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The Houston Chronicle has reporters covering the devastating crane collapse which occurred on Friday, July 18 at 1:20 pm local time. The crane was owned and operated by Deep South Crane & Rigging which has official statements posted on the company website. The Chronicle reports that the four deceased and the seven injured workers were contractor-employees at the LyondellBasell refinery. The fatally injured workers were Marion “Scooter” Hubert Odom III, 41; John D. Henry, 33; Daniel “DJ” Lee Johnson, 30; and Rocky Dale Strength, 30.
A related story in the Chronicle Failing Structures, Few Regulations, notes that 15 States and five cities have specific regulations requiring crane operators to be licensed. The Executive Director of the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, Grant Brent, says:
“Neither the city of Houston or the state of Texas has shown any interest in having any statewide licensing of crane operator, or riggers, signal persons, or crane inspectors.”
Today’s New York Times’ editorial No Friend to Workers provides just a few examples of how Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has made a sham of our nation’s worker protection laws. The examples come from a GAO report about the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division: One case involved child-labor violations but the matter was closed because the investigators couldn’t track down the employer (but GAO easily found him); another involved a worker’s complaint about his employer’s failure to pay his legally-due overtime wages. The complaint languished at DOL for 17 months, past the statute of limitations. Yep, the worker got screwed.
Lest anyone thinks this ineptitude is unique to DOL’s Wage and Hour division, I’ve my own example—a double doozy involving the combined incompetence of MSHA and DOL’s own Inspector General.
by Susan F. Wood, PhD
Recently the New York Times and RHRealityCheck reported on a leaked internal proposed regulation that calls for more and different enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions for health care providers. The provisions are forms of conscience clauses that do not allow discrimination in hiring or promotion of health care workers who do not wish to perform abortion or sterilization (or indeed in the reverse, no discrimination against those who do perform abortions or sterilizations) in federally funded settings.
The draft regulation goes into detail outlining the history of the laws protecting the conscience of health providers and entities and then outlines the problem. It seems that the central concern is not discrimination against those who won’t perform abortions, but that the US Department of Health and Human Services sees a real problem with requiring health professionals (and anyone in the healthcare workforce) to be involved with contraception, even if it is part of the job. The majority of the section outlining “The Problem” concerns states that have passed laws or issued executive orders requiring pharmacies to dispense contraception, including emergency contraception, and that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.
From the regulation:
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Congressman George Miller (D-CA) are demanding answers from Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on her mysterious proposed rule on risk assessment. I reported earlier this week that the Secretary’s office sent a proposed rule to OMB on July 7 entitled “Requirements for DOL Agencies’ Assessment of Occupational Health Risks.” Although this proposal might sound innocuous, past experience at so-called “regulatory reform” of risk assessment tells us to be very wary of plans to “improve” the risk assessment process. In layman’s terms, it means workers’ health gets screwed.
Kennedy and Miller’s letter to Secretary Chao asks for a briefing within a week about the proposed regulation, and asks for:
- a copy of the proposed rule
- the legal authority under which the Department expects to promulgate this regulation
- the reason that this proposed rule was not listed in the Department’s Regulatory Agenda (which was published in May 2008 )
A screenshot of OMB’s webpage on which this proposed rule appears is here.
Thanks to the Senator and Congresman for taking their oversight responsibilities seriously.
I found the most curious item on OMB OIRA’s webpage today, and my paranoia about end-of-the-term mischief by the Bush Administration kicked into high gear. The item is listed as a proposed rule submitted to OIRA for review on July 7 titled:
“Requirements for DOL Agencies’ Assessment of Occupational Health Risks” (RIN: 1290-AA23) (Link here, select DOL) or (screenshot)
Whenever the term risk assessment is uttered by the Bush Admininstration, I know they are up to no good. Recall their earlier effort at a major overhaul of agency’s risk assessment procedures; this was a proposal that was long on new one-size-fits-all requirements for agencies involved in health, safety and environmental protection, but woefully lacking in details about the alleged problem it was designed to fix. More importantly, it would have added new steps to the rulemaking process, making a dysfunctional system more so, and creating administrative obstacles for health protective rules. Thankfully, a failing grade by the National Academy of Sciences forced OMB to junk it.
