A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
OSHA: The Incredible Shrinking Agency: The number of OSHA inspectors has hit an all-time low according to data compiled by Bloomberg Environment Reporter Bruce Rolfsen. “The agency ended fiscal 2018 with 753 inspectors, compared to 860 at end of fiscal 2014, the personnel data, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show.” And that…
COSHCON17 — The Young and the Active — : The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, the umbrella group of all the nation’s COSH groups held its annual conference last week and I was privileged to be able to chair a very moving panel on “Lessons from Workplace Fatalities” with some of my heroes: …
The rain finally seems to be stopping in Texas, but the struggles there are just beginning as the huge job of clean-up and repair begin. OSHA has a little known, but crucial and life-saving role protecting recovery workers after major hurricanes and floods. The goal: Protect the safety of response and recovery workers. Don’t create…
Tesla may make shiny, new, innovative, futuristic American automobiles, but the relentless pace at which it pushes its workers is producing the same old, tired, painful, debilitating and disabling injuries that we’ve always seen in the auto industry. I take that back. Not the “same” injuries, but more of the same injuries. Worksafe, a California-based organization…
Sometimes, when you’re reading about the tragedies in the Weekly Toll, there are a few that you think, “Well, that’s too bad, but what are you going to do….?” Like this one in this week’s Weekly Toll: Two Rhode Island residents ID’d in Billerica auction crash Billerica, MA — Two Rhode Island residents were among the…
Just in time for Workers Memorial Day, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has announced “The Dirty Dozen” employers of 2017, highlighting companies that put workers and communities at risk due to unsafe working conditions. National COSH chooses the “Dirty Dozen” by soliciting nominations from health and safety activists around the country. Some…
Employer in fatal Boston trench collapse did not provide safety training and basic safeguards for employees, OSHA finds Atlantic Drain Service Co. Inc. cited for 18 violations In a sharp break from Trump OSHA tradition, OSHA today issued the first enforcement-related press release of this administration, close to $1.5 million for the death of two…