Dispatches From the Front Lines of Workplace Safety and Health

Next OSHA Inspection: The Fifth of Never

We recently summarized the findings of the AFL-CIO’s 2026 Death on the Job report which noted that it would take 191 years for federal OSHA to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction once.  The media in some states is catching on to what this means for workers. The West Virginia Mountain State Spotlight just realized that “just six federal OSHA inspectors oversee workplace safety for more than 695,000 workers employed across roughly 60,000 workplaces in West Virginia, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual “Death on the Job” report. But as abysmal as that is, it would “only” take OSHA 186 years to visit each worksite in the state — better than the national average. The solution, according to the Spotlight: Congress could pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act that was introduced to update and reform the previous Occupational Safety and Health Act, created in 1970″  and create a West Virginia state plan. Of course that assumes that Republican politicians who control West Virginia would fund a state plan at levels higher than the feds do.

But maybe West Virginia should stop complaining so much. There are 22 states with fewer inspectors per workplace than West Virginia, six of which are state plan states. It would take 727 years to visit every worksite in Arizona, and 613 years in Arkansas. That’s right, unless there’s a death, catastrophe or worker complaint, employers in Arizona can expect their next OSHA inspection in the year 2753. Better get ready.

More meat, more profits

Meat getting more expensive? Of course. Have you noticed more impoverished meat and poultry company executives visiting food pantries just to feed their families? Unlikely.  Nevertheless, the highly profitable meat industry — which is a major contributor to Trump and Republicans — is seemingly succeeding in convincing the Trump administration to increase the line speed for poultry and pork processing. That means more profits for the companies and more injuries for workers who already suffer a high rate of musculoskeletal injuries in one of the most hazardous industries in this country.  “More meat, more profits,” noted Kathleen Fagan, an adjunct professor in the Case Western University school of medicine and a former medical officer at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Speeding up line speeds also makes it more difficult for USDA inspectors to detect food pathogens.

To mitigate the chance of injury, companies could hire more workers, but Trump’s immigration policies have cut into the supply of immigrants who work in these plants. In addition the plantaren’t built to fit more workers, and there is nothing int he proposed rules that would require companies to hire more workers or take any steps to mitigate the injuries.

The proposed rules also eliminate a requirement in both swine and poultry plants to report back to the USDA on their programs to monitor and document workers’ injuries. “USDA is saying, ‘We don’t have to care about worker safety,’” according to Debbie Berkowitz who was Policy Director at OSHA during the Obama administration when the meat and poultry industry first attempted to speed up line speeds.

Countertop Killers

We wrote last March about the deadly hazards presented by artificial countertops that contain high levels of silica and how the artificial countertop industry, losing lawsuits filed by sick workers,  is trying to convince Congress to pass a law that would bar lawsuits against the industry. Hundreds of workers in California have been diagnosed with countertop-related silicosis and more than 30 have died. Happily, the press is all over the problem, not just in the United States, but around the world. Union activity  has convinced Australia to ban quartz countertops, and Sky News reports about a similar union campaign in Great Britain after the recent deaths of two workers from silicosis.

The British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced earlier this month a major package of measures to protect workers from the dangers of engineered stone dust including mandatory guidance that requires fabricators to switch to engineered stone with a low silica content; use on-tool water suppression, control mist; provide appropriate respiratory protective equipment (RPE); and carry out regular health surveillance.. The guidance will be backed-up by a nationwide inspection program.

British unions, however, do not think the guidance has gone far enough.

The Unite union, meanwhile, has called for a full ban on engineered stone, arguing the HSE’s guidance does not go far enough. The guidance “fails to require adequate control for exposure and is unachievable for localised fitting, cutting and finishing of stone worktops in people’s kitchens and living areas”, it highlighted.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Engineered stone is causing serious preventable illness and death amongst workers. The HSE guidance is inadequate – the UK needs to follow Australia’s example and ban this deadly material outright.”

Courage in the Bureaucracy

In normal times, comments critical of an Administration proposal to weaken chemical plant safety should not be unexpected from the independent Chemical Safety Board (CSB). After all, it’s mission is to “drive chemical safety excellence through independent investigations to protect communities, workers, and the environment.”   But these are Trump times, and what has always been just part of the job for small independent agencies, has now become an act of courage.

But in an act of (Trump era) courage, the CSB has written comments highly critical of Trump’s proposal to weaken Biden-era chemical plant protections, calling the EPA proposal “a significant step backwards” in preventing catastrophic chemical incidents.

This is doubly risky for the CSB. First, because Trump doesn’t believe in the concept of “independent” agencies whose leaders are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate and who can only be fired by the President for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Nevertheless, Trump has fired Board and Commission members of numerous “independent” agency without cause, most recently Moshe Marvit a Commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission and the Supreme Court hasn’t decided whether that’s legal or not.

And the second reason it’s risky to go up against Trump is because he tries every year to eliminate the CSB. Happily, Congress has not (yet) gone along with his attack on this small feisty agency.  And these days, we need more government agencies that have the kind of courage that the CSB has shown.

