate (or expand) inspection activity. The allegations or other information must be referred to Senior Program Manager of WISHA Policy & Technical Services, who will provide appropriate direction based on the specifics of the situation.

If an employer asks for guidance, the repealed standard can be

used as a guide to identifying potential hazards and areas of concern, but consultants must make it clear that the rule has been repealed and that none of its specific provisions are required.

Yup, sounds pretty subversive to me. Time to go out and raise more money.

Oh and Tom, if the men in the little white suits show up at your door, they're there to help you.

DuPont’s Teflon Armor Wears Thin

I wrote last month about DuPont allegedly covering up worker exposure and environmental contamination caused by a chemical used to make Teflon. The EPA is proposing millions of dollars in fines against the company for not notifying EPA that it had detected the chemical in the drinking water of communities surrounding its plants.

Yesterday, the New York Times carried an additional article about the problem. DuPont’s got several problems. First, the production of Teflon is extremely profitable:

For DuPont, the controversy could hamper plans by its chairman and chief executive, Charles O. Holliday Jr., to shed the company's slow-growing businesses - including the unit that makes nylon and Lycra, both of which it invented - and focus instead on faster-growing businesses like genetically engineered seeds, soy-based products and electronics. While the company invests in those areas, it is banking on steady profits from products like Teflon.

Teflon-related products contribute at least $100 million in profit annually, according to company reports and court documents - almost 10 percent of the company's 2003 total. DuPont has been pushing its Teflon-branded materials (known as fluoroproducts) for new uses - such as a built-in stain repellent for fabrics and a spray-on cleaning product - and has identified new markets, including China, for expansion. The company has invested $50 million to expand Teflon production and $20 million on an advertising campaign in the United State

Which is probably the reason that the company went to such lengths to cover it all up:

The class-action lawsuit, filed in Wood County, W.Va., the home of the Washington Works plant where DuPont has made Teflon for decades, has turned up a series of documents that DuPont had sought to shield as proprietary information. The latest came to light in May, when the West Virginia Supreme Court voted unanimously to unseal several DuPont memorandums from 2000 in which John R. Bowman, a company lawyer, warned two of his superiors - Thomas L. Sager, a vice president and assistant general counsel, and Martha L. Rees, an associate general counsel - that the company would "spend millions to defend these lawsuits and have the additional threat of punitive damages hanging over our head."

He added that other companies that had polluted drinking water supplies near their factories had warned him that it was cheaper and easier to replace those supplies and settle claims than to try to fight them in court. And those companies, he noted, had spilled chemicals that did not persist in the environment the way that PFOA does. "Our story is not a good one," he wrote in one memorandum. "We continued to increase our emissions into the river in spite of internal commitments to reduce or eliminate the release of this chemical into the community and environment because of our concern about the biopersistence of this chemical."

Another document summarizes the company's strategy for deflecting the PFOA issue and litigation. It offers various suggestions for improving credibility with employees, the community and regulators, such as "keep issue out of press as much as possible" and "do not create impression that DuPont did harm to the environment."

Local officials said the memorandums - with the E.P.A.'s action and recent tests that found increasing PFOA levels in their water - confirmed their fears.

"We've been exposed since at least 1984," said Robert Griffin, general manager of the Little Hocking Water Association, which serves about 4,000 homes in rural Washington County, Ohio, directly across the Ohio River from DuPont's Washington Works plant. "The community could have dealt with it back then, but DuPont saw fit not to inform us."

In June, Mr. Griffin included a warning in his annual water quality report to customers. It stated, in bold capital letters, that until the issue was resolved, "You are drinking this water at your own risk."

And like Starbucks (see below), DuPont has an image to protect:

At the very least, the Teflon flap could damage DuPont's well-polished image. The 200-year-old company, based in Wilmington, Del., prides itself on its corporate values, and Mr. Holliday is a high-profile advocate of socially responsible business. "In the chemical industry, the critical thing is not only investor perception, but consumer trust," Mr. Pisasale said. "That can be very hard to build back."

Guess they should have thought about that before they decided to cover up information like this:

In the 1980's, a DuPont study of female workers exposed to the substance found that two out of seven women gave birth to babies with facial defects similar to those observed in the offspring of rats that had been exposed to PFOA in another study. In its complaint, the E.P.A. charged that DuPont had also detected PFOA in the blood of at least one of the fetuses and in public drinking water in communities near DuPont plants, but did not report that it had done the tests.

A Double Mocha Latte, and Hold The Ergo

Workers at Starbucks in New York are attempting – so far without success – to organize a union. And one of the major issues:

The worst problem that baristas suffer, some say, is the repetitive motion injuries because of the movements they make when making coffee.

Anthony Polenco, a barista at the Starbucks store at Madison Avenue, said he hurts constantly from working the espresso machine.

"I suffer from pains in my wrist all the time," said Polenco, who led the union drive with Gross. "Sometimes hot milk will splash on me. Some days I can't move my wrists." However, he said he has not filed a workers' compensation claim.

A former Starbucks manager on Long Island, who asked not to be named and who is pursuing a workers' comp claim against the company, had to undergo surgery for tendinitis.

Other issues include low wages ($7.75/hour and raises are paltry) and difficulty in getting benefits (You have to work more than 20 hours a week.)

Starbucks has a progressive image as a customer and worker-friendly company:

Three years ago, Starbucks had to pay $18 million to settle a class-action lawsuit from managers charging that the company wrongfully denied them overtime pay. This past June, two Starbucks managers from Boca Raton, Fla., filed a lawsuit against the company for similar reasons.

But even some industry analysts say that employee dissatisfaction could hurt Starbucks' image.

"Scandal can do real damage to companies with powerful brands," said Nancy Koehn, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "Today's consumer not only wants to know about the company's product, but how it is run."

Despite several requests from Newsday, Starbucks spokeswoman Audrey Lincoff said Schultz and other executives were not available for comment. She also declined to make baristas available to talk on the record about conditions of their work. However, Lincoff did say Starbucks is "pro-partner." Starbucks refers to its employees as partners because they have the opportunity to buy equity in the company.

It’s an image that they are reluctant to lose, although it’s becoming increasingly tarnished:

Three years ago, Starbucks had to pay $18 million to settle a class-action lawsuit from managers charging that the company wrongfully denied them overtime pay. This past June, two Starbucks managers from Boca Raton, Fla., filed a lawsuit against the company for similar reasons.

But even some industry analysts say that employee dissatisfaction could hurt Starbucks' image.

"Scandal can do real damage to companies with powerful brands," said Nancy Koehn, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "Today's consumer not only wants to know about the company's product, but how it is run."

Despite several requests from Newsday, Starbucks spokeswoman Audrey Lincoff said Schultz and other executives were not available for comment. She also declined to make baristas available to talk on the record about conditions of their work. However, Lincoff did say Starbucks is "pro-partner." Starbucks refers to its employees as partners because they have the opportunity to buy equity in the company.

