Sure Glad We Got Rid Of That Ergonomics Standard

How would the American business community feel if they knew that one of President Bush's first major actions was to effectively give them a $16 billion tax increase?

Employers spent $50.8 billion in 2003 on wage payments and medical care for workers hurt on the job, according to the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety in its Workplace Safety Index. $13.4 billion of that total -- the largest contributor -- was overexertion-related injuries caused by excessive lifting, pushing, pulling, holding, carrying or throwing of an object. Another $3 billion blamed on repetitive motion injuries. Almost half of corporate Chief Financial Officers mentioned overexertion and repetitive motion as their number one cause of workers compensation loss.

Most of these injuries would have been covered by the ergonomics standard, issued in 2000 and repealed in March 2001 by the Republican Congress and Bush administration.

Good work guys.

OSHA Alliance with Chemical Council: From Ridiculous to Unethical

Chemical manufacturers don't have many friends these days. Everyone's always getting upset about toxic chemicals being spewed into the air and water, cancer and all that icky stuff.

It didn't help that they recently killed Senator Jon Corzine's (D-NJ) chemical plant security bill that would, in part, have made plants secure by requiring them to consider inherently safer processes. It also doesn't help that they're behind the Bush administration's strident opposition to the European Community's proposed new chemical program that would reverse the current practice of treating chemicals as innocent until proven guilty by the illnesses and deaths of workers and consumers. And then there's the years they've spent "manufacturing doubt" about our entire scientific and regulatory system designed to protect people's health. (And that's just the most recent history. For a more comprehensive picture of what the chemical industry has contributed to the safety and health of American citizens, check out Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner's excellent book Deceit and Denial.)

Luckily, the American Chemistry Council (formerly the Chemical Manufacturers Association) has a friend who feels its pain: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which has formed a new Alliance with the ACC so that all of their little voluntary programs -- OSHA's Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) and the ACC's Responsible Care® initiative -- can "dialogue" together (whatever that means). In fact, with this Alliance, ACC has basically enlisted OSHA in the association's membership campaign.

So what does this Alliance mean, aside from the usual press release, photo ops, fancy pens and signing ceremonies? Well, let's see. Basicially, to quote the official agreement: (AGREEMENT ESTABLISHING AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND THE AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL), OSHA and ACC will

• Promote membership in each others' program to potential companies and program auditors.
  


• Work with OSHA to provide expertise in the development of training and education programs for VPP evaluators (including VPP Regional staff) and Responsible Care auditors, regarding the similarities and differences in the two programs and communicate such information to appropriate individuals.

Before gettting down to business, let's take a minute of have a bit of fun ridiculing them for a couple of seconds. Check out this sentence, it's just so....Washington:

"OSHA and ACC will continue to work with the synergies between the two programs in order to leverage resources and work on the continued goals of safety and health."

You just can't get much better than that.

OK, enough fun. Now let's talk about government ethics, or lack thereof. Turns out that this Alliance is a bit more than the usual meaningless waste of taxpayer dollars by an agency that's evading its mission. As a matter of fact, I'll come right out and say it: This Alliance with the ACC borders on unethical. Anyone from the Department of Labor's Inspector General's office listening?

I'll explain.

ACC is a membership association of chemical companies. In order to be a member of ACC, member companies must commit to complying with the Responsible Care® program. But Responsible Care is actually a mixed blessing for ACC. On one hand it is intended to give the organization a more responsible image with the general public and, at least in the case of chemical plant security, to sell Responsible Care® as the model for a federal program. (ACC is actually promoting chemical plant security regulations...as long as they're based on the Responsible Care® program.)

On the other hand, however, ACC is losing members(partially due to high memberships fees and allegedly ineffective advocacy) and doesn't want the Responsible Care® program to make the problem worse, or scare off potential members who don't want to comply with a program that goes "above and beyond government requirements," as the ACC likes to boast.

ACC recently revised Responsible Care® , replacing its ineffective self-audit process with a mandatory third-party auditing requirement. That may have enhanced the credibility of Responsible Care® , but it certainly didn't help their membership much. Obviously, the less burdensome ACC can make the program seem, the better its bottom line. And what better way to make the program seem attractive than to have OSHA on board training Responsible Care® auditors (who eventually audit ACC members) , selling the program along with the OSHA-sponsored VPP, and giving Responsible Care (and ACC membership) OSHA's official stamp of approval. In other words, OSHA has signed onto ACC's membership-building campaign as a full partner.

If ACC wants to have a mandatory safety program, more power to them. If OSHA thinks the program is good enough to praise, go for it. But this Alliance, with OSHA going around arm in arm with ACC to promote ACC's proprietary program, essentially making it easier for companies to join, is on a bit of a different scale.

Doesn't anyone else see anything not quite kosher about this?

I mean, can you imagine what the Republicans and Rush Limbaugh types would have done if Bill Clinton's OSHA had gotten actively involved on the union side of organizing campaigns, going around educating workers about the benefits of organizing a union? (And union membership, unlike business association membership, is supposed to be a right promoted by the federal government -- at least back before the Department of Labor became a subsidiary of the Department of Commerce).

Wouldn't it be nice to have at least one house of Congress back again so that our legislators could actually hold some meaningful oversight hearings about how OSHA and other compliance agencies have strayed from their original intent?

In OSHA's case, the original intent was:

To assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women; by authorizing enforcement of the standards developed under the Act; by assisting and encouraging the States in their efforts to assure safe and healthful working conditions; by providing for research, information, education, and training in the field of occupational safety and health; and for other purposes.

...And where does "assisting industry associations to build membership" come in?

Corporate America Beware: AFL-CIO Creates Key To Who's Been Naughty and Who's Been Nice

Attention journalists, political activists and residents of any area near a company that employees workers -- in other words, everyone. Check this out.

The last problem we seem to have these days in this increasingly computerized world is lack of information. The real problem is knowing where to find it and how to use it. Journalists or political organizers, if they're knowledgeable about the web, can ferret out valuable information about individual companies that they may be interested in. But mere mortals often have a harder time.

Now, Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has created Job Tracker, putting an enormous amount of valuable workplace-related information at the fingertips of anyone with a web browser. They've constructed an ingenious tool for discovering, by inputting a zip code or state, vital information about companies and how they treat their workers: OSHA citations (when, for what, how much ), layoffs, exporting jobs and violating labor laws. It even has each company's OSHA injury and illness rate, and whether the rates were high enough to earn a letter from OSHA warning them that they're on the targeted inspection list. You can also search by company name and by industry.

