{"id":14381,"date":"2026-09-11T16:10:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=14381"},"modified":"2026-09-11T16:23:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T20:23:57","slug":"dispatches-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2026\/09\/11\/dispatches-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches From the Front Lines of Occupational Safety and Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>re you dreading the long boring weekend coming up? Well, never fear. Confined Space<\/em> is providing you with lots of reading (and listening) matter that will interest, infuriate — and hopefully motivate you to get out there to organize to fix shit:\u00a0 9\/11 survivor update, silica mine and countertop deaths, workplace catastrophes, workers compensation failures and deadly (and preventable) occupational diseases and much more..<\/p>\n

Read. And then go forth!<\/p>\n

9\/11 Has Never Ended<\/h2>\n

Today we are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 that killed almost 3,000 people. But Americans are just now realizing that the true toll is much higher. In fact, more people have died since 9\/11 from the health effects of the toxic dusts than died on 9\/11.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani released<\/a> over 170,000 pages of previously withheld city records about the air quality around the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks. The documents present evidence that the extent of the contamination of nearby buildings was covered up. “Trusted” officials like former E.P.A. administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former NYC Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael\u00a0 Bloomberg assured the public that the air was safe and that it was safe to go back to their buildings when the evidence indicated that hazards from asbestos, benzine, dioxin and other toxic contaminants were still present at dangerous levels.<\/p>\n

As Mayor Mamdani said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Now, close to 25 years later, more people have died from 9\/11-related illnesses than were killed on the day itself. It would be one thing if government had stood alongside survivors and provided them with everything they needed every step of the way, and yet we know that could not be further from what actually happened.<\/p>\n

People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air. And then, when they began to contend with the symptoms of the illnesses that followed, the government that had not hesitated to send them into harm’s way was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, check out this Reveal<\/em> podcas<\/a>t, reporter Lynn Hallarman, a Long Island doctor turned journalist who once treated 9\/11 responders, as she interviews people ill and dying of diseases contracted during the cleanup.<\/p>\n

Confined Space Deaths Illustrate the Working Conditions of Ag Workers<\/h2>\n

Just over a year ago, six agricultural workers died<\/a> from toxic gas exposure in a confined space at Prospect Valley Dairy in Colorado.\u00a0 Rebecca Ibarra at Latino USA has produced a devastating podcast, To Live and Die as a Colorado Farmworker<\/a>,\u00a0 describing the working conditions of agricultural workers in this country and how those conditions led to the deaths of these workers.<\/p>\n

The victims included a father and his two sons \u2013 the youngest of whom was only 17 years old.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They all died in the underground pump room of the dairy\u2019s manure management system from acute exposure to hydrogen sulfide. And safety advocates say the deaths were utterly tragic, but entirely avoidable.<\/p>\n

Complying with OSHA’s confined space standard would have saved those lives, but OSHA has no confined space standard that applies to agricultural workers — and lacks standards for many other standards as well.\u00a0 Take a few minutes to listen. You will no regret it.<\/p>\n

Heat Deaths Significantly Undercounted<\/h2>\n

Heat-related deaths are chronically underreported. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about heat hazards in this country. The undercounting of worker deaths was well documented in the Preamble of\u00a0 President Biden’s OSHA heat proposal. To add more evidence, NPR has conducted a 2-year investigation<\/a> to find the total number of deaths influenced by heat every year in the United States and how people slipped through the cracks.<\/p>\n

Our model finds that more than 100 people die from heat-related causes in Michigan every year, 10 times the official reported numbers. In Massachusetts, official records say only about 5 people die from heat each year, but our estimate suggests that number could be more than 60.<\/p>\n

And in Florida, the difference is even more dramatic: We estimate more than 1,900 deaths each year, about 40 times as many as reported.<\/p>\n

Heat-related deaths can be masked by other more obvious causes of death, like a heart attack and can exacerbate cardiovascular conditions.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, check out this article in the NY Times<\/a> about the heat hazards that postal workers face every day.<\/p>\n

