{"id":5948,"date":"2022-04-28T10:26:46","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T14:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=5948"},"modified":"2022-04-27T23:59:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T03:59:23","slug":"philaposh-a-good-day-to-remember-the-dead-and-fight-for-the-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2022\/04\/28\/philaposh-a-good-day-to-remember-the-dead-and-fight-for-the-living\/","title":{"rendered":"PhilaPOSH: A Good Day to Remember the Dead and Fight for the Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Friday was a beautiful, sunny day in Philadelphia. A perfect day for PhilaPOSH’s<\/a> annual Workers Memorial Day celebration. This was the 3rd Workers Memorial Day I’ve attended in Philadelphia, and as usual, it was a moving and powerful affair.<\/em><\/p>\n

We heard from Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, Philadelphia Labor Council President Pat Eiding, UFCW Local 1776\u00a0President Wendell Young IV, PhilaPOSH Director Nicole Fuller, OSHA Assistant Secretary Doug Parker and several workers who described hazardous working conditions and the help that Philaposh provided. I was invited as Keynote Speaker.<\/em><\/p>\n

After the program, the hundreds of workers and families of workers killed on the job solemnly marched over to Penn’s landing carrying a rose and signs with the names of workers killed on the job in the tri-state area over the past year, and how they died. Cars and trucks honked in support as we marched. At Penn’s Landing, each person read the name and circumstances from the “grave makers” and tossed a rose into the Delaware River.<\/em><\/p>\n

Below is my (unabbreviated) keynote speech.<\/p>\n

Remarks By<\/strong><\/p>\n

JORDAN BARAB<\/strong><\/p>\n

Philadelphia Project on Occupational Safety and Health<\/strong><\/p>\n

(PHILAPOSH)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Workers Memorial Day 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

Philadelphia, PA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday, April 22, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to thank you for inviting me to this 2022 Workers Memorial Day event<\/p>\n

Philaposh has a special place in my heart and in my career. My first workshop when I started at AFSCME in 1982 was in Philadelphia for DC 47. Former Council 47 Director Tom Cronin, in the audience today, invited me to town. I knew nothing. I majored in international economics, so my first years at AFSCME were learning.<\/p>\n

So, on that trip to Philadelphia, I stopped by PhilaPOSH, had a long talk with Jim Moran and headed home with a briefcase full of materials that helped me understand not only the specific hazards that workers faced, but how to organize to make workplaces safer.<\/p>\n

In the years since then, PhilaPOSH has been a beacon of hope for Pennsylvania workers. So, whenever I hear skeptical comments about workers organizing for safety in the workplace, or what labor unions can do to help workers stay alive, I say LET THEM COME TO PHILAPOSH!<\/p>\n

I think the last time I spoke at this gathering was in 2015 when I was Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA, and we were approaching the end of the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

Now, 7 years later, we\u2019re in a very different world. We have survived 4 years of Donald Trump — more or less. Those of us in this room have survived COVID so far, although many of our friends and loved ones have not.<\/p>\n

The good news is that out of the ashes of the past two pandemic years, we are seeing a resurgence of the labor movement as well as a new realization of the important and essential role that workers play in our economy. We need to build on this momentum to ensure that American workplaces are more democratic and more safe. And I\u2019m grateful that PHILAPOSH and you in this audience are leading that fight in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

COVID-19<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But we have a lot of work to do to ensure that the American public appreciates the contribution of essential workers in fighting COVID and the price they paid.<\/p>\n

Late last year the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics gave us what looked at first like very good workplace safety news. According to the\u00a02020 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries<\/a>,\u00a0 \u201cThere were 4,764 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2020, a 10.7-percent decrease from 5,333 in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the lowest number of workplace deaths since 2013!!<\/p>\n

Great news and a great year for workers, right?<\/p>\n

Not so much. One detail the BLS failed to look at \u2014 a failure only mentioned below the main headlines at the bottom of the first page of the press release \u2014\u00a0was worker deaths due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Despite the alleged good news from BLS, the reality is that 2020 likely saw the greatest workplace death toll in modern American history due to COVID-19.\u00a0 These were mostly so-called \u201cessential workers,\u201d those who had no choice but to show up to work in person, risking their lives, and bearing the brunt of work-related COVID-19 fatalities. \u00a0And these workers were disproportionately people of color.<\/p>\n

The problem is that we don\u2019t really know how many workers died of COVID that they contracted in the workplace, and much less the extent to which workers got COVID at work and then transmitted it to their family members.<\/p>\n

The sad fact is that, with very few exceptions, no one tracks workplace COVID deaths.<\/p>\n