But enough talk, time to take her out for a test spin. We'll feed in my zip code, 20912 ... and seconds later I find that within 100 miles of my home are 17 companies that have been exporting jobs, 15 companies that have been laying off workers, 13 companies that have violated federal labor laws and 94 companies with safety and health violations.

OK, narrowing it down to the service sector, I find General Dynamics Robotic Systems in Westminster, Maryland which killed a worker in 2004 and received a $2,375 penalty. Bad.

And, in case you're interested, the CEO of the company, Nicholas D. Chabraja, "raked in $7,145,081 in total compensation including stock option grants from General Dynamics" in 2004, in addition to "another $17,807,840 in unexercised stock options from previous years."

"Awesome," as my kids would say.

Much of the information is linked to its source. For example, the OSHA violations link right to OSHA's inspection data webpage.

It's fun to think how this tool can be put to use. Workers can discover their employer's history of NLRA and OSHA violations. Journalists can instantly find if a company has "a history." Political organizers can ask Senator Porkafeller why he's getting contributions from a company that has 12 NLRB violations, 3 OSHA citations and is exporting jobs to China. Bloggers can get a few more minutes of sleep at night.

I'd suggest a few enhancements, in case anyone's asking. Adding environmental citations and toxic releases would not only attract environmentalists and residents who are wondering what's being spewed over their neighborhoods, but also highlight the connection between workplace, labor and environmental criminals.

And then maybe tying in some Google maps, with different colored pins: red for OSHA violations, yellow NLRB citations, and searching by Congressional District, and .... This could be fun.

Latino Forest Workers: Abuse, Mistreatment and Death, Sponsored By The Federal Government

Guess what, Latino's aren't just the main source of cheap labor in farms, construction sites and meat processing, they're also the major source of manual labor in America's forest industry. And, as usual, they're paying the price in injuries and abuse. But there's something different from the usual exploitation suffered by Latinos at the hand of greedy corporations; this abuse is brought to you by your federal government.

I've been writing this blog for two-and-a-half years, and working in this field for 23 years, and there are still stories out there that amaze and appall me -- and occasionally reporters and news media that continues to impress.

The Sacramento Bee has just published a must-read three part series on pineros, the men who work in the pines.

Guest forest workers are routinely subjected to conditions not tolerated elsewhere in the United States, The Bee investigation found. They are gashed by chain saws, bruised by tumbling logs and rocks, verbally abused and forced to live in squalor.

Rainstorms pummel them. Cold winds sweep over them. Hunger stalks them. And death claims them. Across Honduras and Guatemala, 14 guest workers lay in tombs, victims of the worst non-fire-related workplace accident in the history of U.S. forests.

***

This fall, 17 guest workers slashed through dense stands of pine and fir in Montana's Bitterroot National Forest for a contractor with a history of labor violations: Universal Forestry of Orofino, Idaho.

While cutting a dead tree without safety goggles - another violation - one of them was struck in the face by a branch, which gouged a deep crescent beneath his eye. The company declined to discuss the situation in Montana. But other crew members complained of unsafe working conditions, of unexpected payroll deductions and of hunger.

"We are uneasy because we don't even have enough money to eat," said Luciano Hernández, who said he was down to his last $15.

But unlike the millions of Latin Americans who are in this country illegally, the 10,000 pineros working in the forests are here legally, on H2B visas, at the invitation of the federal government, to plant trees across and thin fire-prone woods out West as part of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Initiative. But they're hardly treated with the hospitality that guests deserve:

• Over the past decade, forest contractors certified by the U.S. Department of Labor to hire foreign guest workers have shorted them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and violated scores of state and federal laws. Some employers have taken workers' visas and personal papers, including deeds to cars and even a home - in effect, holding them hostage to hard labor.
• The H2B forest workers toil in a regulatory void. Rules that protect H2A farmworkers - such as requirements for free housing and access to federal legal services - don't extend to forest guest workers.
• In national forests, where the contractors are paid with tax dollars, federal officials overseeing the work witness the mistreatment and wretched working conditions. But they don't intervene. Responsibility for workers, they say, rests with the Department of Labor and the forest contractors themselves.
• And, where government oversight of contractors exists, it's often inconsistent. Companies cited by one branch of the Labor Department for abusing forest guest workers are regularly certified by another branch to recruit and hire more.

And cutting trees is not the only problem.

The number one cause of death among pineros - Latino forest workers - is not the slip of a chain saw or the falling trees known as widow-makers. It is van accidents. And unlike most highway tragedies, the crashes that claim migrant lives are not born of chance alone.

They are the byproducts of fatigue, poorly maintained vehicles, ineffective state and federal laws, inexperienced drivers and poverty-stricken workers hungry for jobs.

"When you add everything up, it's a formula for disaster," said Robert Perez, a Fresno lawyer who has represented scores of Latino laborers hurt and killed in van accidents.

All told, 21 pineros are known to have died in van accidents over just the last three years: 14 in Maine, five in Washington and two in Oregon. But those numbers don't begin to measure the pain: across Guatemala and Honduras, at least 15 women have lost their partners and 69 children no longer have their fathers.

Beyond the hazards of cutting trees and transportation, there are the hazards of planting:

The greatest dangers for pineros are not always the obvious ones. One of the riskiest jobs isn't cutting trees down - it's planting them in the ground, another Canadian report found.

"Planters typically cover 16 kilometers (9.6 miles) per day over difficult terrain," said the study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2002. "In the process of planting, 20 percent will suffer a debilitating injury, a rate far in excess of the all-industry norm of five percent. ... Long-term implications for degeneration of the musculoskeletal system cannot be ignored."

Eladio Hernandez, a former Oregon tree planter, calls it "probably the hardest job in the world."

"Slopes are slippery," he said. "There's poison oak and ivy. Every day, you come back with a fever. It's that difficult. You either get used to it or quit."

The worst part is that this isn't the first time the Bee has written about this problem. There was a flurry of attention after a Bee article 12 years ago and the forest service promised to address the problems. But

Despite calling for tougher law enforcement and assembling a 264-page watch list of troubled contractors, the agency today routinely contracts its work out to reforestation companies that violate state and federal safety, health and labor laws.

***

"We're not very good at managing things like this anymore," said Stan Bird, a veteran Forest Service contracting officer in John Day, Ore. "Years ago, it was important. But it's gotten lost in the midst of a lot of other priorities."

In the Klamath National Forest in California, federal law enforcement officer Jeff Brown worked a flurry of cases in the mid-'90s involving undocumented workers. Since then, Forest Service reforestation officials have not referred a single case to him. "In my opinion, the problem is still out there," Brown said. "It hasn't gone away."

