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…
The last hearing of the soon-to-be late, great Republican-controlled House Education and Workforce Committee of the 115th Congress was supposed to be held yesterday. The subject: “Mandating a $15 Minimum Wage: Consequences for Workers and Small Businesses”. (Subtext: How a mandatory minimum wage will doom small businesses and starve their employees.) Unfortunately for Republicans…
The sorry attempt to place Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court isn’t the only bad news depressing us here at Confined Space World Headquarters today: Poultry Plant Processing Speeds The Department of Agriculture published a notice yesterday in the Federal Register that would raise line processing speeds at certain poultry plants, raising the already high likelihood…
The workplace safety movement lost two of its heroes over in March — one fairly well known (enough to get an article in the NY Times) and one not so well known except to the people he worked with and the workers he worked for. Samuel Epstein (1926-2018): Sam Epstein was warmly remembered by those…
President Trump frequently boasts about “eliminating more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.” This is supposedly a good thing for the American people, even thought most regulations are actually “protections,” protecting workers and consumers from health and safety hazards, exploitation, bad food — and being ripped off by their employers. And…