A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
Tomorrow the President will propose his Fiscal Year 2018 budget — which promises to be good news for pretty much no one who cares about worker protections, the environment, affordable housing, a sane foreign policy, or pretty much anything else that makes life better for people in this country and around the world. Rumors we have…
When you think coal mining, your think West Virginia and Kentucky. And when you think coal mine disasters, you think West Virginia and Kentucky. Traditionally, West Virginia and Kentucky have taken a special interest in the safety of their miners — to the extent that they both run their own mine safety enforcement programs that…
The Senate will vote next week on repealing the Volks rule and thereby making it impossible for OSHA to cite patterns of recordkeeping violations. The Volks rule restored OSHA’s traditional ability to require employers to maintain accurate records for five years. Throughout OSHA’s history, Republican and Democratic administrations have issued major citations for widespread…
New York Times reporter Barry Meier writes about OSHA’s failure to issue any enforcement-related press releases since inauguration and attacks on worker safety and health regulations. Trump admin has yet to issue a single OSHA press release highlighting fine for safety violation w @danielle_ivory t.co/5PeiXIOXoO — Barry Meier (@BarryMeier) March 13, 2017
Those of you who were quick on the draw may have noticed that for a few minutes this afternoon I thought OSHA had begun issuing press releases again. Foolish me. The source of my confusion was a recent citation against Robert Barringer III for $223,873 for four willful and five serious violations dated February 14,…
Good news. The Senate vote on repealing the Volks rule has been postponed from tomorrow until next week. Repeal of the Volks rule, you may recall, will make it impossible for OSHA to enforce accurate recording requirements. Still plenty of time to call you Senators. And urge your friends to call their Senators.
The Salt Lake City Tribune (partnering with The Utah Investigative Journalism Project) published an article last week entitled “Death on the Job: Utah’s worker safety agency rejects ‘heavy-handed’ enforcement,” which, as you can probably tell, addressed a number of serious problem with Utah’s Occupational Safety and Health program (UOSH): no penalties for public employee OSHA citations…
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on S.J Res 27/H.J. Res 83 repealing the so-called “Volks Rule.” Repealing this rule will make it impossible for OSHA to cite employers’ recordkeeping requirements in any meaningful way. I explain below in more detail why the repeal of this OSHA regulation will make workplaces less…
Introducing Confined Space 2.0. I was hoping to wait a bit longer to start this up, but with crippling budget cuts being proposed, Bannon’s plans to deconstruct the administrative state (to be replaced by the corporate state), repeals of recently issued OSHA regulations and “regulatory reform” initiatives in the White House and Congress that would…