Safety & Health Train-the-Trainer Program

The George Meany Center for Labor Studies will hold a six-day "train the trainer” program on workplace health and safety for union activists, staff, and local union health and safety representatives who would like to teach their membership about workplace health and safety issues. The course uses a participatory popular education approach.

Participants will learn the fundamentals of workplace health and safety, with a focus on the topics below. They will also learn how to teach or facilitate classes on these subjects for other union members. Specific topics to be covered include:

• Worker and Union Roles in Workplace Safety and Health
  
  
• Identifying Hazards in the Workplace
  
  
• Legal Health and Safety Rights of Workers and Unions
  
  
• Record keeping (OSHA 300 Log) Requirements
  
  
• Introduction to Ergonomics
  
  
• Effective Health and Safety Committees

The course will be held February 20-25, 2005 and will cost between $1015 and $1120 which includes a single room for six nights (Saturday - Thursday) and all meals (cost per person for a double room is $745 to $880). Financial assistance is available.

For more information, contact Sharon Simon at GMC-NLC, (301) 431-5414, or e-mail her at ssimon@georgemeany.org.

Miners' Lives for Sale?

The New York Times, in a long investigative article, covers an all-too-familiar story: While two or three coal miners are killed every month in mining accidents and hundreds still die each year of Black Lung disease, workplace health & safety and environmental regulations are weakened by government officials who are former executives and lobbyists of mining companies that are major contributors of campaign funds to the Republican party.

In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official - Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.

The reintroduction of the coal dust measure came after the federal agency had abandoned a series of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by coal miners while embracing others favored by mine owners.

Bush's promise to relax environmental restrictions on coal mining in 2000 may have been a factor leading to the Democratic loss in West Virginia. Bush has made good on those promises.

Among the Bush initiatives:

• Increasing by four-fold the amount of coal dust levels in mines, despite the fact that Black Lung disease remains a serious hazard and that NIOSH has recommended that dust levels be cut in half. The Bush administration argues that miners can wear respirators which even the respirator manufacturer, 3M, has problems with.
  
  
• New rules that would make it easier for companies to use diesel generators underground, which miners say could increase the risk of fire.
  
  
• Withdrawal of a Clinton administration proposal that would have updated technology to better protect workers from the two-story-high trucks that haul coal.
  
  
• Easing of regulations on mountain-top removal which destroys streams and forests.

So what's going on? Again, it's a sadly familiar story:

"This is a results-oriented administration," said Joseph M. Lovett, a lawyer for environmental groups that have sued to block the mountaintop mining rules. "It knows who it wants to reward."

Over the last six years, coal companies have donated $9 million to federal political candidates and party organizations, and 90 percent has gone to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Coal production has expanded in the West, but in most Appalachian states, where mining jobs are highly coveted, employment has stagnated or slipped since 2000. As a result, the battle over coal in crucial swing states is a wild card in this fall's election.

As I reported last week, mine safety has become an election issue when John Kerry condemned the Bush administration for putting the proverbial fox in charge of guarding the chicken coup.

The Times quotes one miner, however, who notes that in job-hungry West Virginia, "some miners were sticking with Mr. Bush because they were "kind of afraid that Mr. Kerry could be too big of an environmentalist" and restrict mountaintop mining. "They see it as doom and gloom," he said."

Future: Globalizing Burgers?

So I'm sitting around last night discussing the state of the economy and future of globalization with some friends. We talked about the export of high-paying manufacturing jobs and their replacement with low-paying McDonalds's jobs. I joked that pretty soon there will be someone from India on the other side of the drive-through microphone at McDonalds, ha ha.

Imagine my surprise (and horror) to read this in today's Washington Post:

McDonald's Drive-Through A Long-Distance Experience

In the drive for even faster fast food, McDonald's restaurants are outsourcing the manning of the old standby drive-through window with the scratchy speakers.

At the drive-through window of the restaurant in Brainerd, Minn., customers give their orders to a worker at a call center in Colorado who enters it into a computer, causing it to flash on a screen inside the Brainerd restaurant, along with a photo of the customer. The process eliminates the need for workers to juggle taking and preparing orders.

The owner of the Brainerd store, Glenn Cook, was the first one outside Colorado to use the call center, which opened in June 2003. With order times reduced by an average of 20 seconds, he has seen a double-digit percentage increase in sales since September. Less than 1 percent of McDonald's restaurants use one.

"It is a lot faster," said employee Cassie Kangas. "When customers find out about it, they're really surprised. They're like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is someone in Colorado.' "

Why stop with Colorado, when you can outsource the burgers to Bombay?

Lancet Obit for Thomas Mancuso

Here is the Lancet obituary (registration requried) of Dr. Thomas Mancuso to supplement the NY Times obit last month.

"He changed the standards for occupational health concerns", says Peter Infante, a former Director of Standards Review at the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "He had undying energy to protect blue collar workers at all costs. He didn't trust the government and with good reason."

And according to Dr. Barry Castleman:

Mancuso was hired in the 1950s by the Philip Carey Manufacturing Company, which produced asbestos insulation in Ohio, to provide evidence refuting compensation claims from plant and construction workers who were dying from respiratory complications caused by asbestosis. Mancuso's report to management not only supported the workers' claims, but became the basis for additional lawsuits and governmental regulation, including the attachment of warning labels to asbestos insulation. "The development of the carcinogenic risk due to asbestos or any other carcinogenic agent does not cease when the exposure ceases", Mancuso wrote in the foreword to Castleman's book, "but rather the individual carries the increased cancer risk for the remaining years of life".

Good (Labor) News From California

The new California budget, signed last week by Governator Scharzenegger, will include $3.8 million for the Institute for Labor and Employment,based at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley. The Governor's original budget had planned to eliminate the institutes.

Business groups are angry at the Governor's flip-flop:

"Unions totally have the right to do research, but we don't think it should be paid for with taxpayer money," said Kevin Dayton, vice president of government affairs for the Golden Gate chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors of California.

The predominantly nonunion trade group has been working to eliminate the institute since 2001, when it was created by then-Gov. Gray Davis with union backing.

The builders were angered after the institute conducted a survey used by union leaders in an unsuccessful campaign to gain support for project labor agreements.

Of course, just because labor research shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer money doesn't mean that business research should receive the same treatment. As I wrote last December:

Meanwhile, no university business schools have been slated for elmination. In fact,

The Anderson School of Management at UCLA, the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley, and the Agricultural School at UC Davis each receive more state funding annually than the total received by the ILE in the past three years.

"I don't want one more person to go through this devastation"

I wrote almost a year ago about the death of Steve Durbin who "was crushed to death under more than 1000 pounds of wet soil when the trench he was in collapsed on top of him." I was particularly pissed off, as I often am, at a statement made in the newspaper article about Durbin's death:

"It was just a horrible accident," [Health Police Detective Eric] Rardain said. "There doesn't appear to be any negligence on any person."