This mysterious draft proposal at OMB makes me wonder whether this is the White House’s plan B for so-called “reforms” to agency risk assessments. Let’s see: they couldn’t impose their requirements agency-wide, so why not target specific agencies? What better place than those pesky rules to protect workers’ from dangerous contaminants?
Update: 7/1 (4:00 pm): The link is fixed! It was two reps of the National Association of Home Builders, four staff of OMB and one from the Dept of Labor’s Solicitor’s Office. Hmmm…no one from OSHA attended the meeting.
On June 18 we reported here that OSHA had submitted to OMB’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) its proposed rule on crane safety. Today, I noticed on OIRA’s site that on June 26, someone met with OMB staff about OSHA’s crane safety proposal, but the link is broken — you get this message. It’s a mystery for now the names and affiliations of the participants. A person at OMB, who confirmed that a meeting on June 26 took place, told me that he would get the link fixed.
Earlier this month, William Scott Hill, 33, of Staffordsville, KY was killed while cutting trees to prepare for a surface coal mine for the Premier Elkhorn Coal Company (TECO Energy). Mr. Hill was employed by Gopher Contracting of Jackson, KY. His death on June 3 reminded me of other fatalities involving tree cutters working at mining operations, including Lawrence Payne, 32, who was killed in March 2004 and William S. Woods, 44, who was killed in December 2004.**
Just as I was reading about Mr. Hill’s death, OSHA sent an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on June 19 to OMB concerning tree care operations. The OSHA notice states that about 58 fatalities occur each year during tree-servicing operations, and an ANSI standard (Z133.1-2006) might be an appropriate model for an OSHA standard. But wait! Why don’t we seriously consider a rule to protect workers involved in tree cutting which could be used by both OSHA and MSHA.
On Saturday, Firedoglake hosted an online discussion on David Michaels’ Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health – and David was lucky to have the chat hosted by Jordan Barab, whose wonderful Confined Space blog provided so much inspiration for The Pump Handle. In his introduction, Jordan not only did a terrific job summarizing the lessons contained in the book, but added some telling details from his own decades of experience promoting workplace health and safety. Here he is describing the demise of the long-awaited OSHA ergonomics standard:
Updated (6/19/08) below
Just before last year’s holiday season, Charles Budds Bolchoz, 48; best friends Karey Renard Henry, 35, and Parish Lamar Ashley, 36; and company owner Robert Scott Gallagher, 49, lost their lives in a violent explosion at T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville, Florida (previous posts here, here). The firm manufacturered Ecotane®, a gasoline additive “methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl” (i.e., MMT® or MCMT), which increases the octane rating of gasoline. Both OSHA and the CSB began their investigations, with CSB providing several updates in the early weeks of their work.
Now that the six months anniversary of the four worker’s deaths is here, I wondered what the workers’ families, co-workers and the community have learned from OSHA’s investigation. (Under Section 9(c) of the OSH Act, OSHA has six months to issue citations.)
Mr. Robert Carey, 45, an athracite coal miner from Shamokin, Pennsylvania was killed on Monday by falling rock/coal at the Harmony Mine. So far this year, 26 workers at U.S. mining operations have died on-the-job. Just this past Sunday, former MSHA chief J. Davitt McAteer had an Op-Ed in the Charleston Gazette entitled: ”Enough: No More Mining Deaths.” He wrote:
“It is time to stop killing our children, husbands, brothers and sons in the name of mining.”
The 26 deceased men were working at mining operations in the following states: Alabama (2), California (2), Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky (3), Missouri, Nevada (2), New York, Pennsylvania (4), Texas (2), Virginia, West Virginia (4), and Wisconsin. Seventeen of the 26 deaths occurred at surface mining operations.
Updated below ( 6/18/08 )
Earlier this month I wrote in “Crashing Cranes, Deaths and the White House’s Edict” about the inexcusable inaction by the US Department of Labor and OSHA to address the decades-old problem of crane-related deaths. I am not alone in my disgust at this regulatory system, which yet again is failing to protect our nation’s workers. I’m pleased to report that two parties familiar with an attempt at crane safety rulemaking have strongly expressed their own dissapointment with OSHA’s failure to act. First are members of the negotiated rulemaking committee (NegReg) who prepared in 2003 a draft rule for OSHA. Second is the independent facilitator who was hired by OSHA to bring this group of affected labor-, employer-, and manufacturer- groups together to prepare the consensus document.
