{"id":3073,"date":"2018-04-05T16:13:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T20:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=3073"},"modified":"2018-04-05T16:13:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T20:13:45","slug":"short-stuff-dispatches-from-front-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2018\/04\/05\/short-stuff-dispatches-from-front-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Stuff: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Battle for Workplace Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OSHAKentucky Limits Black Lung Claims Reviews:<\/strong>\u00a0 We have recently noted<\/a> that black lung is back with a vengeance after almost being eradicated in the late 1990s. Epidemiologists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health say they\u2019ve identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported. Well, the state of Kentucky is responding — by severely limiting how black lung reviews can be done. A bill recently signed into law<\/a> in Kentucky limits black lung reviews to just pulmonologists, instead of pulmonologists and radiologists. The problem: there are only six pulmonologists in Kentucky that have the federal certification to read black lung X-rays and four of them routinely are hired by coal companies or their insurers, according to an NPR review of federal black lung cases.\u00a0 The two remaining pulmonologists have generally assessed X-rays on behalf of coal miners but one is semi-retired and his federal certification expires June 1.<\/p>\n

NPR notes that “Among the radiologists excluded by the law is Dr. Brandon Crum, who helped expose the\u00a0biggest clusters ever documented<\/a>\u00a0of complicated black lung, the advanced stage of the fatal disease that strikes coal miners.” Coincidence? I think not.<\/p>\n

Mining – Maybe not so safe after all:<\/strong> No one thinks of coal mining as a safe job. But it turns out it may be more dangerous than we thought according to a recent study<\/a> that found that “nearly two-thirds of the injuries and illnesses that occurred among Illinois miners from 2001 to 2013 were not reported to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.”\u00a0 According to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago\u00a05,653 cases of mining injuries and illness were reported to the Workers Comp Commission in the 13-year period, but researchers found only 1,923 were reported to MSHA. No surprise here, but the researchers found that chronic injuries and illnesses were less likely to be reported than injuries.\u00a0 Researchers blamed the low reporting on workers’ fear that they would be retaliated against for reporting and\/or\u00a0because they are unfamiliar with the reporting system.<\/p>\n

OSHA is Good for You says Michaels in Harvard Business Review:<\/strong> Former OSHA head Dr. David Michaels has written an article for the Harvard Business Review<\/a> arguing that “Companies can be successful and safe at the same time.” Michaels presents case studies and evidence that for “most successful companies, safety is what the firm does\u00a0\u2014 and what the firm is at its core \u2014 not something that is separate from operations.” He argues against blaming the worker for workplace incidents and emphasizes the importance of a safety and health management system, “a systemic process to find and fix workplace hazards before workers are hurt.”<\/p>\n

Michaels also notes that successful companies welcome OSHA instead of fearing them: “I was amused to hear an executive at one of the nation\u2019s largest chemical manufacturers tell me that he looked at OSHA inspections as an inexpensive consultant, since our fines were always less than he would have to pay an industrial hygienist to do that same inspection for him.” And there’s evidence that OSHA inspections prevent injuries. “According to\u00a0researchers David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel<\/a>, OSHA\u2019s random inspections of high hazard establishments result in a 9% reduction in injuries that triggered workers\u2019 compensation claims in the four years following the inspection.”<\/p>\n

My favorite part is his critique of the line you hear from every employer when someone is killed: “We’re shocked, shocked! Because safety is a priority<\/em>.” Well, according to Michaels, companies that take safety seriously “understand that safety is not a priority \u2014 it is an essential precondition of their work. It is a fundamental component of their operating culture. Safety, ultimately, is at the core of what they do.”<\/p>\n

Small Town Succumbs to Cancer Alley:<\/strong> A new land-use plan adopted in 2014 in\u00a0St. James, Louisiana<\/a> allowed large land-owners to sell out to chemical companies. The poorer, mostly African-American residents were not able to sell, but they’re now in a position to reap the harvest: increased cancer rates due to leaking chemical storage tanks. The tanks, almost all of which have been found to be leaking, contain chemicals, like benzene that can cause cancer and respiratory illness.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Instead of buying the people out, they are waiting for us to die off,\u201d Keith Hunter told [the reporter] last year. \u201cThat is their plan \u2014 they don\u2019t have to settle with\u00a0us.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Those oil tanks you see, owned by NuStar [Energy] leak benzene, a known carcinogen,\u201d he said,\u00a0and proceeded to list\u00a0the names of his neighbors who\u00a0had recently\u00a0died of cancer or\u00a0respiratory disease. \u201cThere are only a handful of families back here. There is not going to be anyone back\u00a0left\u00a0to settle\u00a0with.\u201d\u00a0Hunter died on February 10 following a respiratory\u00a0illness.<\/p>\n