Two months after Durbin was killed, another worker died in a trench in nearby Zanesville.

I've been corresponding with Durbin's sister-in-law, Phyllis Oliver, over the past year about the devastation Steve's death caused his family and the senselessness of these compeletely preventable deaths that seem to happen every week. When Gary Dillon was killed in a trench collapse a couple of weeks ago less than five miles from where Steve Durbin died, Oliver and Durbin's wife, Jo Ann, had had enough.

After seeing two more deaths from trench collapses in less than a year since her husband's death, Durbin was fed up. Along with her sister Phyllis Oliver, she is researching trench-collapse injuries and deaths in hopes of bringing attention to the issue.

"I don't want one more person to go through this devastation," Durbin said. "There's got to be a stop to it. There's got to be an awareness made."

Durbin said one of the major problems is meager enforcement of OSHA standards. Strict safety standards exist for all trenches greater than five feet in depth.

OSHA regulations state that for such a trench, "Each employee... shall be protected from cave-ins by an adequate protective system."

For those trenches, some sort of safety mechanism must be used, such as a trench box, sloping the trench to stabilize the earth or some other acceptable measure.

Oliver complains that small fines for violations don't sufficiently motivate contractors to follow proper safety procedures since the amounts don't outweigh the potential savings for cutting corners.

"In order for companies to take it seriously, you have to slap them with a big enough fine that it hurts them," she said.

More importantly than increased fines, Durbin and Oliver want all people -- construction laborers, supervisors, families and the public at large -- to know about the dangers and preventative measures for excavation sites. They argue that since the regulations aren't always strictly enforced by OSHA, responsibility lies with the construction workers to make sure they're in a safe working environment.

Following Durbin's death, I wrote:

It is our responsibility -- those of us who know that these deaths are preventable -- to educate the press and the public that these deaths are preventable. Workers won't be safe until they understand the hazards of trenching and how to prevent them. Ultimately, workers need to have the right -- and the power -- to simply refuse to enter unprotected trenches, and they need the backing of a strong union and the support of an outraged community that has decided they've seen enough of their neighbors die.

If more people get mad, and start going to the press like JoAnne Durbin and Phyllis Oliver did, (and more local papers like the Newark Advocate, write articles) employers will have a harder time claiming they didn't know. Workers will demand to be trained, demand that the regulations be followed, and hopefully refuse to go down into an unprotected trench until it is made safe.

Let's take back our workplaces.

Note: Check out OSHA's webpage on Refusing to Work Because Conditions are Dangerous

What Is He Thinking?

Kerry Criticizes MSHA Head; Promises Improvements

Political folklore states that the Democrats lost West Virginia in 2000 because of gun control and environmental issues. People continue to buy the NRA line that equated a ban on assault weapons with taking away peoples' right to go hunting. And, unfortunately the old jobs vs. the environment issue still plays well in areas of chronic high unemployement. And the United Mine Workers' ambivalent attitude toward the environmental movement and environmental regulations hasn't helped much.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry seems to be attempting to get away from the charged political issues and turn the discussion toward issues that affect workers -- especially mineworkers -- every day when they go to work. Kerry promised to put someone in charge of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) who is committed “to protect the workers, not the coal companies,” according to his campaign.

In a prepared statement, the Kerry campaign harshly criticized the Bush administration’s record on coal-mine safety.

“George W. Bush has had the wrong philosophy and has installed a mining executive to the top position when he should have put someone who is an advocate for mine workers,” the statement said.

Dave Lauriski, who is in charge of MSHA, worked as a coal company executive for 30 years. Like John Henshaw at OSHA, Lauriski had demphasized regulations and argues that "the agency needs to focus more on safety training, education and compliance assistance."

The United Mine Workers have not been impressed with MSHA's performance:

West Virginia, the second largest coal producing state, lead the nation last year with 10 fatalities, including three in a January explosion at the CONSOL Energy McElroy Mine near Moundsville.

After that accident, MSHA’s lead investigator said that the agency did not inspect the job as frequently as necessary.

In October 2003, Lauriski himself cited “unexcused deficiencies” by MSHA personnel charged with overseeing a Cody Mining operation in Kentucky before a fatal accident there in June 2003.

Ray McKinney, MSHA’s administrator for coal mine safety and health, has rejected a freedom of Information Act request for documents that might detail those “unexcused deficiencies.”

Also last year, the U.S. General Accounting Office found that MSHA inspectors frequently failed to return to mines to ensure that serious safety problems were fixed.

Lawmakers had asked for the GAO review after 13 workers died in a series of explosions at the Jim Walters Resources No. 5 Mine near Brookwood, Ala., on Sept. 23, 2001.

The Kerry campaign promised to implement the recommendations of that GAO report and committed to:

• Monitor the timeliness of inspections conducted as part of the six-month review of certain mine plans.
  
  
• Ensure that mine operators correct hazards identified during inspections in a timely manner.
  
  
• Develop a plan to address expected shortages in the number of qualified MSHA inspectors as current employees retire.
  
  
• Revise the systems used to collect information on accidents and investigations.

Radiation Exposures and Close Calls at Hanford

Health and safety conditions at the Hanford nuclear reservation have been receiving quite a bit of attention lately -- most of it bad. The Hanford workers are empying underground tanks containing 53 million gallons of radioactive and dangerous chemical waste. They're turning the radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium into a more stable glass form for disposal.

Last month, a worker died in a fall and about the same time, NIOSH issued a Health Hazard Evaluation stating that there is

a potential for significant occupational exposures and health effects from vapors released from the hazardous waste-storage tanks," and that "vapor constituents may be present at sufficiently high concentrations to pose a health risk to workers.

A couple of days ago, the Tri-City Herald reported that

Two near-miss accidents at the vitrification plant under construction at Hanford led the Department of Energy to call for improvements at the end of June.

While the accident rate at Hanford is lower than the national average, a number of serious close calls are causing concern:

On June 22, a 100-pound piece of steel supposed to be embedded in concrete fell 40 to 45 feet, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report released Friday. It landed 8 feet from a worker.

Five days earlier, pieces of rebar fell when a "curtain" of crosshatched rebar was being lifted into the air by crane.

Other problems in late June included a worker who lost the end of a finger when his glove caught in a drill press, a worker who fell when a ladder slid out from under him and a worker who fell inside a wall of rebar.

The year had started with some other problems described in another safety board report. A 1,112-pound steel beam fell about 20 feet after the choker holding it contacted a handrail. The area had been cleared of people before work started, according to Bechtel National.

Also that month a stainless steel plate was dropped 8 feet and a section of telescoping brace was dropped 12 feet, according to the safety board.

