A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
“Touching” “Infuriating” and hopefully “Educational” and “Motivating” are all words that come to mind reading this amazing article, Death in the Trench, by veteran investigative reporter Jim Morris. You should probably stop here and read it, but I can’t help providing a few reasons why. Morris, writing for the Center for Public Integrity, tells the…
At a Congressional hearing last month, Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta extolled the virtues of compliance assistance, cooperation over confrontation and the Voluntary Protection Program. But he also repeated several times that the agency’s compliance assistance program “has to be balanced by a vigorous enforcement program” and especially when the employer engages in repeated and willful…
After months of rumors, the White House has finally announced that it has nominated Scott Mugno, Vice President for Safety, Sustainability and Vehicle Maintenance at FedEx Ground in Pittsburgh, to be an Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. Who is Scott Mugno? The biography on the White House press site reads: He…
OSHA has engaged in a furious flurry of press activity over the past month. Well, “furious” by Trump-OSHA standards. By anyone else’s standards, it’s still pathetic. OSHA has issued an astonishing total of six press releases since the beginning of August. This is, of course, practically nothing compared with the more than 50 large cases…
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…
I’ve been writing (over and over again) about OSHA’s failure to issue more than a tiny number of enforcement-related press releases since the beginning of the Trump administration, despite the fact that they actually educate employers and workers, and apply pressure on employers who may need a bit of urging to provide a safe workplace.…
Here we are, at the end of July, and OSHA continues to hide the fact that it actually enforces the Occupational Safety and Health Act. OSHA has issued two (2) enforcement-related press releases this month, out of probably 50 cases that exceeded $40,000. In the first three weeks of July there were 13 cases above…
According to OSHA’s Organizational Chart, Loren Sweatt has now made the long voyage across the National Mall to become OSHA’s new political Deputy Assistant Secretary — and the agency’s first political appointee of the Trump administration. I’m assuming she will be — in effect if not in name — OSHA’s Acting Assistant Secretary, although the…
Press Release Drought Continues When Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta testified last month before the US Senate, he committed to citing employers who have the information about how to make the workplace safe, but don’t do what they need to do to provide a safe workplace. Well, to their credit, OSHA continues to enforce the…
Since late April, OSHA has issued only three additional enforcement press releases (listed below, Gulf Cable, the Saipan casino case, and Republic Steel). Whereas the Obama administration issued press releases for any case greater than $40,000 (as well as “novel” cases like workplace violence and heat stroke), there seems to be no rhyme or reason…