Newsom Undermines Cal\/OSHA<\/h2>\n

Cal\/OSHA watchdog and former official Garrett Brown reports<\/a> that while Trump’s attacks on federal OSHA are really bad, “Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in California has mimicked Trump in likewise understaffing and underfunding Cal\/OSHA.” Brown reports a vacancy rate of 35.5% among the 287 fully-funded compliance safety and health compliance officer (CSHO) positions, up from 12% when he took office in January 2019. There’s also a communication problem. Two regions with large number of farmworkers large numbers of farmworkers have but one bilingual inspector each. In addition, there are only two industrial hygienists, which means that “enforcement inspections involving health issues \u2014 such as heat, infectious diseases, wildfire smoke, airborne lead and silica exposures, noise, and ergonomics \u2014 are severely limited by lack of qualified personnel.”<\/p>\n

The tragedy is that Newsom can’t claim budget problems: Cal\/OSHA is financed by a completely independent fund which receives no state tax revenues, which has run surpluses between $130 million and $200 million over the last several fiscal years.\u00a0 Despite that, Newsom has request Cal\/OSHA’s budget.<\/p>\n

Company was Warned Before Catastrophic Tank Collapse Killed 11 Workers<\/h2>\n

We haven’t seen the final OSHA citations of EPA penalties resulting from the deadly May 26, 2026, catastrophic failure<\/a> of a 1.2-million-gallon atmospheric storage tank at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company, LLC (NDP) pulp and paper mill in Longview, Washington that killed 11 workers. But the Chemical Safety Board has issued an update<\/a> finding that the company had been warned ten months earlier “that significant portions of the tank\u2019s carbon-steel shell had thinned below the calculated minimum safe thickness.”<\/p>\n

The inspection contractor\u2019s report recommended that NDP internally inspect and repair the identified thinned areas of G Tank\u2019s shell. The inspection report also stated that G Tank was \u201c[n]ot fit for continued service\u201d unless it was repaired and that there was a \u201c[h]igh likelihood\/consequence of failure\u201d. Despite the inspection\u2019s findings, G Tank remained in service until it catastrophically failed on May 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the company failed to repair the tank shell, remove it from service, or reduce its operating conditions before it failed. The CSB’s investigation into the root causes of the catastrophe will continue. You can check out an Oregon Public Broadcasting report here<\/a> and a video of the implosion and nice interview with University of Washington Occupational Health Sciences’ Marissa Baker here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Silica Continues to Kill Miners…Faster and Younger<\/h2>\n

Almost 18 months after MSHA’s silica standard was suppose to come into effect, the Trump administration still refuses to enforce the long overdue protections.\u00a0 NPR reports<\/a> on a recent American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine<\/em><\/a> study that presents data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), showing that working veteran underground coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from the incurable and fatal lung disease at the highest rates in nearly 50 years. One in three miners in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia tested positive in X-rays conducted by NIOSH during the last five years.<\/p>\n

The last time the rate of disease was that high for miners with the same work history was 1978. In 2018, when NIOSH last reported\u00a0rates of the disease<\/a>, the rate was 20.6%.\u00a0The new research shows that even miners with as few as 15 years underground have higher rates of black lung \u2014 rates not seen in nearly 40 years. “I’m disgusted,” said Scott Laney, a NIOSH research epidemiologist who is the lead author of the research letter. “This is not going to get better because of all the disease that’s already in the pipeline. These guys are being treated like disposable widgets, not human beings. \u2026 We’re watching them die right before our eyes.”<\/p>\n

Respiratory therapist Marcy Freeman who treats patients in a pulmonary rehabilitation clinic in Norton, Virginia. “These are husbands told NPR “These are brothers. \u2026 These men were just hardworking men, and the only thing they did was go to work and provide for their families. And it cost them everything. \u2026 This is the aftermath of black lung.”<\/p>\n

MSHA is supposedly “amending<\/a>” the Biden-era silica standard, probably viewing respirator as a solution instead of cleaning up the air. But respirators are extremely problematic:<\/p>\n

Many\u00a0miners interviewed by NPR\u00a0<\/a>complained that masks impair communication in a dangerous and noisy environment, become clogged with dust, are too hot to work in, and fail to screen out finer particles. Lawsuits against dust-mask companies have resulted in multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements.<\/p>\n

Even more modern devices have issues, including helmets that push fresh air down across the face and behind a clear shield. MSHA noted in its\u00a02024 silica dust regulation<\/a>\u00a0that the helmets “are not a permanent solution” because they make it difficult to communicate effectively, and may limit peripheral vision and situational awareness, which can make work hazardous.<\/p>\n