Then yesterday, the Seattle Times reported that a Hanford employee suffered a serious radiation exposure after handling a radioactive piece of equipment without lead-lined gloves for protection.

A senior vice president at CH2M Hill, the contractor in charge of the $2 billion-a-year cleanup at the sprawling nuclear-weapons complex, yesterday blamed faulty planning for putting the worker in a dangerous situation while he was helping decommission a vault that once held radioactive waste. Dale Allen also said a supervisor should have stopped the work as soon as dangerous radiation levels were detected, but said the company had no plans to discipline him.

"We didn't expect to see such a high level," Allen said. "We didn't require leaded gloves, and we believe that to be a mistake."

***

Tom Carpenter, of the Hanford watchdog group Government Accountability Project, said the incident reflects a tendency to put speed ahead of safety.

"It seems like the people in charge of safety are just being ignored and there's apparently no consequence for supervisors who do so."

Hispanic Summit: Political Advantage Without Political Leadership

I've spent quite a bit of time trashing the Bush Administration's recent Hispanic Summit (here, here and here), so now I'm happy give some bandwidth to Maria Echaveste, President Clinton's former Deputy Chief of Staff and currently senior fellow at the American Progress Action Fund and a member of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Echaveste argues that "the summit was one more example of how the Bush administration never misses an opportunity to seek political advantage without actually exhibiting leadership."

We've already discussed here the "photo-op" nature of the event while Hispanic workers continue to die in high numbers:

What else can one conclude when the big news of the summit was a grant in the sum of $2.75 million to Esperanza USA, a faith-based Hispanic nonprofit organization, to work in nine U.S. cities with at-risk Hispanic youth? While a worthwhile goal, it is hard not to see the political opportunism at play here when two of the cities are Miami and Orlando in hotly contested Florida. Even the declaration signed with Mexico's secretary for foreign affairs, also announced at the summit, was all talk and no action. That declaration simply affirmed both countries' commitment to improving workplace protections for Mexican workers in the United States, without any new resources or enhanced enforcement efforts.

Echaveste points out however, that if the Bush administration was really interested in helping Hispanic workers, there was something concrete they could have done:

Chao might have used this summit to announce administration support for the AgJobs bill sponsored by Sens. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, and Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. Enactment of this bill would do more to save lives and prevent injuries than Chao's thinly veiled political pandering of last week. Why? Simply because one of the three most dangerous industries in the country is agriculture, and Latinos comprise more than 90 percent of farmworkers. Yet because 80 percent of that workforce is undocumented, many workers are afraid to speak up when facing work-safety issues for fear of deportation.

The AgJobs bill would grant temporary legal status to approximately 500,000 farmworkers and an opportunity to obtain permanent legal status if those workers continue to work in agriculture for a specified period of time. And because agriculture is so dependent on a foreign workforce, the bill would also update the existing foreign temporary worker program to enable employers to recruit the workers they need in a legal manner, and no longer be complicit in the underground labor market that is the underpinning of agriculture.

The bill has the support of organized labor and the agriculture industry. So why are Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) holding it up?

The vocal but small anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party appears to be more important to Bush than finding solutions to intractable problems.

Buckle Up, Children

I tell my kids to buckle their seat belts all the time. They used to be good about it, but they seem to be regressing as teen-agers.

OSHA is also very upset about its children workers not buckling up because "Motor vehicle accidents place the health and safety of federal employees at risk daily," according to OSHA Administrator John Henshaw.

"Car and truck crashes are the leading cause of Americans being killed on the job," says NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey W. Runge, MD.

"As part of our responsibility to health and safety in the federal workforce, DOL is committed to promoting successful seat belt programs to all federal agencies." In fact, OSHA is even holding a "motor vehicle safety symposium to drive the message to the federal workforce that wearing seat belts while traveling on business delivers safe employees."

Now, again, I am definitely in favor of seat belts, but:

• How many motor vehicles fatalities could have been prevented by increased seat-belt use? Does OSHA have any statistics? What about lack of air bags in older vehicles?
  
  
• Will OSHA and the symposium address on-the-job fatigue as a factor in motor vehicle accidents or the fact that the Bush administration passed new regulations that new regulations that increase driving time to 11 hours from 10 hours? (A federal court threw out the rules last month.)
  
  
• Will they address poor motor vehicle maintenance as a factor?
  
  
• Will they address motor vehicle-related fatalities that occur in poorly marked or barricaded highway construction zones?
  
  
• And then there's the problem of all those immigrant workers who insist on cramming into vans and pickup trucks that don't even have seatbelts.

Or maybe it's just easier to blame the whole problem on those stupid kids workers who refuse to use their seatbelts?

Update: If you want to attend the symposium, details are here.

8th Largest General Contractor in Virginia Kills Employee

OK, so a small mom-and-pop construction company kills an employee in a trench collapse and they claim they didn't know what the regulations require. I don't buy it as an excuse, but it could happen.

But what about the 8th largest general contractor in Virginia, a multimillion-dollar company that's been in business for 20 years?

A Chesapeake construction worker died in an accident Saturday at Langley Air Force Base when the walls of an excavation site caved in, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

John Wheat, 45, was buried by sand when the collapse happened at 11:55 a.m., authorities said.

***

Wheat was employed by Mid Eastern Builders of Chesapeake, which was hired by the Army Corps to work on a $5.2 million storm sewer system upgrade at Langley, said Army Corps spokeswoman Diana Bailey.

Who could have thought sand could collapse? Anyone ever dug a hole at the beach?

OK, anyone can slip up once, right? What if they had just received an OSHA citation for...a trenching violation earlier this year? Oh, and one last year as well. Not to speak of at least 15 other OSHA citations over the past 10 years, including one fatality.

But, of course, it was only a small $5.2 million job for the Army Corps of Engineers. And they do a lot of community service.

Oh, and job safety is one of five quantifiable "Critical Success Factors" of their unique Project Delivery System. "The result of the implementation of our Project Delivery System is proven success."

But not so successful for John Wheat.

Court Orders OSHA To Disclose Companies' Safety Records

Right wing & libertarian think tanks often argue that OSHA is not needed because in a perfect market system, workers who think a job is too dangerous could just ask for more money, or move freely to a safer job. One of the many, many, many problems with this theory is figuring out which employer is safer. Aside from monitoring the news to see who dies where, there was no easy way...until now, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the New York Times.

A federal judge has ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to disclose for the first time the company names and the worker injury and illness rates of the American workplaces with the worst safety records.

The ruling, issued Friday but released yesterday, came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October 2002 by The New York Times. The Times asked the agency, known as OSHA, to release the injury rates for 13,000 sites it had identified as having unusually high numbers of worker injuries and illnesses.

Up to now, the agency has published the names of the sites with worker injuries above an established norm, but not the injury rates for specific sites or any ranking to identify the worst offenders. In practice, it was difficult for reporters or the public to know where it was riskiest to work and whether the agency was effective in bringing about improvements.