What's Left To Do When Fines Don't Work (Hint: Start's with a "P" ends with an "n")

This is the kind of case where you wish OSHA had the ability to send an employer to jail without passing go and without a chance of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

A worker was crushed to death yesterday at the Jindal United Steel Works in Houston, Texas. The details about the accident haven't been released, but an enterprising reporter did take the time to check the company's past OSHA history, and guess what?

In a 40-page document from the U.S. Department of Labor, more than 100 citations for safety and health violations were listed for Jindal. The citations range from failure to correct crane hazards to serious health violations.

In October 2000, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration fined Jindal $1.7 million for 182 alleged violations.

Jindal's sister company, SAW Pipes USA, Inc., was fined $500,000 three months later by OSHA for 67 alleged willful violations for failing to document illnesses and injuries on the job.

OSHA noted the penalties against the company represents one of the largest record-keeping violations in years.

The citation, which you can view here, is still being appealed by the company.

The huge fine was mainly for recordkeeping violations, crimes that Senator Enzi (see below) would undoubtedly consider to be insignficant not even punishable if the employer fixed it within 72 hours.

But as the OSHA press release said at the time of the citation:

The inspection found that the company purposefully did not record numerous injuries and illnesses from 1998 through part of 2000, significantly lowering the company's lost workday illness and injury rate.

"Documenting workplace injuries and illnesses is a vital part of protecting our nation's workers," said OSHA Administrator Charles N. Jeffress. "Under our inspection targeting system, had this employer reported the correct injury and illness rate for 1998, the facility would likely have been placed on the list for a programmed inspection prior to the complaint that initiated this investigation."

Failing to record workplace injuries and illnesses is a serious deficiency, not merely a paperwork violation. Accurate records of injuries and illnesses help workers and employers identify hazards that require correction and help OSHA pinpoint worksites that need to do a better job of protecting workers.

And, as we saw yesterday, fraudulent recordkeeping may also be indicative of lousy safety conditions.

US Senate: Something Evil This Way Comes

Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) is reportedly poised to introduce wide-ranging legislation that will seriously weaken the Occupational Safety and Health Act. While all the details aren't in, Inside OSHA (subscription required) has obtained a summary of the bills and the first impression is...worse than anyone expected.

First, what won't be on the bills: Enzi had originally planned to make it easier for OSHA to seek criminal penalties against employers cited for willful violations, but succumbed to industry pressure to drop that proposal. The criminal penalties language would have raised the maximum prison sentence for willful OSHA violations from six to 18 months, according to Inside OSHA.

Oh well. I mean, it's not like they're actually killing people. Oh, actually, yes they are.

Among the bills that Enzi is expected to introduce as early as next week are:

Occupational Safety Partnership Act: Enzi will also repropose his pet project -- privatizing OSHA enforcement by allowing employers to hire private sector consultants to inspect their workplaces and issue a "certificate of compliance," exempting them from an OSHA citation for two years. The Partnership act will also increase the use of voluntary protection programs and technical assistance programs. These are the same programs that the Government Accountability Office studied in 2004 and found to have no proven value.

Occupational Safety Fairness Act: This bill includes Charlie Norwood's (R-GA) four OSHA-weakening bills that already passed the House of Representatives last July. In addition, there's are some even worse provisions, including one that would allow employers to vacate citations "if an employer can demonstrate that the employees of such employer were protected by alternative methods equivalent or more protective of the workers’ safety and health." In other words, instead of citing according to OSHA standards, the agency would be forced to use its shrinking resources to prove that the employer's "alternative" methods weren't equally as protective as the OSHA standard.

It would also allow employers to avoid non-serious citations if they fix the problem within 72 hours and requires OSHA is issue most citations within 30 days (instead of the current 6 months), doubles the amount of time the employer has to contest a citation. (With no additional resources, of course.)

This bill also states that “other than serious” citations may not be used as a basis for issuing subsequent, repeat, or willful violation. In other words, if OSHA cites a "close call" or an unsafe condition, and then the same problem eventually leads to a serious injury or fatality, OSHA would be prohibited from issuing a significant citation.

But the worst part of this bill is that for the first time in OSHA's history, the agency would be empowered to cite workers if they aren't wearing their personal protective equipment. Yes, this is the same agency that after five years, still refuses to issue a completed regulation requiring employers to pay for personal protective equipment mandated by OSHA standards.

Those are the best parts. More details as they emerge.

Get ready for a fight.

Minnesota Snow Storms: Stay Off The Roads

AFSCME in Minnesota is warning the public that there may be trouble during snow storms if the state goes through with its plan to put desk-bound workers behind the wheel of snow plows, even though they had a two-week training course -- in the summer.

Their inexperience raises safety questions, said Bob Hilliker of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

"(The training) was on dry ground," Hilliker said. "It was up at Camp Ripley with no traffic and now they're going to go out in a storm and be in a lot of traffic at a high speed with the worst conditions possible."

Dead Healthcare Workers Do Not Provide Good Patient Care

This statement from a union representative may seem obvious to most of us, but not apparently to the Bush administration. Labor unions who represent health care workers are none too happy with the recently released White House Avian Flu plan, according to Inside OSHA (subscription required). The guidance is ineffective and contradictory.

HHS recommends that workers use surgical or procedure masks when entering a patient’s room. However, labor groups say that this is not enough and that an N95 respirator, which is recommended by the World Health Organization, should be required for all healthcare workers. HHS only recommends use of the N95 mask when performing aerosolgenerating procedures such as intubation, nebulizer treatment, bronchoscopy and suctioning. But CDC, which is part of HHS, recommends that healthcare workers always use N95 respirators or better.

Union reps fear that if health care workers do not feel they're being adequately protected, they won't show up for work in the event of a pandemic.

Watching Out: Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch

The Institute for Southern Studies has started a new webpage and blog called Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch "a new project to document and investigate the rebuilding of the Southern Gulf in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita"

Through much of the Gulf Coast coast, there's now an eery silence. The hurricanes have left, the flood waters have receded, and the TV cameras are nearly all gone.

But for the people of the hurricane-ravaged South, the struggle for their region's future has just begun.

While residents are focused on picking up the pieces, a handful of powerful interests -- well-connected contractors, unscrupulous developers, and ambitious politicians -- are cutting deals, making plans and seeking to capitalize on the disaster.

But who's watching them?

We are.

Good. Someone needs to do it.

Workplace Hazards and Abuse in the Gulf: Part Deux

More today on the struggles of workers in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. First, Amanda Schaffer at Slate writes about "Katrina Cough."

