A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
Read this article in The Nation by Terri Gerstein. Gerstein was formerly Labor Bureau Chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office, and a Deputy Commissioner in the New York State Department of Labor. Her article vividly describes why the Trump administration’s war on immigrants hurts all workers and helps bad bosses. And without mentioning health…
Today is Workers Memorial Day, a day set aside around the world to remember those killed on the job — and commit ourselves to fighting to protect workers from preventable death injury and illness on the job. As the AFL-CIO summed up in its Death on the Job report, 4,836 workers were killed on the job…
Making Recess Fun Again: One more week left of Congressional recess. Anyone talked to their Senator or Representative about not cutting OSHA’s budget or rolling back protections? If not, here is a schedule of Congressional Town Hall Meetings in your areas. Get out there, or give them a call. Let me know how it went…
The New York Times points out how much everyone will love the Trump administration’s drastic 31 percent cuts to the budget of the Environmental Protection Administration . Unless you’re one of those selfish people who still expects clean drinking clean water to come out of your faucet, or if you happen to live near (or enjoy…
President Trump yesterday signed the resolution repealing the Volks rule , thereby permanently removing OSHA’s ability to cite patterns of injury and illness recordkeeping violations. The resolution, passed under the Congressional Review Act, is yet another step in the Administration’s goal of deconstruction the administrative state, or as the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne explained recently: In…
President Trump recently appointed his 36 year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to head up an effort to make government more efficient. Ron Klain, who has served in numerous top White House positions (including a very impressive stint as Ebola Czar where I worked with him), is skeptical. Aside from the fact that Jared has a few other…
In an open letter to President Donald Trump, former OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels asks the President to show workers “you care about their safety” by not signing the repeal of the Volks Rule. The Senate voted last week, and the House on March 1 to use the Congressional Review Act to repeal the rule that…
Alexander Acosta, the President’s nominee for Secretary of Labor testified today before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. If you’re interested, you can watch the entire hearing here, although that would be two and a half hours you will never get back. I’m going to review the parts of the hearing that addressed workplace…
You should definitely read every one of the articles below about why repealing the Volks rule is bad for workers, bad for good employers and bad for America. But if you don’t have time, I’ve summarized the greatest hits here: First, Nell Greenfieldboyce has a great story on NPR’s All Things Considered this evening, starring…