Employers had allegedly worried that the information would allow "trade secrets" to be disclosed because the data included "hours worked" by their employees. OSHA had argued that the agency would have to spend valuable resources asking each and every one of the 13,000 employers for permission.

The judge noted, however, that the new recordkeeping standard already requires employers to post hours worked, so that the information is no longer confidential.

David E. McCraw, a lawyer for The Times, said the ruling forces the agency to "reveal information that we think should be public: what workplaces are America's most dangerous." The ruling applies only to injury figures for 2002.

Ed Frank, a spokesman for the Labor Department, which includes OSHA, said, "We are reviewing the decision and options to determine what approach best advances the department's mission to protect workers."

If the ruling is eventually expanded to additional years, the information will allow outside researchers to determine the effectiveness of OSHA's targeting program.

More here.

Australian Tunnel Workers Strike Over Death

Now that's the idea...

Found this over at rawblogXport:

Construction workers on Sydney's cross city tunnel have downed tools after one of their colleagues was crushed to death.

A 42-year-old man was killed late yesterday after rocks fell on him as he operated machinery 40 metres beneath William Street in Sydney's east.

Workers stopped construction and demanded a thorough safety audit of the project. Work was not expected to resume until after an on-site meeting on Monday, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) said.

"We issued an ultimatum to management last night that there be no further
work on the project until seven o'clock on Monday morning," CFMEU state general
secretary Andrew Ferguson said.

"In the interim there'll be a thorough investigation into this particular fatality in the tunnel, and a more comprehensive audit of the project."

It was unclear when the workers would go back to work, but

"We won't be recommending any undue haste in rushing back to work until we're 100 per cent satisfied there's not partial compliance (but) full compliance with the safety needs of the job," [Ferguson] said.

"We're not satisfied with the performance of this multinational and we intend to ensure they understand the importance of Australian safety laws."

Right on, bro. We could use a little more of that spirit over here.

Luck: A Worker’s Best Protection Against Trench Collapses?

I’ve reported on a number of trench fatalities lately, and probably missed others. (Here, here, here, here and here) One of the most recent was in Western Pennsylvania.

This is a rather upsetting – although not surprising – article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette making the case that even with all of the recent trench collapse fatalities in the Pittsburgh area, "it may be more surprising is that such fatalities don't occur more often."

National experts on trench safety say federal requirements designed to prevent such collapses are routinely ignored by the thousands of small companies that dig utility lines or do other underground work across America every day. That imperils workers such as Marion E. Peters, 61, of Franklin Park, who died Wednesday when excavating a trench at least 7 feet deep in Economy, Beaver County.

"My experience is the majority [of trenches] are usually unprotected," said Jack L. Mickle, professor emeritus of civil engineering at Iowa State University. "It becomes a matter of roulette, just taking a chance" that dirt won't fill the trench.

OSHA’s trenching and excavation standard (29 CFR 1926.651 and .652) requires trenches over 5 feet deep to be shored or use a trench box.

The boxes might cost more than $5,000 to purchase or about $100 to rent for the day, but are well worth it, said George Kennedy, vice president of safety for the National Utility Contractors Association. Still, many companies, especially smaller ones, don't want to make the investment or slow down their work for the half-hour or so it might take to install them, Kennedy said.

"I think some people just take it for granted because they never had a problem before, never had a cave-in that trapped somebody," Kennedy said. "I'd say probably 20 percent of the people working in trenches are using the right protection."

Instead of trench boxes, excavators can shore up the walls hydraulically or slope the sides of the trench in a V-shape instead of vertically. Most contractors who don't use the boxes, however, also don't take alternative steps, experts said.

Finally, this is rather frightening:

OSHA's national statistics generally cite 30 to 50 cave-in deaths a year. Mickle, known as "Dr. Dirt" for his longtime safety work in the field, said some studies have suggested such cases are under-reported to the government, and could actually be three to four times as high.

Code Tangerine

(Written from an undisclosed location)

I work just a couple of blocks from the main World Bank and IMF buildings, and from my undisclosed office, I stare across K St. into the windows of another undisclosed World Bank building, so everyone (especially my mother) is asking how I’m coping with the latest RidgeAlerts.

Here are my responses:

GIVE ME A F**KING BREAK!

The intelligence shows that al Qaeda has been methodically casing those buildings, and perhaps others, since well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and also since then, according to one senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters on the alleged plot. Authorities said they do not know when the operatives were planning to carry out any of the bombings.

OK, so it’s creepy that the bad guys are staking us out. But according to Ridge, this thing could happen tomorrow, yesterday, it could happen next week, last week, next year, or last year. There’s no time frame. So what’s the rationale for suddenly declaring Code Orange now, unless it’s...

Playing Politics With Terror Alerts

This, from Atrios.

Tom Ridge yesterday:

But we must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror, the reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan.

So what is one to think? Luckily, Tom Burka came up with the...

Most Credible Theory:

Sinking Bush Poll Numbers Increase Likelihood of Terrorist Attack, Says Ridge.
Connection Unfathomable, Say Rove, Cheney

Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced today that analysts had concluded that the likelihood of a terrorist strike in America increases whenever the President's popularity rating declines.

"There's a distinct correlation between the President's popularity ratings and increased terrorist activity," said Ridge. "Whenever President Bush's numbers go down, it's far more likely that we will be attacked by al Qaeda."

"The only thing we can advise is for U.S. citizens to like President Bush as much as possible to keep us all safe," Ridge concluded.

Standing in front of a wall of high-tech flat screen monitors, Ridge addressed reporters in the new Department of Homeland Security Security Operations Center.
"I can't for the political life of me say why this is happening," said Ridge. "I'm utterly stumped."

Ridge denied that Gilligan's Island was showing on one of the many screens behind him. "Oh, no," he said. "That's an uncharted desert isle."

And sure enough, right on cue:

Kerry Leads Bush in Post-Convention Poll
Washington Post-ABC News Poll Shows Voters Favor Kerry 50-44

By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 2, 2004; 5:20 PM

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry emerged from his national convention last week with a small lead over President Bush in the race for the White House and improved his standing against the president on both the economy and on who is better qualified to serve as commander in chief, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

Nurse's TB Death Raises Troubling Questions

I have reported a couple of times on the death of a Virginia nurse from an undiagnosed tuberculosis infection. (here and here). And, although I hate to say "I told you so," OSHA's decision last year to withdraw the tuberculosis standard is looking dumber and dumber as the number of TB cases in many states creep up. This article in the Virginian-Pilot raises a number of disturbing questions:

When guards drop or awareness of the disease’s threat lessens, TB can kill.

Sometimes guidelines established to thwart it don’t prove enough. Nowhere is that clearer than in the case of 52-year-old Deborah Byrd Chrysostomides, the Chesapeake General nurse who died seven weeks ago.