\"OSHAStealing Workers’ Wages? Acosta says no problem:<\/strong>\u00a0Wage theft is rampant in this country. Terri Gerstein, former Labor Bureau Chief for New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman,\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0points out in the\u00a0Huffington Pos<\/a>t that “a recent\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the Economic Policy Institute which found that 2.4 million workers lose $8 billion annually in the ten most populous states because of minimum wage violations alone, without accounting for overtime or other laws.”\u00a0 Although Gerstein argues that “This doesn’t happen because of honest employers who make a calculation error or can\u2019t make payroll for one pay period,” Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta has a new plan to give employers a bye with the new\u00a0Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID)\u00a0program<\/a>, which would “enable employers\u00a0who have underpaid their hard-working employees to simply pay back\u00a0those\u00a0wages owed, while avoiding any penalties and damages.” But only for the first offense.<\/p>\n

In her years enforcing the law, Gerstein, who is currently\u00a0an\u00a0Open Society Foundations<\/a>\u00a0Leadership in Government Fellow and a fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, has seen a\u00a0lot of clearly intentional misconduct when employers figure “it’s cheaper to break the law, the chances of getting caught are slim, and the costs of getting caught are minimal.” The problem with Acosta’s new plan is that<\/p>\n

The penalty for wage theft is not just making employees whole by putting the wages back into workers’ pockets, but additional damages and penalties.\u00a0 These additional costs deter employers from breaking the law, and acknowledge the hardship that workers face when they are unpaid or underpaid,\u00a0particularly minimum wage and other low-wage\u00a0workers like janitors, caretakers, carwash workers, construction and garment workers. Waiving penalties eliminates any deterrent impact, and giving up damages is unfair to workers.<\/p>\n

A Dollar for your Life?<\/strong> In 2015, federal OSHA reached a corporate-wide settlement<\/a> with Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. that settled numerous\u00a0safety and health citations issued against the company involving hazards related to blocked emergency exits, obstructed access to exit routes and electrical equipment and improper material storage. Then OSHA head David Michaels stated<\/a> that\u00a0“This settlement agreement demonstrates Dollar Tree’s commitment to improve training, safety procedures and working conditions at its stores nationwide.”<\/p>\n

Well, not so much. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries just cited the company<\/a> for\u00a0$306,000 in penalties. This was the second time in two years that Washington has cited the company. The willful citations were for\u00a0not ensuring that exit routes were free of obstructions and for storing merchandise in a way that created a safety hazard.\u00a0“We are seeing the same safety violations at Dollar Tree stores over and over again in Washington,” said L&I Division of Occupational Safety and Health Assistant Director Anne Soiza. “It’s concerning because this is a national problem as well. Employees, and sometimes customers, are being put at risk even though the fixes to these safety problems are simple.”<\/p>\n

Despite the settlement, just in the last year, federal OSHA has issued at least three citations against Dollar Tree: $126,749 against a Bloomington Illinois store,\u00a0$89,628 against a store in West Berlin, NJ, and a\u00a0$152,100 citation against a Dollar Tree store in Billings, Montana.<\/p>\n

Dentists are Dying. Why? <\/strong>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a report<\/a> documenting that dentists are 23 times more likely to contract a rare, progressive lung disease \u2014 one that has no cure and few survive. The CDC is not sure what causes the disease,\u00a0\u00a0idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). As Yahoo News<\/a> reports, the statistics for IPF are grim:\u00a0\u00a0“According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,there is\u00a0no cure<\/a>\u00a0and just\u00a0two FDA-approved drug treatments<\/a>. Although doctors have tried a variety of ways to curb the disease\u2019s effects, including oxygen therapy, none have proven to reverse the damage.\u00a0In severe cases, patients opt for a lung transplant. But in the absence of a cure, the median survival rate is\u00a0between 2.5 and 3.5 years<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The study focused on a Virginia facility where 8 dentists and a dental assistant had contracted the disease over a period of 20 years. It’s not clear what’s causing the disease –possibly chemicals involved in polishing dental appliances and preparing amalgams and impressions without respiratory protection like “silica,\u00a0polyvinyl siloxane, alginate, and other compounds with known or potential respiratory toxicity.\u201d\u00a0 The report stated that\u00a0\u00a0“Dental personnel who perform tasks that result in occupational exposures to known respiratory hazards should wear adequate respiratory protection<\/a> if other controls (e.g., improved ventilation) are not practical or effective. If respiratory protection is used, a written respiratory protection program should be implemented as required by the OSHA Standard<\/a>, including training, fit testing, and maintenance and use requirements.<\/p>\n