An attorney representing a large group of PFOA-exposed individuals sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and ATSDR Director Howard Frumkin, urging them not to delay any further the release of hazard information and risk assessments on the contaminant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, a.k.a. C8). Mr. Bilott was writing on behalf of residents who live near DuPont’s Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, WV and
“who continue to be exposed to this poison in their residential drinking water on a daily basis.”
OSHA’s Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke flopped and fumbled during CBS’s 60 Minutes “Is Enough Done to Stop Explosive Dust?” which aired last night. Correspondent Scott Pelley pressed Foulke to explain how the 50 OSHA inspectors who have been trained to identify combustible dust hazards will be able inspect the estimated 30,000 worksites with this dangerous volatile hazard.
“We’re not gonna get in every work site every year. It would be physically impossible from a monetary standpoint and on a personnel standpoint to get in every facility once a year. Or even every five years.”
Foulke said his Agency expected to inspect only about 300 of these workplaces this year. Pelley remarked:
“If you do 300 a year, it’ll take you 100 years to inspect all those places that you’ve identified.”
With Foulke’s dumbfounded look, I seriously thought he might have asked, “is that a problem?”
Do you know of any cases of Parkinson’s disease among workers at flavoring companies?
David Egilman, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Brown University, is aware of two cases of Parkinson’s disease in men in their fifties who were flavorists at a large flavorings company. The plant alone had 15 “flavorists.” (The average age of onset for Parkinson’s is 60 and it is a relatively rare disease.) Dr. Egilman is making an appeal to see if others are aware of a possible disease-exposure relationship. As Pump Handle readers know, workers are typically the canaries for the rest of us. If you know of similar cases in flavoring-exposed workers, contact Dr. Egilman at degilman@egilman.com
Set your wristwatch alarms or your VCR for this Sunday (June 7) at 7:00 pm (EST) to watch CBS’s 60 Minutes and a hard-hitting story on OSHA and its failure to protect workers and communities from combustible dust explosions. CBS’s correspondent Scott Pelley interviews Carolyn Merritt (former Member of the US Chemical Safety Board), Tammy Miser (whose brother Shawn was killed in an aluminum dust explosion), Edwin Foulke (OSHA Asst. Secretary), and at least one EXPERIENCED but UNDISCLOSED speaker.
Many thanks to the CBS crew who pursued and persisted with this story: David Gelber, producer; Joel Bach, associate producer; and Rachel Kun, researcher.
By Susan F. Wood, PhD
Much has been written at the Pump Handle and elsewhere in the media and scientific literature about ensuring that science appropriately drives government policies. Questions and concerns have abounded regarding inappropriate non-scientific interference, while at the same time many health and environmental agencies (and the scientific staff within them) continue their incredibly important work in research, evaluation, development, regulation and service delivery. Several organizations have done surveys and developed principles on scientific integrity including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Scientists and Engineers for America.
At the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health, we are launching a multi-part study to get a strong handle on the written policies regarding the role of scientists in government that are currently in place, an understanding of how they are implemented at various agencies, and what recommendations can be made to specifically create policies that support strong science and the appropriate role of scientists and researchers within our health and environment agencies.
This is where we need your help:
We are seeking current and former government scientists to participate in interviews for the Scientists in Government project. Interviews will be conducted in Summer 2008.
If you are a current or former government scientist (with an advanced degree and at least five years of experience working for a science-based health or environment federal agency), you can help us in our work to strengthen policies on science in the federal government. Participation involves a phone or in-person interview of 1-2 hours. Our study is approved by George Washington University’s IRB (#030823).More information about the project can be found at: http://www.defendingscience.org/Scientists-in-Government-Project.cfm.
If you are interested in participating, please contact Ruth Long at 202-994-7993 or eohrwl@gwumc.edu. If you know others who might be interested in participating, please send them to this webpage: http://www.defendingscience.org/Participate-in-the-Scientists-in-Government-Project.cfm
Susan F. Wood, PhD is Research Professor at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, where she is part of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP). She also served as Director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health from 2000-2005 and is a member of the Board of Directors for Scientists and Engineers for America.