Questions linger about her case and whether more could have been done to prevent it –certainly, from the more than 100 patients and visitors who have since tested positive for TB, and also from those closest to her.

Tim Peluso, the fiance of the once-vibrant and compassionate nurse, questions whether the hospital could have done more to detect her illness when she displayed TB symptoms. Hospital and public-health officials wonder whether Chrysostomides ever sought medical help, as she claimed to friends and a supervisor. If so, why didn’t a doctor diagnose her sooner?

And why can’t public-health officials find the doctor who supposedly treated her?

Two questions that loom largest for the general public: How could her illness have gone undetected in a hospital, of all places, and should anything be changed to keep such cases from occurring again?

Despite weeks of investigation by state health officials, some questions may never be answered. But what the investigations have been able to determine is that three of the usual safeguards against the spread of tuberculosis broke down : One, the expectation that a health professional will seek and receive proper treatment.

Two, the assumption that supervisors would notice someone with obvious symptoms, and make sure that person seeks help or stops working. And three, the reliance on annual tuberculosis screenings for health-care employees to flag a brewing TB outbreak.

Union vs. Union: A Sign of Strength, or a Diversion?

Check out the Steven Greenhouse NY Times article today about the arguments going on within the labor movement even as labor unites behind an unprecidented effort to elect a new president. McEntee (AFSCME), Schaitberger (Firefighters) and Buffenbarger (Machinists) are pissed off at Andy Stern's remarks last week, while Bruce Raynor (UNITE HERE) defends him.

Good time to have this debate or should it wait until after the Presidential election? Read the article and check out Nathan Newman for his view.

Heat Stroke Tragedy

OSHA has no standard addressing hazards caused by working in high heat, even though the results can be deadly. OSHA has information about heat hazards and occasionally cites under the General Duty Clause. The problem with the General Duty Clause, however, is that it is usually only used after an injury or fatality. And I often wonder how many deaths "by natural causes," are actually heat related.

Here are the basics of one recent tragic story, according to the Houston Chronicle article:

The federal agency charged with assuring the safety and health of workers is investigating the May 26 heat-related death of a 22-year-old garbage collector
who died his second day on the job hauling trash on one of the city's most grueling routes.

The family of Theon L. Harrison says Republic Waste Services' response to the emergency was slow and inappropriate. Harrison was placed, they say, unconscious, in a non-air-conditioned garbage truck cab even though a heat stroke victim should be moved to a cool, shaded area to rest.

Although emergency treatment is paramount, paramedics were not called until a company supervisor arrived on the scene, hours after Harrison first reported symptoms, the family said.

"I think the crew took the appropriate measures. Heat is always an issue for us and anyone who works outside," said Will Flower, a spokesman for the Florida-based garbage company, which employs 300 in Houston. "We go through extensive training of our people to avoid all types of potential dangers including heat."

Harrison's brother, 19-year-old Maurice Harrison, who drives a truck for Republic waste, said heat stress may have been a topic addressed in reading material he was given when he started his job a year ago. But most training focused on operation of equipment, he said.

The day after Theon Harrison died, water coolers were distributed to all the workers at the beginning of the day. About a month later, the company — which paid for Harrison's funeral, the family said — held a training session about heat stress.

The company had this to say:

"After this incident occurred, we did in fact emphasize the need for paying attention to potential heat injuries," Flower said. "I think that's a responsible thing to do. If someone gets hurt, it doesn't hurt to ensure everyone makes sure they're drinking plenty of liquids."

No, it sure doesn't hurt. Helps more if you do all of that before someone "gets hurt."

The article also reports that other waste management employers offer training before something happens. "Waste Management periodically tests drivers on the contents of its safety manual. The city gives its workers a card from OSHA that describes symptoms and steps to take."

It's too bad Republic workers didn't have the OSHA card. Here's how it describes the symptoms of Heat Stroke and what to do:

HEAT STROKE: A MEDICAL EMERGENCY

What are the symptoms?

DRY, PALE SKIN WITH NO SWEATING; HOT, RED SKIN THAT LOOKS SUNBURNED; MOOD CHANGES SUCH AS IRRITABILITY, CONFUSION, OR THE INABILITY TO THINK STRAIGHT; SEIZURES OR FITS; AND UNCONCIOUSNESS WITH NO RESPONSE

What should you do?

• Call 911 for emergency help immediately.
  
  
• Move the victim to a cool, shaded area. Don’t leave the person alone. Lay the victim on his or her back. Move nearby objects away from the person if symptoms include seizures or fits. If symptoms include nausea or upset stomach, lay the victim on his or her side.
  
  
• Loosen and remove any heavy clothing.
  
  
• Have the person drink cool water (about a cup every 15 minutes) if alert enough to drink something, unless to the stomach.
  
  
• Cool the person’s body by fanning and spraying with a mist of water or wiping the victim with a wet cloth or covering him or her with a wet sheet.
  
  
• Place ice packs under the armpits and groin area.

Weekly Toll

So, this time arround, we've got 36 workers killed on the job, 10 who appear to be immigrants, several trench collapses, scaffolding falls and electrocutions. All in a couple of weeks' work.

Worker dies after falling off Richmond-San Rafael Bridge

A 36-year-old Concord construction worker was killed Friday afternoon when he was struck by a steel beam that knocked him off a lower deck platform on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

The victim, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, was working with another employee on a gated platform 25 to 30 feet above the San Pablo Bay, said Susan Gard, a spokeswoman for the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Gard said as a steel beam was being lowered, heavy wind caused the beam to lose control and strike Rodriguez in the head as it shattered through a wooden barricade at 2:30 p.m.


Highway worker hit and killed

Corpus Christie -- A 26-year-old construction worker died after being hit Friday by an 18-wheeler on Interstate 37.

About 1:45 p.m. Luis Garcia was helping to set up a construction zone near the Red Bird Lane exit. Garcia was employed with United Rentals, a company that takes care of traffic control by setting up barrels to divert traffic away from other construction workers ahead.

Police said the driver of the 18-wheeler was trying to exit onto U.S. Highway 77 and cut across part of the area being closed off. The driver hit Garcia, killing him instantly.


Man killed in accident at shipyard

A 21-year-old Texas man was killed in an industrial accident at a shipyard when he was pinned between two "man lifts" that carry workers to high spots, police said. The man, who was not immediately identified, was a painter working for Norfolk-based Network Industries.

A friend of the victim, Michelle Willcutts, says the victim came to Norfolk from Mexico and got a job with Network Industries to raise money for his family back home.


Scaffolding collapse kills one

NASHVILLE - Scaffolding collapsed Friday at an apartment construction site, killing one worker, trapping another who was critically hurt, and injuring five more, officials said.