Retaliation By Marriage:<\/strong> OSHA has\u00a0filed a lawsuit against a Chester County, PA hair salon, accusing the business of firing an employee after her husband reportedfiled an OSHA complaint.\u00a0 According to OSHA, “a plumbing backup in March 2017 exposed employees at the salon to sewage and chemicals. The owners allegedly ignored complaints of nausea and headaches from employees. One of the stylist’s husbands reported the issue to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. When the owners found out about the husband’s actions, they terminated the stylist’s employment.”<\/p>\n

Paragraph 11(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act prohibits employers from retaliating<\/a> against workers for exercising their health and safety rights. OSHA was not amused:\u00a0\u201cThe actions of the salon owners to determine who notified OSHA and the termination of the employee violated the law,\u201d said OSHA\u2019s Acting Regional Administrator Michael Rivera. \u201cAll employees have the right to report workplace safety or health hazards without fear of retaliation from their employer.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Many Times Can You Break the Law and Endanger Workers Before You Go To Jail?<\/strong> As the San Marcos Corridor News<\/a> observes, the answer is pretty much forever, as long as you don’t lie to an OSHA official, or kill a worker and receive a willful citation.\u00a0 \u00a0Robert Box notes in a column that OSHA just\u00a0cited<\/a>\u00a0a Marietta, Georgia based roofing contractor, Jose A. Serrato, for exposing workers to dangerous fall hazards — for the seventh time in 5 years, and the\u00a0sixth repeat violation.\u00a0 The total penalty this time was\u00a0$133,604, including\u00a0$129,336 for a willful violation.\u00a0 \u00a0As Box correctly observes, “So, as long as a repeat-offending employer does not knowingly make false statements to OSHA and does not have a worker die from a willful violation of a safety standard, the company can seemingly continue to write checks and carry on with business as usual.”<\/p>\n

And Who Is Going to Jail?<\/strong> Robert Box may be pleased to know that Katie Tracy<\/a>,\u00a0a policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform,\u00a0has developed a manual<\/a>\u00a0to help workplace safety activists push for criminal charge for worker deaths and injuries. And she’s even put together a “database that catalogues state criminal prosecutions against corporations and individuals whose actions caused a worker\u2019s death or injury,” the first\u00a0centralized spot for finding these cases. There are currently close to 90 cases in the database, stretching all the way back to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911.\u00a0 According to Tracy, the majority of the fatality cases involve trench collapses.<\/p>\n

Tracy notes that we’re seeing much more aggressive local and state prosecutions “because federal OSHA lacks critical support to adequately enforce the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”\u00a0 For example,\u00a0\u201cNew York has recently undertaken an effort to develop what they are calling their construction fraud task force. They have been pursuing these cases quite aggressively.\u00a0 All five of the boroughs in New York City are involved with the task force.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stress Is Killing Me! Literally:<\/strong> Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffe<\/a>r says that workplace stress, caused by such factor as layoffs, job insecurity, toxic cultures,\u00a0not having health insurance,the absence of job control and long hours are killing\u00a0more than 120,000 deaths a year and account for roughly 5 to 8 percent of annual health care costs. And the solution is not more workplace wellness programs,\u00a0health risk assessments, diet programs, yoga classes and smoking cessation programs. The solution is prevention, changing\u00a0the underlying work conditions. “If I change the workplace so you didn’t do that stuff in the first place, you wouldn’t need a wellness program.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Kentucky Limits Black Lung Claims Reviews:\u00a0 We have recently noted that black lung is back with a vengeance after almost being eradicated in the late 1990s. Epidemiologists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health say they\u2019ve identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported. Well, the state of Kentucky is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,114,72,71,156,247,121],"tags":[73,117,160],"class_list":["post-3073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alex-acosta","category-criminal-prosecution","category-mine-safety","category-msha","category-short-stuff","category-wage-and-hour-division","category-workplace-safety-and-health-programs","tag-kentucky","tag-pennsylvania","tag-washington"],"yoast_head":"\nShort Stuff: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Battle for Workplace Safety<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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