Katrina cough is a constellation of symptoms—coughs, sore throats, runny noses, and respiratory trouble. As I mentioned in my yesterday's review of Gulf Coast problems, many downplay its seriousness, although it can be dangerous for people with asthma, respiratory illness, or compromised immune systems.

Schaffer has been paying close attention to what happened after during the World Trade Centers cleanup.

Following 9/11, the EPA and OSHA failed to safeguard nearby residents and workers at Ground Zero from unnecessary exposures to asbestos, lead, glass fibers, concrete dust, and other toxins. The damage was caused not by a few days of rescue work, but by weeks and months of cleaning up the site or living nearby. The EPA offered assurances that the air outside of Ground Zero was safe to breathe—even though, as the agency's inspector general found in 2003, the agency "did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement." The EPA also caved to pressure from the White House Council on Environmental Quality "to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" from its public announcements about the disaster. And in overseeing work at Ground Zero, OSHA decided not to enforce workplace health rules as it regularly would have, but instead acted primarily as an "adviser" to employers. As a result, the agency did not ensure that workers wore proper protective gear, especially respirators, though the equipment was widely available on the site. (For more on respirators and Ground Zero click here.)

The EPA is again downplaying the risks to Katrina survivors. Many of the educational materials prepared by EPA aren't reaching the people who need them, and although the American Lung Association estimates that more than 16 percent of New Orleans children suffered from asthma, EPA has not told parents to keep children away until the cleanup has significantly progressed. People working on houses are unable to find enough protective respirators and are instead using paper dust masks that can trap the contaminents in the mask, making the problem worse.

And then in a potentially tragic deja vu,

Also troubling is the lack of protection for recovery workers hired by contractors. Subra says the workers she has seen have no respiratory gear. Contractors are reportedly hiring the workers, many of them Latino immigrants, in nearby cities like Houston. "I know men who have gotten so sick with diarrhea, skin inflammations and breathing problems they can't work. … The contractors just hire more," said Juan Alvarez, director of the Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights in Houston, in a letter sent to Congress by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and other groups.

Meanwhile, over at Salon, Roberto Lovato writes about the Gulf Coast Slaves of KBR, "a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton that was awarded a major contract by the Bush administration for disaster relief work."

Workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, report not being paid, not being fed, being kept captive on the military bases they're working on, and being thrown out on the streets after being kicked out of promised jobs. The job brokers and sub-contractors claim they can't pay the workers, because they haven't been paid by their contractor. On top of the heap stand Halliburton and KBR atop "a shadowy labyrinth of contractors, subcontractors and job brokers, overseen by no single agency, [who]have created a no man's land where nobody seems to be accountable for the hiring -- and abuse -- of these workers."

Meanwhile, it's almost impossible to hold Halliburton/KBR responsible:

Halliburton/KBR is the general contractor with overarching responsibility for the federal cleanup contracts covering Katrina-damaged naval bases. Even so, there is an utter lack of transparency with the process -- and that invites malfeasance, says James Hale, a vice president of the Laborers' International Union of North America. "To my knowledge, not one member of Congress has been able to get their hands on a copy of a contract that was handed out to Halliburton or others," Hale says. "There is no central registry of Katrina contracts available. No data on the jobs or scope of the work." Hale says that his union's legislative staff has pressed members of Congress for more information; apparently the legislators were told that they could not get copies of the contracts because of "national security" concerns.
"If the contracts handed out to these primary contractors are opaque, then the contracts being let to the subcontractors are just plain invisible," Hale says. "There is simply no ability to ascertain or monitor the contractor-subcontractor relationships. This is an open invitation for exploitation, fraud and abuse."

After Katrina: The Bad Times Continue to Roll

If you're a worker, resident or tree in New Orleans or on the Gulf Coast, things aren't going so well these days. A series of recent articles in a variety of newspapers tell stories of contamination of the water and land with toxic chemicals, dangerous molds that may already be causing disease, workers without proper safety equipment who often don't get paid for the work they've done, and corporations involved in the cleanup who want Congress to free them of any liability for damage that they may cause.

The contamination that has gotten the most attention comes from the 1 million gallons of oil spilled from a Murphy Oil Corp. storage tank, which left unsafe levels of diesel and oil-related organic chemicals in sediment. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease

said that people should not move back into homes where oil is visible and that they should use protective gear when they are working around contaminated homes. The agency said studies have shown that if someone touches oil substances with their bare skin they may suffer from rashes and be at a slightly higher risk of skin cancer.

EPA has also found high levels of arsenic, diesel fuel and other petroleum-based chemicals around the refinery.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle reviewed data from the National Response Center which showed

that the two storms caused at least 595 spills, incidents that released untold amounts of oil, natural gas and other chemicals into the air, onto land and into the water.

The quantity and cumulative magnitude of the 595 spills, which were spread across four states and struck offshore and inland, rank these two hurricanes among the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Some have even compared the total amount of oil released — estimated at 9 million gallons — to the tragedy of Exxon Valdez.

***

"This is about the tenth disaster I have responded to, and this is the worst I have ever seen," said Wally Cooper, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's on-scene coordinator, in charge of overseeing the Murphy Oil spill cleanup. "This is worse than the worst-case scenario."

Mother nature is only partly to blame for the high number of chemical tanks that ruptured during the storm:

"A high proportion of them are not properly tied down," Ivor van Heerden, the center's director, said in a November 2003 report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "Imagine a storage tank full of diesel lifted by floodwaters,shearing its hoses, and its pipes working loose, and leaking."

Environmentalists say faulty equipment, not the hurricanes, was to blame for many of the spills. For the activist community, the storms' environmental impact has refocused efforts from day-to-day pollution and on to bigger issues such as whether energy infrastructure should be located along a hurricane-prone coast, said Denny
Larson, coordinator for the Refinery Reform Campaign.

"People have said for years that they shouldn't have facilities in low-lying coastal areas where contamination risks are great," Larson said. "It's ... the poorest possible choice." As Congress considers building new refining capacity, environmentalists are already pushing for lawmakers to require companies to have plans for natural disasters. The design of storage tanks also is likely to be a topic in the storms' post-mortem, experts say.

In order to understand the possible long-term effects of the contamination in New Orleans, the Dallas News reviewed the EPA test results of every chemical test at every site in Orleans Parish through Oct. 1 and compared them with the EPA's screening levels for residential soil. The News found high levels of cancer-causing arsenic, benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, the banned insecticide dieldrin and lead.

