You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Occupational Health & Safety' category.
Last fall, Mr. Rosaulino Montano, 46, a worker on my campus at the George Washington University, died when he fell seven stories while installing windows on a new $75 million residence hall. Mr. Montano was an employee of Engineered Construction Products, and because his work-related death occurred at my place of employment, I was particularly interested in tracking the OSHA investigation until the case was closed. I wondered whether there was a “controlling employer,” such as a general contractor or even if my employer, GWU, and whether they had some responsibility for safety at the site.
Over the next few months, I used OSHA’s Establishment Search Page in an effort to monitor progress on the investigation, but consistently received the same unsatisfactory message: “Your Establishment search returned O results.”
Last week, the Small Business Advocacy Review Panel submitted its “Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act” (SBREFA) Panel Report to acting OSHA chief Jordan Barab, on the draft proposed rule on worker exposure to diacetyl. The 259-page document summarizes (and attaches) the comments of 16 “small entity representa-tives” (SERs) who would be potentially affected by the rule. SER participants included Weaver Popcorn, American Popcorn and Tee Lee Popcorn, (see full list on page 40 of the report) and the issues seem to fall out naturally among three types of employers: the microwave popcorn and flavor-manufacturing industries, firms in industries that are users of flavorings, and firms with naturally-occurring diacetyl, such as beer and wine producers.
Updated below (7/18/09)
What does Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee have to do with a COSH group, specifically the Connecticut Council on Occupational Safety and Health (ConnectiCOSH)?
Read the rest of this entry »
The White House announced today 10 nominations for senior administration positions, including Mr. Joe Main to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health (MSHA). The biography provided with the announcement notes that he:
“… began working in coal mines in 1967 and quickly became an advocate for miners safety as a union safety committeeman as well as serving in various local union positions in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He was employed by the UMWA in 1974 as a Special Assistant to the International President, and joined the UMWA Safety Division in 1976, serving as Safety Inspector, Administrative Assistant, and Deputy Director. In 1982 he was appointed Administrator of the UMWA Occupational Health and Safety Department, a position he held for 22 years, managing the international health and safety program and staff. “
In an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal reporting on Main’s nomination, mine worker advocate Tony Oppegard said:
“A year from today, you will see a very different agency in terms of the way it’s run.”
Here’s hoping for a speedy confirmation process [remember Senate Dem's, Bush's choice Mr. Dave Lauriski did not have a confirmation hearing] so Mr. Main can get to work.
Last week, OSHA’s area office in Wilmington issued citations to Valero Energy Corp’s Delaware City oil refinery, including four repeat* and nine serious violations of process safety management rules. Because Valero boasts that its “process safety program instills safety and reliabiity at every refinery,” how is it that they have been found with REPEAT violations of OSHA’s process safety management standard. A repeat violation means that Valero was cited previously for the same or substantially similar condition in the last three years.
OSHA conducted its inspection of the Valero Delaware City site under its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for ”Petroleum Refining Process Safety Management (PSM).” The NEP was launched in 2007 after OSHA was criticized for utterly failing to monitor in any comprehensive way employers’ compliance with the PSM standard. In fact, the Chemical Safety Board chair, Carolyn Merritt, alerted us to the matter, noting in May 2007 congressional testimony:
“…in the ten years from 1995 to 2005, federal OSHA only conducted nine [comprehensive process safety] inspections anywhere in the country, and none in the refinery sector.”
We are approaching day 160 of the Obama Administration, yet the Solicitor of Labor is not yet in place, neither are the Assistant Secretaries for most other DOL agencies, including Employment Training Administration, MSHA, OSHA, VETS and Women’s Bureau. Attorney Patricia M. Smith was nominated by President Obama on March 19 to serve as the Solicitor, and her confirmation hearing on May 7 seemed quite tame. I’d not imagined that I’d be writing this blog post 8 weeks after that Senate proceeding, with her nomination stuck in Committee. The slow pace of the Solicitor of Labor’s nomination got me thinking about how this Administration’s appointment process for DOL officials compares to G.W. Bush’s first term. Here are a few facts to ponder:
- G.W. Bush’s Labor Secretary, Elaine Chao, was confirmed on January 29, 2001; Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was confirmed on February 24, 2009.
- G.W. Bush’s OSHA chief, John Henshaw, was nominated on June 12, 2001 and confirmed by the Senate on August 3. A nominee to head OSHA has not yet been announced, but Jordan Barab was selected by Secretary Solis to serve as acting OSHA chief.
- G.W. Bush’s MSHA chief, David Lauriski, was nominated on April 3, 2001 and confirmed on May 9, 2001. A nominee to head MSHA has not yet been announced.
I’ve often suspected that some federal agencies apply very broad definitions to the exemptions provided under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Now, thanks to one diligent journalist I can judge for myself whether the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is an offender.
Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News requested records from MSHA and the Solicitor’s Office (SOL) about its legal determination that the haulage road on which coal-truck drive Chad Cook, 25, died, was under MSHA jurisdication. MSHA had made a gross error in 2005-2006 when it concluded that the road was private property. (In November 2007, the senior officials reversed themselves, but it was too late to get justice for Chad Cook.) Smith made her FOIA request for the legal determination in August 2008, and MSHA responded 7 months later. They provided a four-page memo written by SOL, but redacted certain portions under FOIA Exemption 4. This exemption is allowed to protect
“trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential.”
Friday (6/19) was the final day for participants from OSHA’s public hearing on its proposed cranes and derricks rule to submit comments to the agency; by my count, seven organizations responded. The Edison Electric Institute offered the lengthiest document (94 pages), and it was peppered with provocative language, such as
“…these and many other vexing questions arise from OSHA’s convulated proposed regulatory scheme.”
the rule “…would de-stabilize settled principles [and] would be highly ill-advised….could stimulate more litigation…and [create] an avalanche of state and local laws.”
What is EEI’s objection?
As we learned this week, Cal/OSHA and the OSH Appeals Board are in a state of disarray. A daring group of state employees have raised their voices in protest (see “CalOSHA inspectors demand change”) reminding us that dysfunction in their agency can translate into more injuries and illnesses for California’s workers. The collective action of these inspectors and staff is vital. So too is the sole voice of individuals who share their experience and insight.
Meet Jack Oudiz, who joined Cal/OSHA in 1985. Mr. Oudiz is retiring from Cal/OSHA and shares the following:
My statement is compelled by a sense of sadness and disappointment at leaving an organization that is in many ways much less effective than I found it nearly 25 years ago. The Division I leave today has veered so far away from its mission that it has begun to redefine that mission to justify its actions.
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
Swine flu infection of health care workers (or as CDC refers to them, health care personnel or HCP) was of interest early in the pre-pandemic phase for at last two reasons. One was the obvious goal of estimating the risk to front line workers and devising best practices for their protection. Another was the belief, reinforced by the SARS outbreak in 2003, that spread to HCP was an early warning that the virus was easily transmissible from person to person. SARS is a disease where patients are most infectious in the later stages when they are extremely ill, and HCP were among the hardest hit groups. Most flu is transmitted in the community, but the SARS model still seems appropriate for flu viruses like H5N1 (”bird flu”) where transmission is rare. Any report that a health care worker has been infected from a bird flu patient is viewed with alarm, possibly suggesting that the probability of transmission has increased. And bird flu was the template upon which pandemic planning was based. So within a few weeks of the outbreak (the first case of novel H1N1 was diagnosed in mid-April), CDC asked state health departments to report any cases of novel H1N1 among HCP. Yesterday they reported the first results in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR):