The employees were trying to remove metal scaffolding in a narrow alley at the six-story Bristol on Broadway apartment building when the rig gave way around 7:30 a.m., Assistant Fire Chief Dave Warman said.

Brian Owen, 24, of Lyles was killed, according to police spokesman Don Aaron. His family members wept at the scene, declining to be interviewed. More here.



Electric shock kills worker

Syracuse -- A Skaneateles man was killed and his brother injured Friday morning when their dump truck came in contact with an overhead power line in the town of Skaneateles, state police said.

Paul S. Dobrovosky, 31, of 1075 Hencoop Road, received a fatal electric shock as he was helping to lay stone shortly before 11 a.m. on Fire Lane 50, off Route 41A about a half-mile north of the Cayuga County line, troopers said.


1 River Oaks officer killed, 1 hurt when vehicles collide

RIVER OAKS, TX – A police officer was killed Thursday morning and one was injured when their department vehicles collided while chasing a traffic violator.

Officer Nathan Laurie, 43, who had been with the River Oaks Police Department for about two years, was pronounced dead at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital shortly after the 2:28 a.m. crash.


Investigators probe O'Hare luggage fatality

Chicago -- Job safety investigators were at O'Hare International Airport today, seeking to determine how a motorized baggage-hauling tug struck and overturned another luggage vehicle, fatally injuring its driver.

Alonzo Humphries, 29, who had worked for American Eagle since November, died of head injuries about an hour after the Thursday night accident, authorities said.


1 man killed, 1 injured when trench collapses

Pittsburgh -- A Franklin Park man died and another man was injured yesterday in the collapse of a trench in Beaver County that authorities said was not reinforced as required under federal health and safety standards. Marion E. Peters, 61, died at the scene in the 200 block of Silverdale Drive in Economy, said Deputy Coroner Skip Haswell.

Man dies in cave-in

NEWARK, OH -- Construction workers frantically tried to dig out a man buried alive when a sewer line trench collapsed Wednesday at a new subdivision in north Newark. "We were finishing up a job down the road when one of the guys on the trucks yell's, my God,'..." said concrete worker Dean Watson. "We ran over there with shovels and dug, and we found him, and we pulled his head up, and he still had a pulse and we keep digging and digging, trying to yank him out of there. We couldn't get him out, and his pulse stopped somewhere during that.

Authorities identified the dead worker as Gary Dillon, 40.


Worker Dies After Collapsing on Job

ROBINS, Iowa (AP) - Officials say a construction worker who died on the job in the eastern Iowa town of Robins earlier this week died of natural causes.

Fifty-one-year-old Larry Darling of Cedar Rapids died on Monday after collapsing. Police say he became ill and stopped breathing. He was taken to a Cedar Rapids hospital, where he died.
Robins is just north of Cedar Rapids.


Franconia police probe death of man killed by truck

Franconia, PA -- Franconia Township police are investigating the death of a Bucks County welder who was killed late Monday night after being pinned by a dump truck he was working on.

Police said Kevin Malloy, 38, of Pipersville, was working alone in the Shoemaker Welding Co. at 302 Leidy Rd. in Franconia. Police said Malloy was working on the truck with the dump bed raised.

For an unknown reason, the dump bed lowered, pinning Malloy between it and the truck cab.



Dominion Lineman Struck, Killed by Truck While Restoring Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- A Dominion Virginia Power lineman restoring electrical service near Montross, Va., early Wednesday was struck and killed by a truck.

William Dale Clarke, 44, of Tappahannock, Va., was a 22-year veteran employee of Dominion who worked at the Northern Neck-Lively office. He was completing work at a job site along State Route 202 when the accident occurred.



Painter dies of electric shock

PORT CHESTER, NY — A 25-year-old Port Chester man who worked as a painter was killed, and another painter was badly burned Monday when an aluminum ladder they were moving touched a power line.

Patricio Tenecela and another Port Chester man apparently were taking down the aluminum extension ladder at the Newtown Meeting House in Newtown, Conn., when it made contact with the power lines that run along a street near the building just before 4 p.m., police said. The Main Street building was being painted by Campbell Quality Painting of Newtown, police said.



Jefferson: County road worker dies following truck crash

Jefferson County, WA -- Jefferson County road department employees were mourning a fellow worker Monday after James B. Halvorson died in a Seattle hospital Friday.

Mr. Halvorson suffered severe injuries when his county pickup crashed into a tree at the side of Center Road, south of Chimacum, on July 15.


Hero police officer killed in Long Island crash

DIX HILLS, N.Y. -- A decorated Suffolk County police officer, who won acclaim in 2002 when he helped stop an out-of-control SUV on the Long Island Expressway, was killed in a one-car crash Tuesday on the Northern State Parkway.

Edwin Hernandez, 44, a 19-year veteran assigned to the Highway Patrol unit, was driving west shortly after midnight when he apparently lost control of his police cruiser, hit a guardrail and then a tree at the Dix Hills Road overpass, police said.


Construction worker falls in Gilbert, dies

GILBERT - A 25-year-old construction worker died of head injuries Saturday morning after falling off the roof of the Gilbert home he was working on. Manuel Guevara apparently fell when the 20 pieces of particleboard stacked on the roof of the house in the 2900 block of East Bonanza Court shifted. The particleboard then fell on him, causing his death.


Worker dies from gator attack

FORT MYERS - (AP) -- A professional landscaper who was mauled by an alligator died Friday in surgery to treat an infection caused by the animal's vicious bites.

Janie Melsek, 54, died at Lee Memorial Hospital. Doctors said her body simply shut down in response to the infection.

Melsek was attacked Wednesday by a 12-foot, 457-pound alligator as she worked on the landscaping behind a home on Sanibel Island. The alligator dragged her into a pond, tearing at her right arm so severely that part of it was later amputated.


Condo collapse death toll at 2

HOBE SOUND, FL · Two workers were killed and five were injured late Thursday afternoon when the third floor of the building under construction collapsed west of Hobe Sound. Another six construction workers at the Tranquility complex escaped injury, including a 13-year-old West Palm Beach boy.

At least 13 men were pouring and smoothing concrete to erect the building's third floor when the structure at Flora Avenue in Martin County gave way about 6:15 p.m.

The dead were identified by the Martin County Sheriff's Office as Gregorio Ruiz, of Wilton Manors, and Lauro Hernandez, who were working on the first floor of the three-story concrete and steel building. Their bodies were pulled from the wreckage early Friday morning.



Olathe Worker Electrocuted While Installing Light Pole

OLATHE, Kan. -- A worker for the city of Olathe was killed Friday when he was electrocuted while installing a light pole, KMBC's Donna Pitman reported.

The incident happened around 11:35 a.m. near Santa Fe and Indian Wells Road. Two workers were installing the pole when it somehow came into contact with a live wire. Benito Alvarez, 27, was electrocuted.