For the first time since 2005, the full Senate chamber is debating climate legislation: the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, or CSA. Although the chances of this legislation becoming law this year are slim, it could lay important groundwork for the next Congress and Administration.
If you want to know the key details about what the CSA proposes and what the remaining sticking points are, go read this excellent Gristmill post by Kate Sheppard – and don’t seek your information from today’s New York Times. As the title suggests, John M. Broder’s NYT article “Senate Opens Debate on Politically Risky Bill Addressing Global Warming” focuses not on the measures Senators propose to address this crucial-to-human-survival issue, but on how they’re spinning the situation. Here’s the opening paragraph:
The 65 or so high school seniors of Tygarts Valley High School shared a moment of silence during their graduation ceremony last night (The InterMountain reports) to mourn the death of Adam Lanham, 18, who died on Friday, May 30 at ICG’s Sentinel Mine. The young coal miner was a 2007 graduate of Tygarts Valley High School, and reportedly was pinched between the mine rib and a coal scoop. News reports (here) state that the “red hat” (apprentice) miners’ father and two brothers also worked at the Sentinel Mine.
ICG’s website makes no mention of the young man’s death. The company says:
“We care about the health, safety and well-being of our employees, and we do our very best to protect our miners and provide them with a safe working environment.”
Maybe ICG’s “very best” is just not good enough.
On Friday, May 30 it was a crane collapse in NYC where Donald Leo, 30, and Ramadan Kurtaj, 27 were killed and Simeon Alexis, 32, was seriously injured. On Saturday, May 31 it was a crane collapse at the Wyoming Black Thunder mine which seriously injured ironworkers Andrew Milonis and Frederico Salinas. These incidents are in the wake of the mid-March New York collapse which killed six workers: Wayne Bleidner, 51; Brad Cohen, 54; Clifford Canzona, 45; Aaron Stephens, 45; Anthony Mazza, 39; Santino Gallone, 37; and Ms. Odin Torres, 28, a visitor from Miami. And there have been many other similiar “accidents.”
OSHA acknowledges that as many as 82 workers are killed each year in crane “accidents,” and that the 1971-based crane safety standard is outdated (here). Just a year ago, OSHA chief Edwin Foulke claimed his Agency was making significant progress on a Cranes & Derrick rule (here). An OSHA spokeswoman says the Agency “believes its standards are sufficient” (according to ABC News report), however “the cranes and derricks rulemaking is a top priority.” Confused?
It’s business as usual at the nation’s top workplace safety agency, and now, an edict from the White House will further stall any progress on a new crane safety rule.
by Susan F. Wood, PhD
Last year, Congress passed new legislation on the Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007.This legislation, while limited, made some significant steps forward, see here and here. It reauthorizes the user fee systems for drugs, biologics and medical devices, and expands FDA’s authority on labeling, requires new transparency for the Agency and establishes broader registries of clinical trials and requires results from clinical trials to be released to the public The public concern over the handling of medications like Vioxx and Ketek highlighted problems ranging from companies misleading FDA, to fraud by investigators, to FDA scientific management and lack of priority on safety studies. The new law provided some additional requirements on safety as well as some additional resources for this critical area. It also added some new requirements focused on reducing financial conflicts of interest of FDA Advisory Committee members.
When FDAAA was signed into law last fall, many thought that this would be the last major FDA legislation to be taken up by Congress for another 5 years. But it seems we were mistaken. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1999, the CDC announced its selections for the 10 greatest achievements in U.S. public health history in the 20th century, and among them was improvements in motor vehicle safety. I’ve nothing against looking at success over a long term, but we know that much still needs to be done. The rate of motor vehicle fatalities has indeed declined substantially over the last 100 years, but the rate of deaths and serious injuries in roof-crush and rollovers has actually increased.
In 2006, (the most current NHTSA data available), nearly 11,500 people died in rollover crashes, and another 163,000 people suffered injuries. I was shocked by the shear numbers AND when I learned that the standards guiding roof crush resistance date back to 1971. 1971??
Readers of The Pump Handle and David Michaels’ newly-published book Doubt is Their Product should be able to predict why no improvements to vehicle roof strength standards have been implemented in nearly 37 years.
How do you best teach workers about safety? How do you change people’s attitudes?