One exception is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services which tracks COVID infections for long term health care workers. \u00a0 In 2020 alone, CMS reported around 1300 deaths of long-term care staff. Had those been counted, they would have comprised over 27% of total workplace deaths for 2020. Just adding those deaths to the BLS total would have meant that 2020 saw the highest workplace death total in the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just adding in long-term care workers. Not the likely additional thousands of deaths in acute care hospitals, meatpacking plants, warehouses, transportation or any of the other industries where essential workers kept our lives going.<\/p>\n

And what has the federal government, and more specifically, OSHA done about this ongoing tragedy?<\/p>\n

Not enough, to say the least.<\/p>\n

The first year of COVID was during the Trump administration which refused to issue an OSHA emergency temporary standard, provided too little and too late enforcement of unsafe conditions and actively colluded with the meat processing industry to keep open plants where COVID was running wild due to substandard working conditions.<\/p>\n

In the worst of these plants, with the most egregious working conditions and documented worker deaths, the only penalty Trump\u2019s OSHA could muster was a measly $13,000 citation.<\/p>\n

I wish I could say the Biden administration had solved all of those problems.<\/p>\n

They certainly began well, issuing an Executive Order the first day of the administration calling for OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard by March 15.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, March 15 came and went, as did April 15 and May 15. Finally in July, hoping that the vaccine would take care of everything, OSHA issued an ETS, but only for health care workers.<\/p>\n

Soon afterwards, the Delta variant, along with increasing evidence that vaccine protection against infection deteriorated over time and growing vaccine resistance made clear that workers needed more protection than just the hope that everyone gets vaccinated.<\/p>\n

But instead of rethinking its position, the Biden Administration doubled down on their reliance on the vaccine, requiring all unvaccinated workers in companies over 100 employees to wear a mask and get tested weekly.<\/p>\n

That mask mandate, characterized as a vaccine mandate, met a sorry, if not unexpected death in a Supreme Court, the majority of whom failed to understand that workers are much more at risk from COVID than non-workers.<\/p>\n

As a retiree, I can choose where to spend my day, with whom and how long I want to be indoors. Workers, on the other hand are forced to spend 8 to 12 hours a day in a possibly unventilated workspace with co-workers who may or may not have been vaccinated. Somehow the rigged Supreme Court managed to ignore that evidence.<\/p>\n

The problem we\u2019re still facing is that workers need more than just a vaccine. All workers \u2013 not just health care workers — need a comprehensive COVID-19 \u00a0standard \u2013 or better yet, overall infectious disease program that includes not just vaccines, but also improved ventilation, personal protective equipment, recordkeeping, outbreak reporting, paid sick leave and better protection against retaliation.<\/p>\n

OSHA is now working on a permanent COVID-19 standard to protect health care workers and a comprehensive infectious disease standard.<\/p>\n

And they will need your support.<\/p>\n

Public Employees<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Now I\u2019m going to move from a disappointment to an atrocity.<\/p>\n

Over half a century ago, the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed, guaranteeing a safe workplace to all American workers.<\/p>\n

Right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll\u201d American workers left out public employees \u2013 unless their state happened to have a state plan or a public employee only state plan.<\/p>\n

Many of you know that earlier in my career, I spent 16 years running AFSCME\u2019s health and safety program. When I started at AFSCME in 1982 there were 21 states that ran their own private (and public) sector state program. And two states \u2014 Connecticut and New Jersey \u2014 had public employee OSHA plans.<\/p>\n

Today, almost 40 years later, there are still 21 states that have full state programs — a grand total of five states have public employee only plans \u2014 only New York, Illinois and Maine have been added to the list in the past 40 years.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts is now close to adopting a public employee OSHA plan, but at this moment 24 states still do not cover public employees.<\/p>\n

Over 8 million public employees in this country still do not have the right to a safe workplace and well over half a million in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

What does this mean? It means that public employees legally die in conditions that would be illegal if they had been doing the exact same work as private sector employees.<\/p>\n

One of those states that leave public employees out is Texas.\u00a0 Last Fall, Fort Worth, Texas, Transportation and Public Works Department employee Jorge Gomez-Guzman, was\u00a0electrocuted while working on a streetlight.\u00a0 The city of Forth Worth assured us that \u201cHis death is under investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But who will be investigating the causes of his death? Not OSHA. Because Texas doesn\u2019t cover public employees. What will the city\u2019s \u201cinvestigation\u201d show?<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s unfortunately not hard to predict. My experience over the past 40 years indicates that when an employer investigates the death of one of its own employees, the cause is almost always \u201cworker error\u201d or a \u201cfreak accident.\u201d\u00a0 Basically carelessness.\u00a0 \u201cTerrible tragedy, but what are you going to do? People make mistakes. So sorry. Let\u2019s move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will there be any investigation into root causes? Maybe<\/p>\n