Cal/OSHA probes racetrack death

Petaluma, CA -- Petaluma police are focusing on possible human error that could have contributed to the death of Randolph E. Clifton, a racing official killed Saturday when he was struck by a race car at the Petaluma Speedway.

They are examining whether the steering wheel in the race car was properly attached and whether Clifton was in the correct position on the track.


Officer killed in hit-run on way home from work

A popular Oakland police motorcycle officer returning home from work was struck and killed Thursday on a San Leandro freeway by a hit-and-run trucker who was later arrested, authorities said.

Officer William "Will" Seuis, 39, of Pleasanton, a well-respected 15-year veteran, was in full uniform and riding his 2001 Harley-Davidson police motorcycle when he was hit at 2:11 p.m. by a white 1996 Freightliner truck as it changed lanes on eastbound Highway 238 at Ashland Avenue.

"The trailer did hit the officer, knocked him off his bike, and he was pulled underneath the trailer's tires," said Officer Dan Hesser of the California Highway Patrol.


Police Honor Fallen Comrade

There was a stirring tribute for a Metro Police Officer killed this week in the line of duty.

Friday, hundreds of officers took part in the funeral processional that led from south Nashville to Dickson for Officer Christy Dedman.

Dedman was killed when her cruiser, parked on the side of the road, was hit by a tractor trailer on Monday while she assisted a stranded motorist.


Load Of Glass Crushes Worker At Construction Site

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A worker died Friday morning after investigators said a load of glass panels he was unloading fell on top of him at a Northside construction site.

Just after 10 a.m., rescue crews and police were called to the area of Pine Estates and Dunn Avenue, where an addition is being put on a medical building.

Police said 60-year-old Bobby Stephens, an employee of Mac's Glass and Mirror, was crushed by the weight of 15 large panels of glass.


Officials Consider Charges After Officer Dies In Collision

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office is working with state police to determine what happened in a crash that killed a Maryland Transportation Authority police officer, and what charges the driver of a pickup truck that hit the officer's cruiser should face.

Police told WBAL-TV 11 News that the officer, identified as Duke Aaron III, had just finished writing a citation. He died after a pickup truck rear-ended his unmarked cruiser that was parked on the highway's shoulder.


WORKER dies on site in Cohoes

COHOES, NY - A construction worker died at a work site here Wednesday, and a city code enforcement official is saying a construction company's failure to use proper equipment contributed to the accident.

John Duesler, 59, of St. Johns- ville, was at the bottom of a 10-foot-deep trench in a new housing complex called Brighton Point off Western Avenue when heavy, clay-like dirt collapsed around him at about 10:30 a.m.

Cohoes Code Enforcement Officer Joseph Monast visited the scene and said the accident may have been avoided if proper equipment had been used. He said the construction company working on the site, which Heslin said was K and M Construction, was not using a trench box, which allowed the dirt to cave in."The ditch wasn't shored up," Monast said.


Man electrocuted at concrete firm

NEW HARTFORD, CT -- Andrew D. Riopel loved his sons and being a New York Mills volunteer firefighter.

Riopel, 34, New York Mills, was working on an electrical box about 12:47 p.m. Tuesday when he was shocked at Madden Concrete's Campion Road site, New Hartford police Sgt. Marc Marziale said.


OSHA looking into death at Angoon lodge

Juneau, AK -- The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a weekend accident at an Angoon lodge that led to the death of a man working there.

Troy S. Payne, 61, was cutting an empty 500-gallon fuel tank with an acetylene torch Saturday, said Gary McCoy, operations manager for Whaler's Cove Lodge, on an island near the village about 55 miles southwest of Juneau.

State troopers reported Wednesday that Payne was seriously burned and flown to Seattle, where he died Sunday.


Worker Electrocuted Near Local Freeway

A worker was electrocuted while working near a freeway ramp in Allen Park Tuesday morning, according to Michigan State Police.

The 47-year-old Dearborn Heights man was apparently working on a high-voltage electric line near the ramp from M-39 to Interstate 94 east when the accident occurred.


Second rescue worker dies as search winds down

JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK, CA -- As a second search and rescue volunteer injured in a Saturday morning crash while on his way to look for a missing hiker died Tuesday, authorities began scaling back the search for the 17-year-old in the Joshua Tree National Park. Phillip Calvert, 58, of Mentone was pronounced dead at 2:36 a.m. at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.

He was taken to the medical center following the crash early Saturday in Morongo Valley that killed another San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team member, Scott Johnston, 30, of Redlands. The men and three others on their team were on their way to join in the efforts being made to find San Diego County teen Eric Sears when their vehicle was struck head-on at Highway 62 and Piedras Trail.



Two killed when crate falls on them

HUYETT, Md. - Two workers were killed when a crate of drilling equipment fell on them along U.S. Route 40 west of Hagerstown, police said.

State police identified the men as Mark Goshorn, 25, of Blair Mills, Pa., and Jamie Peterson, 24, of Shade Gap, Pa.

Police said the victims were helping lay underground cable when a crate of drill bits fell off a drilling machine on top of them.



State worker killed in crash near Normal

NORMAL, IL -- A state employee was killed in a traffic crash three miles north of Normal Monday, McLean County Coroner Beth Kimmerling said in a statement.

The crash involving a pickup truck and a semitrailer truck happened about 8:45 a.m. on Interstate 39, the coroner said. Douglas M. Keenan, 43, of Somonauk, the pickup truck driver, was dead at the scene at 9:12 a.m.



Worker killed when bulldozer overturns

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. - An immigrant worker died at a country club after the bulldozer he was driving overturned and crushed him. Silvestre Alba Cano, 22, of Guatemala was an immigrant who was authorized to work in this country, said Charleston County deputy coroner Bobbi Jo O'Neal.

The accident happened about 12:45 p.m. Monday at the Snee Farm Country Club. Cano was driving the bulldozer on an incline when the vehicle tipped over and trapped him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Since Jan. 1, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has investigated 20 workplace deaths, said Jim Knight, a spokesman for the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. Of those, five involved Hispanic workers, he said.


Tree service employee dies; was working to clean up after Louisville storm
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A man working for an Arkansas tree service company following storms that raked Louisville died after part of a tree fell on him, a deputy coroner said.

Steven Mosher, 36, of Texarkana, Ark., was injured about 6:40 p.m. EDT Sunday and died a short time later at University hospital, according to Jack Arnold, a deputy Jefferson County coroner.

Man Receives Up To 29 Years For Killing Worker

Philadelphia -- A judge imposed consecutive sentences totaling 14-1/2 to 29 years on Christopher Manigault for killing Kenneth Wasiek, 32, as he stepped out of his city truck at a work site on June 24, 2003. Manigault was convicted of "driving under the influence" of alcohol.

Bad luck. If he had killed Wasiek in a trench, or confined space, he'd have gotten off with a few thousand dollars and no jail time.