A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
Worker Dies in Industrial Accident at Northern Idaho Mill ATHOL, Idaho (AP) — Authorities say a worker at a northern Idaho lumber mill died in an industrial accident on Friday. The Kootenai County Sheriff’s office says the 45-year-old man was fatally injured while trying to clear a broken piece of wood from a machine at the Merritt Brothers…
A couple of comments before we get to this week’s list. We’ve written about OSHA’s unfortunately decision to remove the names of workers killed on the job from their webpage. Jennifer Gollan of Reveal News interviewed a number of family members of workers killed on the job who felt that OSHA’s decision was wrong and reduces…
Retired firefighter, 59, dies of 9/11-related cancer, 16 years after he spent weeks at Ground Zero New York, NY — The 9/11 terror attacks have claimed the life of another firefighter who spent weeks at Ground Zero, according to the union that represents city firefighters. Retired FDNY Firefighter Michael O’Hanlon, a 30-year veteran of Engine…
Donald Trump is on his way to Springfield, Missouri today to deliver a major speech about tax cuts reform at the Loren Cook company. Loren Cook, one of Springfield’s largest companies, manufactures fans, blowers, gravity vents and laboratory exhaust systems and employees 1,000 workers. And the company’s executives are big Trump supporters: Loren Cook II, vice-president…
I was on WTOP Radio at noon today to talk about OSHA’s removal of the list of workplace fatalities from the home page of the website. Here’s the tape. The first question was cut out, but it was something like “Why did OSHA pull the fatalities off the home page and what were they replaced…
Last week in the workplace: Of note, three fatalities related to forklifts. Also, while OSHA removes workplace fatalities from its homepage and buries them on their website without victims’ names, you’ll continue to find them here. Union Bridge man killed in agricultural accident Union Bridge, MD — A 32-year-old Union Bridge man died as the…
Who’s running OSHA now? Alexandra Berzon of the Wall St. Journal reports that OSHA cut back its reporting of workplace fatalities at the urging of the Chamber of Commerce. (Click here if WSJ link doesn’t work.) Under the Obama administration, “they saw this as a way to scare employers straight,” said Marc Freedman, executive director…
Two weeks ago, OSHA gained new political leadership in Deputy Assistant Secretary Loren Sweatt. And now we’re seeing the first impact of the Trump-Acosta-Sweatt regime at OSHA: A brazen attempt to hide from the American public the extent of workplace fatalities in this country. What we now know is that the Chamber of Commerce is…
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…
Worker killed after collision with SUV on Fargo airport runway FARGO, ND — A contract worker painting stripes on the runway of Hector International Airport was killed in a collision with an SUV early Monday, July 31, 2017, said Shawn Dobberstein, executive director of the Fargo Airport Authority. The name of the worker has not yet…