Although early reports from EPA claimed that the water in New Orleans was no more polluted that normal flood water,

Contaminated sediment was always a more serious long-term worry than floodwater, since the water was quickly removed. In September, experts advised the EPA that toxic dust could spread as the sediment dried.

Buildings in New Orleans are now contaminated with mold and the toxic "soup" has dried into toxic mud, creating all kinds of new problems:

That debris includes a thick layer of dried mud that cakes much of St. Bernard and lower Plaquemines parishes and vast areas of Lakeview, the 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans. As the mud crumbles to dust and goes airborne or people come into contact with it on the ground, there is increasing concern it could be harmful to humans. Some sediment samples have contained arsenic, lead and petroleum products, and EPA officials said residents should avoid contact if possible.

Mold is being detected in previously unseen levels. According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, "preliminary testing results indicate that the indoor mold spore count in flooded homes is reaching 2.5 million; a count of more than 50,000 is considered severe by the National Allergy Board" and stores have run out of the recommended respirators.

The mold be be causing what is coming to be called "Katrina Cough," according to the Los Angeles Times:

Dr. Dennis Casey, one of the few ear, nose and throat doctors seeing patients in New Orleans, called the condition "very prevalent." And Dr. Kevin Jordan, director of medical affairs at Touro Infirmary and Memorial Medical Center in downtown New Orleans, said the hospital had seen at least a 25% increase in complaints regarding sinus headaches, congestion, runny noses and sore throats since Katrina.

In most cases, Casey said, patients appear to be "allergic to the filth they are exposed to." Those allergies make the patients more susceptible to respiratory illness, including bacterial bronchitis and sinusitis.

Among the public, the condition is known alternately as "Katrina cough" and "Katrina's revenge" — much to the consternation of physicians who feel the monikers paint a needlessly alarming portrait of the environment

***

But the condition could be more serious for people whose health is otherwise compromised — for example, organ transplant patients; people who are undergoing chemotherapy; or people who suffer from emphysema, asthma, chronic bronchitis or ther ailments.

"It could be life-threatening to those people," said Dr. Peter DeBlieux, associate medical director of the Spirit of Charity, a MASH-style clinic that has been set up in downtown New Orleans. "Those people are already living on a precipice and could be pushed off. Those people are encouraged not to come back to the city."

With the promise of work and high pay, high numbers of undocumented immigrants have flocked to New Orleans and Mississippi. Unfortunately, on top of the dirty and dangerous work, the AP's Justin Pritchard reports that many complain of not being paid after weeks of work.

A pattern is emerging as the cleanup of Mississippi's Gulf Coast morphs into its multibillion-dollar reconstruction: Come payday, untold numbers of Hispanic immigrant laborers are being stiffed. Sometimes, the boss simply vanishes. Other workers wait on promises that soon, someone in a complex hierarchy of contractors will provide the funds to pay them.

Nonpayment of wages is a violation of federal labor law, but these workers — thousands of them, channeled into teams that corral debris, swaddle punctured roofs in blue tarps and gut rain-ravaged homes — are especially vulnerable because many are here illegally.

Many of the firms that aren't paying are subcontracting from KBR, a firm owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.

The worst problems seem to be in Mississippi, although it's hard to gauge accurately, as the state doesn't even have a labor department, it's not against the Mississippi law to not pay workers, and any complaints are forwarded to the federal Department of Labor. The only option workers have is to file a claim with the federal government or take their employer to court, options that few, if any, immigrant workers will take advantage of. In fact, despite widespread complaints of non-payment of wages, Mississippi prosecutors have not received a single complaint.

On top of all this, corporations involved in the cleanup are pushing a bill, S. 1761, through Congress that would "streamline" contractor-liability laws and push all related lawsuits into the federal court system.

In addition, the proposed Act would temporarily bar contract employees from suing government contractors handling the Gulf Coast clean-up, end monetary awards for emotional and other non-physical damages and prohibit courts and juries from levying punitive awards in such cases.

S. 1761 would apply not just to the Katrina disaster, but to any future national disasters in which federal aid costs more than $15 billion. A coalition of labor and environmental groups have sent a letter to Congress opposing the bill.

The letter urges that

"Congressional relief, recovery, and rebuilding assistance must make clean air and water for the people of the Gulf Coast a priority. Instead, the residents of the Gulf Coast who have already been victimized by the terrific force of these hurricanes will be victimized again by this bill, which would leave them without a remedy against government contractors that cause irreparable harm to their air and water."

Noting that contractors' actions can either help people or imperil their safety, the letter asserts that such contractors, "who are paid by the taxpayers for the work that they do, should be held fully accountable to the public if they behave carelessly and cause harm to people or the environment. No public policy reason justifies Congress granting federal contractors legal immunity for negligence or illegal activity."

The letter warns that S.B. 1761 also would immunize contractors from liability for personal injuries or property damage in most cases by expanding the Government Contractor Defense. Currently, that defense generally applies only if the government provides precise instructions that the contractor must follow – such as design requirements for military airplanes – and the injury occurred because the contractor adhered to those specific, mandatory instructions.

But S.B. 1761 would create a presumption that all elements of the Government Contractor Defense are met merely by the Army Corps' Chief of Engineers certifying the contract as necessary for disaster recovery. The presumption could only be overcome if the contractor acted fraudulently or with willful misconduct in submitting information to the Chief of Engineers at the time of the contract. The letter notes, "In other words, the defense will almost always apply to disaster contractors

Despite the serious problems, however, the major media has moved on from the hurricane stories. Workers and residents of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf coast aren't so lucky, however, and may still be feeling the health effects of this disaster decades from now.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead...

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the 29 mariners lost when the 729-foot freighter was caught in storm Nov. 10, 1975, and sank as it carried a load of iron ore across Lake Superior.

At the time, it was the worst shipping disaster on the Great Lakes in 11 years.

The 729-foot freighter was caught in a catastrophic gale after taking on a load of taconite iron ore at Superior, Wis. Gusts exceeding 90 mph kicked up 30-foot waves as the ship struggled toward the safety of Whitefish Bay, in the lake's southeastern corner.

Capt. Ernest McSorley radioed the Arthur M. Anderson, a trailing freighter, that the Fitzgerald had topside damage and was listing. At 7:10 p.m., he told the Anderson's first mate, "We are holding our own." It was the last anyone heard from the Fitzgerald.

The ship plunged to the bottom, 530 feet down. Diving expeditions later determined the freighter had broken into two large sections, its cargo strewn along the lake floor. No bodies have been recovered.

