A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but I’ve decided to throw off the shackles of retirement and start full time work at the Education and Labor Committee in the House of Representatives tomorrow morning. That means that this will be my last regular Confined Space post. As I said in…
A new Reuters investigative piece describes how industry influence has gotten OSHA to weaken worker protections from exposure to beryllium.
2018 is gone and buried. What happened in the world of workplace safety and health? What can we learn that we can put to good use in 2019?
American workers drilling for oil have dirty, dangerous jobs that often kills them. In return, they’re covered by weaker OSHA standards than other American workers. Investigative Journalist Jim Morris tells the story of these workers.
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Howard Berkes has published a major investigative piece for NPR/Frontline on the resurgence of black lung among coal miners. Read it or better yet, listen to it. Berkes puts most of the blame on failures of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, but is who is really at fault, the regulatory agency or the mine owners?
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OSHA State Plans: love ’em or hate ’em, but we have to live with them. The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, Ohio Valley ReSource and the Center for Public Integrity have just put out a devastating series of articles and audio reports about serious flaws in Kentucky’s state run OSHA program, and raised serious questions about the… Knoxville News Sentinal’s Jamie Satterfield, the investigative reporter who has been following the story about cleanup workers who died and were sickened by their exposure to coal ash in the cleanup of the massive spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Tennessee, was interviewed yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered. You… Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter Ken Ward is a rare specimen in many ways. First, he’s a journalist — and there aren’t many of those around any more — at least many good ones. Second, he’s an investigative journalist. He actually digs for stories — and by “dig,” I mean way below the surface to the root… It is Halloween night, 2016, and, as I reach the outskirts of town, it feels as though I am entering Mordor. Bursts of red and yellow flames shoot up out of the earth, illuminating the pitch darkness. These are the byproducts of oil fracking, the natural gas and methane that are burned away by producers… Some people — especially journalists — sometimes falsely label workplace fatalities as “freak accidents” even when they’ve happened before and could have been prevented. But how can you tell? Here is a couple of handy examples: Freak Accident 2 teens arrested in killing of Burien grandmother by stray bullet BURIEN, Wash. — Two teen boys…“Suffocating While Alive” The Return of Black Lung
Are Kentucky — And Other OSHA State Plans — Failing Their Workers?
Interview With Journalist Jamie Satterfield About Workers Poisoned by Coal Ash
Ken Ward: Genius Journalist
Working in Mordor: Workers and the Hazards of Oil & Gas Pipeline Work
Freak Accidents? How to Tell