The Workers’ Comp board in Ontario, Cananda, and many safety instructors along with them, believes that gruesome pictures or videos work best. Like driving by the scene of a car accident, it is hard not to look. Perhaps by showing a horrific accident, workers will be more careful or take more precautions. The Ontario Worker Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) produced a series of five short (30 second) videos for different industries each showing an “accident” which occurs and then saying how this could have been prevented.
Earlier this year, a group of worker advocates sent a petition to MSHA Chief Richard Stickler asking for rulemaking to improve the training miners receive about their statutory rights. The petition called for significant changes in the way in which all workers employed at U.S. mining operations learn about their rights, including the right to refuse unsafe work and to express concerns about hazards. (Previous post here) The petitioners asked MSHA to consider changing how miners’ rights training is conducted, specifically having someone other than the miner operator or his representative cover this part of the training.
Not surprisingly, MSHA’s Stickler sponded to the petition saying “new regulations are not necessary.” Some of the assertions he makes to support his position are dismal, at best.
For the third time in eight months, workers from the Getchell gold mine* near Winnemuca, NV have seen a co-worker killed on-the-job. First was Mr. Curtis L. Johnson, 36, a roof-bolter, who was killed on August 28, 2007, when part of the mine collapsed on him. Next was Mike Millican, 43, who was killed on January 26, 2008 when a haulage truck backed over him. Then, Kenny Barbosa, 28, was killed on April 21, in another fall of ground. Thanks to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Alan Maimon** for drawing my attention to these workers’ deaths. Sadly, and as usual, all of them were preventable! (Maimon’s full story here.)
At a recent Senate hearing, former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) described the pressure he often felt, especially from lawyers inside and outside the agency, to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using ”discount factors” to reduce monetary penalties. He recalled wondering, “What are we, a discount house?” Reporter Andy Pierrotti with WSPA-TV (Spartanburg/Greenville, SC) has found exactly the same “discount house” mentality through his investigation of SC-OSHA. His story is entitled “Discounted Lives.”
Pierrotti assembled record from the last four years to demonstrate how SC-OSHA, reduce assessed penalties in order to settle cases against the employers responsible for the workers’ deaths. He also relays the shock of family members after learning how already nominal fines become meaningless through the settlement process.
by David Egilman, MD, MPH
I just finished watching the Waxman hearings on FDA preemption and must comment on Christopher Shays’ (R-CT) comments. Christopher Shays is the last remaining Republican congressman from New England. Hopefully the November elections will result in the extinction of this last remaining
remnant of the age of the dinosaurs.
He repeatedly stated that he “had no dog in this hunt” concerning the impact of preemption and torts suits on drug safety. This is a peculiar position for a Congressperson who must decide whether or not the FDA’s actions are appropriate. It’s one thing to have no opinion; it is in another to imply that there is no reason to have opinion.
The Weinberg Group is one of the product defense firms I write about in my new book “Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health.” These firms help polluters and manufacturers of dangerous products avoid regulation – only now the Weinberg Group is not a product defense firm, it’s transformed itself into a “product support” firm.
Companies have evidently realized that marketing anti-bacterial products to U.S. consumers is a good way to make money, and are pushing a wide array of products that claim to have bacteria-fighting properties. (I’ve seen socks, computer products, toys … and even a handy hook you can use to avoid touching a potentially germ-ridden door handle.) This might seem like a good thing - bacteria cause some pretty nasty diseases, after all - except that they’re using nano-sized silver particles to fight the bacteria, and we don’t know nearly enough about the effects of all the nano-sized particles that are entering our environment as we wash, wear, use, and dispose of the hundreds of nano-containing products now on the market.
In the latest issue of The New Republic, Carole Bass provides an excellent overview the issue and why we should be concerned:
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 247-165 to approve the Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosion and Fires Act (H.R. 5522), which requires OSHA to issue an interim final combustible dust standard within 90 days and a final standard within 18 months.
This legislation wouldn’t be necessary if OSHA were doing its job. Combustible dust is a serious workplace hazard; according to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), 281 combustible dust incidents between 1980 and 2005 killed 119 workers and injured 718. In fact, the CSB recommended in 2006 that OSHA issue a new national regulatory standard designed to prevent combustible dust fires and explosions in general industry.