Update: NPR's All Things Considered had a segment on the 30th Anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Independent Panel Meets On BP's "Safety Culture"

The independent panel studying the "safety culture" of BP North America met for the first time last Thursday. The panel, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker III, was formed at the request of the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) to "review a range of safety management and culture issues in the wake of recent chemical accidents at BP's south Texas facilities." Although the CSB will monitor the panel, it is being organized and funded by BP.

As reported earlier, a preliminary CSB report of the investigation at the BP Texas City Plant where a March 23 explosion killed 15 workers could have been prevented if the refinery had installed a flare system years before, as OSHA had recommended, and heeded past warnings of previous "close calls" and malfunctioning alarms, indicators and other equipment.

Some health and safety activists have questioned what the Board means by "safety culture," and what issues the panel will be looking into. To clarify some of those issues, check out the following sections from the statement of CSB Chairman Carolyn Merritt at the opening meeting of the panel.

A good safety culture is the embodiment of effective programs, decision making and accountability at all levels. It is a much different concept from simply having good procedures on paper.

There is a widespread misperception that safety culture can be improved solely through modifying unsafe worker behaviors. While human errors contribute to most major incidents including this one, they are rarely the root cause. The mistakes that were made in Texas City have their roots in decisions made by managers at the facility and the corporate level, sometimes years earlier.

Thus when we talk about safety culture, we are talking first and foremost about how managerial decisions are made, about the incentives and disincentives within an organization for promoting safety. Are production and cost control being rewarded at the expense of safety and risk management?

One thing I have often observed is that there is a great gap between what executives believe to be the safety culture of an organization and what it actually is on the ground. Almost every executive believes he or she is conveying a message that safety is number one. But it is not always so in reality.

Merritt also noted some other areas that she wanted the panel to look into.

• One is management of fatigue. Our information indicates that on the day of the incident, some BP operators had worked 30 days straight, 12 hours per day, some with two-hour commute times.


• Another is the downsizing of both supervision and training. For example, BP Texas City went from 38 trainers in 1998 to just nine in 2005. And on the day of the incident there was no supervisor with appropriate experience overseeing key phases of the startup operation.


• Another concern is workload management. On March 23, a single board operator was responsible for simultaneously running the controls of three different complex process units, including the isom unit that was starting up.


• Finally, there is the issue of how obsolete equipment is managed. The blowdown drum and stack in Texas City was half-century old technology. Yet in the 1990s it was completely rebuilt according to its original design, which was by then recognized as antiquated and unsafe. How does BP’s management assure they are using current safety equipment that is appropriate for the risks involved?

More BP stories here.

Organizing Immigrant Workers: Two Steps Forward, One Back

Despite their mistreatment, organizing immigrant workers is not easy. They often have had bad experiences with government-run unions in their native countries, and they often just want to make money -- even under terrible conditions -- without risking getting fired or turned over to the Migra. But progress is being made, even in the anti-union South.

Last year, after a five-year fight with the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, the Farm Labor Organizing committee reached an agreement with Mt. Olive and the North Carolina Growers Association (NDGA):

Mario Elias Gervacio doesn’t work on an assembly line or hold a government job. He’s not even a U.S. citizen.

Each spring for the past five years, Gervacio has left his town of Senguio, Michoacán, Mexico, and come north to plant and pull tobacco on a Guilford County farm for almost six months. He rose from simple farmhand to crew leader.

This year, he had an added duty: union treasurer.

For the first time, the welfare of Gervacio and 4,100 fellow “guest” migrant workers is under the auspices of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

Gervacio and his brethren are card-carrying union men working in the depths of anti-union America.

While they are here, FLOC’s mission is to ensure that the temporary migrant workers are treated fairly, receive adequate quarters and get appropriate medical care.

For Gervacio, the union is an advocate, a watch dog. At a union meeting this past June, he told a story of being grabbed a few years ago by a man who questioned his immigration status when he was out doing errands.

The union has arranged to recruit "guest" workers in Mexico who can then join the union and work legally in the US.

And with only four inspectors to inspect North Carolina's 1,002 farms, the union plays an important role mediating health & safety and other workplace issues that the state inspectors can't get to.

Of course, the old problems don't disappear:

Even the legal temporary jobs are drying up. Fewer guest workers are getting called up to North Carolina because farmers are growing fewer acres of tobacco.

And some farmers are falling back on illegal immigrants, who they can pay less than the guest workers’ wage of $8.24 an hour.

That means Gervacio, who has worked for Gibsonville farmer Robert Lewis for five years, has little chance of securing his long-term dream. But he says giving up a portion of his wage makes sense for other reasons.

While his living conditions exceed most workers — he and the 10 other men in his crew have washing machines, satellite television and access to a van for errands — he supports the union’s pledge to lobby for social security in Mexico and life insurance from farmers, among other issues.

Conducting The Public's Business -- And Dying For It

As the health and safety director for AFSCME, the union that represents public employees, conversations about my job were often met with quizzical looks from people wondering what hazards government workers -- bureaucrats -- face aside from paper cuts or possible computer related ergonomic injuries.

Of course, public employees do all kinds of dangerous work -- on highways, in wastewater treatment plants, putting out fires, chasing bad guys -- and then there's social services.

It was after dark last Friday night, and Marty L. Smith was alone when he knocked on Larry W. Clark's door in Poulsbo.

Smith's job — a crisis responder for the state mental-health system — is inherently dangerous. But Smith had done the work for years, and, according to Poulsbo police, Clark was familiar to the local mental-health agency.

Smith had been summoned by Clark's mother, who told neighbors that her son had schizophrenia and was not taking his medications. Instead of consenting to a hospitalization, Clark attacked Smith with his fists and then a carving knife, according to charging papers, as Clark's mother screamed for help outside.

Smith, 46, died in Clark's dining room. He is the first designated mental-health professional (DMHP) to die on the job in Washington since 1987.

In a letter to the Kitsap Sun, John P. Masterson, Chief Executive Officer of Behavioral Health Resources provides a fitting eulogy:

As a CDMHP, Marty responded to mental health crises in Kitsap County 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Marty and his peers throughout the state routinely respond to requests from families, friends, police and others. They go when and where they are needed, often alone, responding to the call for help.

They go without weapons, armed only with their knowledge, their skills, and their commitment to care for very ill people.

They go wanting to help, knowing they are the only ones authorized by law to require gravely mentally ill persons to be hospitalized against their will, if it is necessary.

Above all, they are vital to the health and safety of the individual and to our communities.

Marty's willingness to provide this service is a testament to his compassion.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer notes that the attack on Smith was no fluke -- and there are things that can be done to prevent such tragedies:

Earlier this year, Child Protective Services worker Edith Vance was attacked with a machete and a two-by-four during a child welfare check at a residence in Ferry County. Her attacker, 35-year-old Bryan Russell, who had been convicted of assault and drug possession, was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy who had accompanied Vance and a coworker.