Healthcare Workers Shouldn’t Need to Be Martial Arts Fighters

Marlene McNeill, 40, an employee of a Portland, Maine,  group home for those living with mental illness was killed earlier this month by a resident of the facility. And in April, 43-year-old Andrea Merrell a hospital security guard at M Health Fairview Lakes Medical Center in Wyoming, Minnesota was killed after being assaulted in the emergency department. But these deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of violent assaults against workers in health care and social services. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that in 73% of all cases of non-fatal workplace violence, healthcare workers were the victims. But many of these assaults aren’t even reported. As an column in Health Care Scholar noted, “Violence against healthcare workers has become so normalized that institutions respond with resignation rather than prevention. The true systemic failure lies not in the behavior of patients in crisis, but in this normalization itself. ”

Federal OSHA has been “working on” a workplace violence standard since 2016.  And by “working on,” that means it’s languishing. ignored on OSHA’s long-term regulatory agenda while the agency’s few remaining staff focus on Trump’s deregulatory obsession with getting rid of “job killing regulations.”

CalOSHA has a workplace violence standard for health care and social service workers which is being expanded to other workplaces. And Maryland is required by law to issue a workplace violence standard covering public employees by October 1, 2026. Now legislators in Illinois, where Department of Family and Child Services social worker Deirdre Silas was brutally stabbed to death while conducting a welfare check on children living in a private home, are close to passing a bill that could force hospitals to document these attacks, calculating that stricter reporting requirements could help cut down healthcare worker burnout, and raise needed attention to the problem.

Washington Post: Unions are the Root of All Evil (as well as over-regulation)

The Washington Post should have one of those tickers on its editorial page: “X Days Without an Anti-Union Editorial.” It would never be more than one or two days in a row. The Post has never been a particularly pro-union organization; in fact just the opposite. But it’s now becoming anti-union, all the time, particularly since last year when Post owner Jeff Bezos announced that  “we are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Viewpoints critical of these “pillars,” he said, would no longer be appearing in the Post.

Recently it blamed “big labor” for the well deserved demise of former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer, blamed unions for New York City’s fiscal problems, blamed workers for Washington Metro’s problems, blamed TWU for…something to do with Right to Work, blamed workers for undermining companies’ use of AI in the defense industry. The Post also opposed the minimum wage, accusing minimum wage laws of putting robots over people. They have been particularly hostile to the right of public employees to form unions, or, God forbid, strike, and recently praised Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger for vetoing a bill that would have allowed collective bargaining for Virginia’s public employees.

Regulations are another favorite bogeyman of the Post. After Trump’s attacks and defunding of the American science establishment, the Post blames “federal regulations” for choking American science. In fact, the Post has a new weekly newsletter, entitled “Red Tape,” which is published because “Government interferes in nearly every aspect of American life. These stories from across the country illustrate the consequences.” Of course, there seems to be no weekly newsletter that describes the consequences of deregulation: like workplace illness and death, environmental degradation and consumer ripoffs.

And when it’s not attacking unions or “red tape,” the next best thing is to attack socialism in general, and specifically New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (as well as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson who is driving business out of Seattle by supporting Starbucks baristas who have the audacity to form a union.)

NFIB: LEAVE SMALL BUSINESSES ALONE!!!!

The National Federation of Independent Businesses is making another attempt to quash OSHA’s heat standard, a standard that is unlikely to ever see the light of day in this administration anyway. Calling the Biden proposal a “nanny state approach,” the NFIB claims that small businesses don’t need no stinkin’ government telling them how to protect workers: “Small businesses do this on their own, without the heavy hand of government dictating them to. They do not need bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. or state capitals to tell them how to take care of their employees. Business owners know their workers and the risks at their job sites better than politicians and bureaucrats.”

And, as with all OSHA standards, it the heat standard is issued, the sky would fall, Western Civilization would be doomed: “many small businesses would be forced to hire at least one full time employee just to comply with the rule and would likely have to increase prices to account for the new compliance costs. Some small businesses have indicated that they would simply shut down their operations during warmer months of the year or sell off to a larger competitor who can afford the new compliance costs.”

The standard would “force small businesses to comply with unrealistic measures,” including such horrors as breaks, engineering and work practice heat control measures and training on emergency response plans. The horror!

Instead, “OSHA already has a broad enforcement mechanism under the General Duties [sic] Clause” and the weakened National Emphasis Program.

And those businesses who actually feel that some kind of standard may be necessary, as long as it’s “flexible” and “reasonable,” the NFIB says nothing is better than even a weak standard:  “While that may sound great, any heat standard will add new mandates and paperwork requirements on small businesses who, unlike their larger competitors, do not have compliance departments to help them navigate complex new federal regulations.”

Of course, instead of promoting OSHA’s Onsite Consultation Program which provides free health and safety assistance to small businesses, the NFIB continues to ignore the program or any efforts OSHA makes to assist small businesses.

Instead of a standard, even a weak standard, NFIB wants Congress to pass H.R. 6213, the Heat Workforce Standards Act, which would prevent the proposed Heat Standard from being finalized and bloxk any future Heat Standard.

Organizations like the NFIB are why we can’t have nice things.

Beware of OSHA Scams

Oregon OSHA has sent out an alert warning employers to beware of a couple of OSHA-related scams:

One type of scam involves callers contacting employers who have recently had an Oregon OSHA inspection opened. These individuals, posing as representatives of a consultation firm, falsely assure employers that they can guarantee an inspection will result in no violations in exchange for payment.

The second scam entails callers falsely claiming to be from Oregon OSHA. These scammers tell employers they can settle an enforcement penalty for a reduced amount if a lower payment is sent to them.

While the Alert only applies to Oregon, it’s hard to believe that this isn’t going on elsewhere.

Kids: Don’t Try This At Home

This is not a fun thing for kids to do. I know, I’m a buzz kill. But I’ve seen too many workers die in manholes from hydrogen sulfide exposure and oxygen deprivation.