Artificial Countertop Silicosis Cases Grow Nationwide\"silicosis\"<\/h2>\n

I’ve written about the epidemic of debilitation and deadly silicosis affecting young workers who fabricate and install artificial stone countertops.\u00a0 Most of the cases have been in California, with 644 silicosis cases reported<\/a> along with 35 deaths. 163 cases have been reported already in 2026, compared with 224 last year. Latino men account for about 98% of cases in California.<\/p>\n

In August, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study<\/a> concluded that in California “hazardous worker exposures persist” despite recent regulatory and legislative actions.\u00a0 As former OSHA head David Michaels ask, “why do we permit manufacture of a product we don’t need (and for which there is a safe substitute available) that kills the workers who make it?” Michaels and other public health experts have called for a ban of artificial stone countertops.<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is not limited to California.\u00a0Last week, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has just issued an alert<\/a> to clinical staff in pulmonology, radiology, critical care, primary care, urgent care, emergency medicine, occupational medicine, and transplant medicine. noting that “At least seven suspected cases of silicosis in workers exposed to engineered stone have been identified in New York State, including one recent death in New York City. ”<\/p>\n

No one believes that most cases have been identified. An estimated 100,000 workers in this country’s\u00a0 stone fabrication industry may be potentially exposed to high levels of respirable crystalline silica.<\/p>\n

Football: The Deadliest Occupational Disease<\/h2>\n

We just wrote about how silica-related black lung disease is the cause of occupational disease impacting 10 to 20 percent of coal miners who have worked 25 years or more. But, as the NY Times<\/a> points out, there’s something worse: NFL Football<\/p>\n

New research shows<\/a>\u00a0that 25 percent of all former N.F.L. players who died during a recent six-year period had the degenerative brain disease known as C.T.E. \u2014 a tally that does not include the nearly three-quarters of deceased players who were not tested for the disease, which can be diagnosed only posthumously.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is clearly a minimum; the true percentage has to be higher,\u201d said David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, just as C.T.E. emerged as a health issue in football. \u201cWhatever it is, the number is astoundingly high.\u201d<\/p>\n

C.T.E is becoming much better known, but the true extent of the disease is mindboggling:<\/p>\n

Imagine an American job that is less safe than that, where one in four workers (and maybe far more) ends up with an incurable, degenerative brain disease that withers the mind, sometimes after just a few years of exposure.<\/p>\n

Imagine the outrage at the working conditions, the demands that something be done to protect the employees, the questions about whether the industry needed to be overhauled, if not abolished.<\/p>\n

So why hasn’t OSHA done something about it? Former OSHA heads David Michaels and Doug Parker explain:<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognized when I ran OSHA that intervention in football, in telling the league to make changes, even if OSHA had the expertise, would essentially be detrimental to the agency,\u201d Mr. Michaels said. \u201cThe public would not welcome OSHA telling the N.F.L. how the game has to be played. And that would hurt the agency\u2019s ability to protect workers who desperately need OSHA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Parker said that OSHA was unlikely to act on its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor OSHA to get involved, the ideal situation would be a congressional mandate \u2014 not because they necessarily need one legally, but because it would be the best way to ensure that they really had the government\u2019s backing to take action,\u201d Mr. Parker said.<\/p>\n

Farmworkers on the Front Lines of Food-Borne Illness Outbreaks<\/h2>\n

We’ve all been a bit wary of buying vegetables at the grocery store after the cyclosporiasis outbreak sweeping the nation a couple of months ago. More food pathogen diseases have followed.\u00a0 Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the Migrant Clinicians Network<\/a>, an organization connecting farm laborers to health care, was interviewed by Grist<\/a> about the conditions that led to these outbreaks and how it affects this nation’s farmworkers. Liebman first points out the deterioration of this countries public health system during the Trump administration. She points out that in an infectious disease outbreak “we know that our farmworkers are going to be more vulnerable because of the work that they do, their access to health care, and our immigration enforcement.”<\/p>\n

And when it comes to farmworkers and food safety, we need to be “concerned about people living in close quarters. So recognizing that the living and working conditions are often one and the same for farmworkers, that\u2019s really important. There\u2019s other issues that might come up with farmworkers, such as the number of bathrooms or where their well water comes from.”<\/p>\n

