5 Killed in Tampa: Playing With Fire And Workers’ Lives
The Tampa Bay Times has published a fascinating and tragic investigative piece on the June 29, 2017 incident where five workers at Tampa Electric — Michael McCort, 60, Christopher Irvin, 40; Frank Lee Jones, 55, Antonio Navarrete, 21, and Amando J. Perez, 56 — lost their lives at the Big Bend Power Station after management…
OSHA Shuts Down Recordkeeping Webpage Due To Alleged Security Breach
OSHA announced yesterday that it was temporarily shutting down a portal for employers to report injuries and illnesses while the agency investigates a “potential compromise” of a company’s electronic data. Apparently the cyber-sleuths at Homeland Security came up with something: The Homeland Security Department informed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Aug. 14 that…
Solution to Workplace Injury of Immigrant Workers: Deportation
Immigrant workers do some of the most dangerous jobs in this country, and get hurt and killed most often. Now Howard Berkes at NPR and Mike Grabell at Pro-Publica have broadcast a report on immigrant workers who are hurt on the job being denied workers compensation and deported from the country for felony workers comp…
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Battle for Workplace Safety: Short Stuff
Problem with the job? Go kill yourselves: You’ve all heard the phrase “Your job of your life,” but Richland County, South Carolina, Administrator Kevin Bronson took that phrase a little too far last week telling EMS workers who had complaints about the job that if “it’s really that bad you can just kill yourself or…
Serial Violator Blames OSHA Penalties for Layoffs
Aluminum Shapes, a New Jersey company, has the rare distinction of being the subject of one of only ten enforcement-related press releases issued during the first six months of the Trump administration. What did they do to earn this honor and the $1.9 million penalty that came with it? According to the rare OSHA…
Blogging Forcast: Light
GAO to OSHA: What’s Up With Workplace Violence and Ammonium Nitrate?
The Republican Congress may not be fulfilling it responsibility to provide oversight over a Republican-controlled OSHA, but the Government Accountability Office is still on the job. The GAO is Congress’s “watchdog” and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. Over the past couple of years, the GAO has investigated OSHA’s activities around protecting healthcare workers…
WTF?! Friday Fall Protection Edition
There’s an old saying, I’m pretty sure from Confucius: “Take heed. It is always a bad idea to do an unsafe, illegal roofing job next door to an ex-OSHA official.” And yet, what do we have here? Right outside my kitchen window. So, I called my neighbors at work, figuring they could talk to the…
Press Releases Reduce Workplace Injuries. So Why Has OSHA Stopped Issuing Them?
I’ve been writing (over and over again) about OSHA’s failure to issue more than a tiny number of enforcement-related press releases since the beginning of the Trump administration, despite the fact that they actually educate employers and workers, and apply pressure on employers who may need a bit of urging to provide a safe workplace.…