In 2002, Roger Erdman, a field inspector with the state Department of Licensing, was murdered by trucker Ralph Benson near Davenport.

The solution, of course, is not to arm all government workers but to devote necessary resources to guard their safety. Any potentially risky visits should be accompanied by a uniformed police officer or, at the very least, carried out in teams of two or more workers.

Indeed

Respirator Manufacturers: "Frivolous" Lawsuits Will Kill Millions of Avian Flu Victims

The avian flu pandemic hasn't even hit yet, but respirator manufacturers, in the form of the Coalition for Breathing Safety, are trying to use fear of a pandemic to relieve them of legal liability for faulty respirators:

The Coalition for Breathing Safety warned today that availability of respirators -- a key aspect of President Bush's National Strategy to Safeguard Against the Danger of Pandemic Influenza -- is threatened by the growing burden of questionable silica litigation, and called for federal legislation to address this problem.

***

"Respirators have long-played an important role in protecting workers against exposure to hazardous materials, and would be necessary in the event of a pandemic, terrorist incidents and other disasters," said Daniel K. Shipp, President of the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA), a member of the Coalition for Breathing Safety.

"However, a wave of unfounded lawsuits claiming defective design or
failure to warn may force manufacturers to abandon production of respirators, when, conversely, what we need right now is to preserve U.S. respirator production capacity so that U.S. respirator manufacturers can help build stockpiles that will be available in case of a national emergency."

What's behind all of this?

Respirator manufacturers and others are being sued by victims of silicosis who claim that defective design and warnings have lead to disease. In 2003 the state of West Virginia, along with western Kentucky coal miners filed against respirator manufacturers claiming they developed black lung disease and silicosis.

The dispute focuses on disposable dust masks that have replaced heavier cartridge respirators. A 2004 US News & World Report investigation found that:

the respirator mask that was to have revolutionized American industry in the '70s has today become a public-health calamity, and the dimensions of the problem are only now becoming apparent. The 3M Co., which produces everything from Post-it notes to Scotch tape, is one of America's best-known and most admired firms.

The problem, according to government regulators, is that the disposable masks can't be satisfactorily tested to ensure that they form a tight seal around the face. Without fit-testing that ensures a tight seal, toxic dust gets around the mask into the lungs. But much scarier to respirator manufacturers than a few coal miners are the 1.7 million U.S. workers who are exposed to silica dust in jobs like construction, sandblasting, and mining and several hundred deaths that are reported each year. Respirator manufacturers (and other businesses) fear that silicosis will take the place of asbestos suits and are trying to nip this "crisis" in the bud.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have already used the flu pandemic to convince Bush to urge Congress to exempt them from possible lawsuits against a flawed flu vaccine. Well, if it's working for big Pharma, why not for "big Respi":

Bush asked Congress to remove "one of the greatest obstacles to domestic vaccine production: the growing burden of litigation." He continued, "In the past three decades, the number of vaccine manufacturers in America has plummeted, as the industry has been flooded with lawsuits ... That leaves our nation vulnerable in the event of a pandemic ... Congress must pass liability protection for the makers of life-saving vaccines."

Shipp stated, "Like vaccine makers, U.S. respirator manufacturers need federal legislation not only to protect against frivolous lawsuits, but also to provide manufacturers with the financial stability and predictability that will allow them to support the stockpiling of respirators. Such legislation would not prevent legitimate claims from being filed."

Probably more to this story. Stay tuned.

Update: "Lead Poisoning in Children is Funny"

Thanks to Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly blog, Political Animal, my Tuesday evening post about how National Association of Manufacturers' blogger Pat Cleary finds childhood lead poisoning to be the funiest thing since George Bush pretended to look for Iraqi WMDs under his bed, was circulated widely around the blogosphere yesterday (Check out the comments on Kevin's blog, especially this one.)

After a day of rather pathetic attempts to defend himself in the comments of his blog, Cleary (or his superiors) seem to have quietly surrendered. The childhood lead post has has been pulled from the front page of his blog (although you can still read it -- and the comments here.)

These people are shameless, so I guess this is about as much of an apology or admission of guilt as we're ever going to hear from them.

***
One other observation. Pulling posts from a blog is generally considered to be against the blogging "rules of the road," to the extent they exist. Despite frequent criticism that blogs are often unethical and irresponsible and not held to the same standard of fact and truth as the mainstream media (and that they cause riots), the truth is that the blogosphere tends to be fairly self-policing. Bad, unfactual, dishonest posts get roundly criticized and the blogger will then either defend him/herself, or admit that he was wrong, apologize, explain and move on.

But you generally don't just disappear your own blog post as if it never existed. It's almost kind of Orwellian

Letter From A Father

This came in today as a comment on the Weekly Toll of April 10, 2005 from the father of Donald Wilcher Smith who was electrocuted while working at Sanderson Farm's poultry processing plant.

I thought everyone should see it:

In review of Confined Space, I found the 3rd article was about my son's death and felt drawn to comment.

As a safety professional with multiple years of field work experience, I know that to call something an "accident" is misleading. The definition of accident is something in effect that is going to happen no matter what the individual does, or how much or little is in prevention. Now, an "incident" is what I term something that happens and is preventable...largely through the human factor. In my 32 years in industrial manufacturing, 17 of those in the safety area, I have never seen an accident. BUT I have seen a lot of incidents.

Prevention is the key... and training along with ENFORCEMENT OF SAFETY RULES is integral to that key. ALL LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT must accept the Safety Culture, embrace it as second nature, and follow up with its charges to see that they too live in that culture.

Here is a safety axiom that I agree with: If you have a hazard, and there is exposure to it even for a short period of time,and over any (given) period of time where the exposure exists, THEN injury (incident) is CERTAIN TO OCCUR. (You may have heard this in several forms elsewhere... this just happens to be the wording that I teach to my managers.) The objective is to ELIMINATE THE HAZARD, whether it be through engineering out the hazard, training, guarding, etc.

I reflect more often these days about how I can have a positive effect on those around me, especially regarding their safety. I only wish all of Corporate America held the same view of safety as I do, but then, that's my job... right? I consider it a moral issue.

In closing, my son's death devastated my soul and caused me to reflect on my faith in God. Out of all this my objective surfaced: communicate the necessity of safety at any cost. A report my son gave last semester in one of his classes was on the 2004 Tsunami. He commented at one point when reviewing the costs of an early warning system,"After all, who can put a price on human life."