Workers Comp’s Failure<\/h2>\n

Former OSHA director David Michaels write in The American Prospect<\/a> how this country’s workers\u2019 compensation system is broken.\u00a0 Workers are rarely fully compensated: “Workers who received workers\u2019 comp benefits for lost-time injuries saw their incomes drop by roughly 15 percent over the following decade. For the families of workers killed on the job,\u00a0the financial devastation runs deeper still<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

And as “benefits to injured workers shrink, the winners are clear: insurance carriers. Each state runs its own system with no federal oversight or coordination.”<\/p>\n

The source of the differences between states, and the meager payments in some states, is no mystery, as workers\u2019 comp is the only part of the national safety net with zero federal oversight. Unlike unemployment insurance or Medicaid, there are no federally mandated minimums, no guardrails, no floor below which states cannot go.<\/p>\n

And currently, no one in Washington is watching the system\u2019s decay\u2014or, it appears, even cares about it.<\/p>\n

So who loses? Obviously worker, but also the taxpayers:<\/p>\n

Workers\u2019 comp covers only about 21 percent of the total wages lost and medical costs from workplace injuries and illnesses. Workers and their families absorb nearly 63 percent. Government safety-net programs cover the remaining 16 percent, meaning taxpayers pick up almost 42 percent of the medical costs through Medicare and Medicaid. Though employers caused the harm or at least allowed it to exist,\u00a0everyone else is paying for it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Workers Comp: Falling Through The Cracks<\/h2>\n

And if you think its broken for American citizens, imagine what it’s like for immigrant workers. Despite Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, millions of migrants continue to work across the country, mostly in dangerous industries like construction.\u00a0 And employers are required to provide all workers — even undocumented workers — with workers compensation insurance in case they get injured on the job. But far too many undocumented workers are falling through the cracks.\u00a0 A Wisconsin Watch investigation<\/a> documents one story — about a Nicaraguan worker named Juan who accidentally stepped through a sheet of insulation on a roof and fractured his spine when he hit concrete floor below. His employer had provided no fall protection.<\/p>\n

Juan is now paralyzed him from the neck down and<\/p>\n

spent two lonely years in Wisconsin health care facilities while his attorneys and state regulators worked out how to cover his medical bills and compensate him for the abrupt end of his working life.\u00a0 Like many undocumented immigrants working in construction, Juan found the job repairing a sheet-metal roof in Madison through a blurry relationship between a labor recruiter and a general contractor. Neither had the worker\u2019s compensation insurance state law requires.<\/p>\n

The state has a fund to compensate workers whose employer fails to cover them, but the worker has to identify an employer, which is sometimes impossible:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get paid in cash by some guy they may or may not know,\u201d …and when disaster strikes, they\u2019re left without an easy way to prove the identity of their employer….\u201cThey need to be able to give us something that establishes a relationship (with an employer),\u201d added Aaron Galarowicz, chief of DWD\u2019s uninsured employers fund unit. \u201cPay stubs are easy,\u201d he said, \u201cbut when they\u2019re paid in cash\u2026 that\u2019s a little bit more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also no OSHA investigation because the employer did not notify OSHA, violating an OSHA regulation that requires all deaths and hospitalizations to be reported to the agency.<\/p>\n

Books, Books, Books<\/h2>\n

As all Confined Space<\/em> fans know, we have a great OSHA\/Labor reading list<\/a>. Occidental College Professor Peter Dreier has put together a comprehensive labor reading list<\/a> which he published on Facebook.\u00a0 Lots of overlap with Confined Space<\/em>, but other must-read books for labor activists as well.<\/p>\n

More to Read<\/h2>\n

Finally, former NY Times Labor Reporter Steve Greenhouse on The most anti-union president\u2019: how Trump turned his back on US workers<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you dreading the long boring weekend coming up? Well, never fear. Confined Space is providing you with lots of reading (and listening) matter that will interest, infuriate — and hopefully motivate you to get out there to organize to fix shit:\u00a0 9\/11 survivor update, silica mine and countertop deaths, workplace catastrophes, workers compensation failures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[149,20,284,252,243,72,71,134,172],"tags":[56,97,74,151],"class_list":["post-14381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-csb","category-dipatches-short-stuff","category-heat","category-journalism","category-mine-safety","category-msha","category-niosh","category-workers-compensation","tag-california","tag-new-york","tag-west-virginia","tag-wisconsin"],"yoast_head":"\nDispatches From the Front Lines of Occupational Safety and Health - Confined Space<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are you dreading the long boring weekend coming up? 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