Here was my Agronomy major telling my story for me. How ironic is that?

-- Donald Coit Smith

Michigan Still Slogging Forward On Ergo Standard

Michigan business association representatives are not happy that the Governor Granholm's state OSHA is still working on an ergonomics standard after the legislature tried to rescind the ergonomic committee's funding.

They're so mad that they're trying to take their ball and go home. Unfortunately, the game is going on without them.

A state ergonomics advisory committee that has been meeting for two years is on at least its 10th draft of proposed rules that would govern how employers must identify and address conditions that could put workers at risk for job-related injuries caused by repetitive motion, force and other factors.

Business lobbyists say the committee's work violates a business-requested provision in the recently approved 2006 Department of Labor and Economic Growth budget that prohibits the use of state funds to develop mandates more stringent than federal voluntary ergonomics guidelines.

At least two business/industry representatives have resigned from the ergonomics advisory committee in protest.

Amy Shaw, director of education and employment relations for the Michigan Manufacturers Association, resigned in protest over the committee's continuing to work despite the budget prohibition. But Greg Bird, a spokesman for the state budget office, says the budget provision is unenforceable because it attempts to amend Michigan Occupational Safety & Health Administration practices through a budget bill, rather than through MIOSHA law.

Last year, Charlie Owens, director of the National Federation of Independent Business-Michigan, resigned, saying he "could not participate in an exercise that will result in one of the most far-reaching and burdensome regulations on small business and all business in this state."

The committee started taking shape in 2002 under former [Republican] Gov. John Engler. The advisory committee has more than a dozen representatives from business, labor and other interests.

And then we have the same old tired job blackmail argument:

“I feel very, very strongly that if we were to put in a Michigan-specific ergonomics rule, we might as well put up a big stop sign to businesses, that says, ‘Don’t bring your jobs to Michigan,’ ” Jones said. He said he plans to introduce legislation prohibiting the state from enacting the ergonomics rules.

Well, if you feel that strongly that Michigan would be put at a disadvantage if it was the only state (besides California) with an ergonoimics standard, then the logical solution would be to have a national standard.

Oh, oops, we actually had one of those, but you guys killed it.

Related Stories

• MI Governor Tells Ergo Foes To Stick It Up Their Carpal Tunnel, October 28, 2005
• Michigan Legislature Stops Work On Ergo Standard, October 12, 2005
• MI Governor Disappoints Right Wing, April 2, 2004
• Anti-Ergonauts on the Rampage Again, March 23, 2004
• Ergo Battle in Michigan, March 3, 2004

Nat'l Association of Manufacturers Jokes About Lead-Poisoned Children

Every once in a while industry associations slip up and reveal their true sociopathic colors.

Pat Cleary, who writes the "Manufacturers' Blog" for the National Association of Manufacturers has always been a bit of a joke -- a bad joke considering NAM's "contribution" to repealing the ergonomics standard in 2001 and generally weakening workers health and safety rights.

Now, however, he's gone over the edge, way beyond bad taste, all the way to dispicable:

Trial Lawyers and the Theory of the Lead Paint Diet

Great editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal entitled, "Paint by Lawyer" about the trial lawyers' assault on the paint industry because of people eating -- that's right, eating -- lead paint. If you're eating lead paint as you're reading this, please stop. Paint is a coating, not a foodstuff.

Since when is lead poisoning in children a joke?

I guess there's not much funnier at NAM than reduced IQ, learning disabilities, attention deficit, disorders, behavioral problems, stunted growth, impaired hearing, kidney damage, mental retardation, and even death.

Not only that, but Cleary lies:

No matter, the last time one nationally-known paint company had any lead in their paint was 1938, a fact little-known to the public and oft-ignored by the trial bar. In the 40's and 50's, it was essentially discontinued industry-wide. In 1954, the industry developed a standard that banned the use of lead pigments in paint. There's been a lot of paint over the dam, as it were, since then.

It's little known because it's not true. Even the Journal column that he quotes states that

Until 1978, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned it for residential purposes, lead paint was widely used (though the industry had voluntarily reduced the amount of lead in paint about 20 years earlier).

And 75 percent of houses and apartments built before 1978 in the United States still contain lead paint. About two-thirds of the homes built before 1940 and one-half of the homes built from 1940 to 1960 contain heavily-leaded paint. Especially in low income areas, the paint is still chipping, still turning to dust and being ingested by hundreds of thousands of small children every year.

The Journal doesn't get away blameless either. First, the only reason the industry "voluntarily" reduced the amount of lead in paints was overwhelming evidence, not just that lead was poisoning children, but that the industry knew that lead was poisoning children.

The Journal's article was basically its usual screed against trial lawyers. It ends with this line:

A better way to protect [children] would be to pursue landlords who don't maintain their properties, rather than hooking up with contingency-fee lawyers to loot the paint industry for products that it believed to be safe when they were sold 30 years ago.(emphasis added

This is also a bald-faced lie. Anyone who knows the history of the lead industry in this country (and if you don't, read Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner's excellent book Deceit and Denial -- now) knows that knew that that children were being poisoned from ingesting lead as far back as the 1920's -- and spent the next several decades manipulating the media, buying scientists and fighting government regulation. [Actually before the 1920's: See here.]

But the myths live on, as Rosner and Markowitz point out:

Immediately after taking office in 2001, Bush, known to be a friend to industry, appointed Gale Norton to head the Department of the Internior. Norton, a former lobbyist for NL industries, the modern incarnation of National Lead, was quick to claim that the lead industry had first learned of the dangers of its products to children in the 1940's and had acted immediately to remove lead from point, when in fact industry documents indicate that they had known more than twenty years earlier that their product was killing children.

I'd write more, but I'm too disgusted right now. I'll end with the last lines of Deceit and Denial:

We may never know the true extent of the damage lead, vinyl and countless other chemicals have done to our society, not to mention the damage that trade associations have done to our democratic institutions. Nor will it ever be possible to evaluate the lost potential of individuals whose intelligence has been slightly lowered, whose behaviour has become a bit more erratic, whose personalities have been altered in ways imperceptible to scientific measurement. We will never know the social, economic and personal costs to society from the lost potential of our citizens.

It's really no joking matter.

P.S. They're probably beyond shame, but it might not hurt to write a few outraged letters to NAM President John Engler (National Association of Manufacturers, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20004-1790) or e-mail him here.

UPDATE: Cleary is unapologetic, and digging himself in deeper. Check out his responses here.
UPDATE2: NAM pulls blog entry. Details here.
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