OSHA failed to act, though, even as more combustible dust incidents occurred. Since CSB made its recommendation, there have been 67 combustible dust explosions that injured 75 workers and killed 14, including the February sugar dust explosion at the Imperial Sugar Company refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, which killed nine workers and injured many more. Georgia Representative John Barrow, along with House Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller, introduced the legislation.
Just as the 60-day deadline approached for filing a legal challenge to a new health standard to protect mine workers from asbestos exposure, mining industry trade associations submitted their petitions in federal court. MSHA’s rule was published on February 29, and tick-tock, like clockwork, the National Mining Assoc, the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Assoc (NSSGA) and others filed suits in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting judicial review of MSHA’s rule. Under both the OSHA and MSHA statutues, ”any person who may be adversely affect by a [newly promulgated] standard” may file a petition in the US Court of Appeals challenging the “validity of the standard.”
These legal challenges to worker health and safety standards are typical—nearly every final OSHA health standard was challenged by some industry association—It’s just part of the standard-operating due-process protections afforded hazardous materials to which workers are exposed. Even in this case, for ASBESTOS, a known carcinogenic and respiratory toxin which has been responsible for the death and disability of hundreds of thousands of individuals, is still granted its “day in court.”
On the eve of international Workers’ Memorial Day (4/28), Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette displays again his journalist acumen, particularly on health and safety issues for workers. Thirty years ago today, at the construction of the cooling towers at the Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island, West Virginia, workers were hoisting up a massive bucket of concrete. As Ward writes:
“The cable hoisting that bucket of concrete went slack. The crane that was pulling it up fell toward the inside of the tower. Scaffolding followed. The previous day’s concrete, Lift 28, started to collapse. Concrete began to unwrap off the top of the tower. First it peeled counter-clockwise, and then in both directions. A mess of concrete, wooden forms and metal scaffolding crumbled to the ground. 51 construction workers were on the scaffold at the time. They all plunged to their deaths.”
“Thirty years later, the Willow Island disaster is still considered the worst construction accident in U.S. history.”
Cong. Woolsey’s Workforce Protections Subcommittee held a hearing today on OSHA’s inadequate enforcement of safety and health standards at large, multiple-facility corporations. Members of the Committee heard the gruesome details of the death of Mr. Eleazar Torres-Gomez in an industrial dryer at a Cintas Corp. laundry and how the deadly hazards encountered by Mr. Torres-Gomez are standard operating procedure at Cintas workplaces. Cintas Corp. has more than 400 facilities in the U.S and Canada, boasts it has 700,000 customer-businesses, and reported sales in 2007 of $3.7 Billion and more than $334 Million in profit.
At the hearing, witnesses and Members expounded on whether “enforcement” is more effective than “compliance assistance” for eliminating workplace hazards. One witness insisted that financial costs associated with injuries cause employers to work diligently on prevention, while another countered that workers are actually discouraged from reporting injuries and even given turkeys and other gifts for maintaining an “injury-free” worksite. Well, it sounded like all the same-old same-old to me until Frank White (ORC Worldwide) said something like “a negative story in the Wall Street Journal is bound to be more effective than a $2 million penalty from OSHA.”
For more than two years, the Cook family has waited for answers about the coal-truck crash that took the life of Chad Cook, their son and brother. Their long ordeal began immediately after 25-year old Chad’s death, when an MSHA inspector decided that the fatal crash occurred on a public road and therefore would not be investigated. The State followed MSHA’s lead, and Chad’s death was chalked up as a motor-vehicle accident, not deserving of workplace safety agencies’ resources. Too bad none of them told the Cook family.
About a year later and as a last resort, Mrs. Gay Cook contacted Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette to ask his advice on how to get information from MSHA or the State. Curious as he is, and with a map and camera in hand, it didn’t take the reporter long to determine that Chad Cook’s death occured on mine property on a private road used exclusively by mine operator(s), and therefore should have been investigated by both MSHA and the State. Now, one year later, MSHA has issued its investigation report, the most sorry excuse for an investigation I’ve ever read. Read the rest of this entry »
by Emilie Hedlund
A recent article in the New York Times (”Flooded Village Files Suit” 2/27/08 ) focuses on the Alaskan village Kivalina, which is disappearing because of flooding caused by the changing climate. The residents are accusing five oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country’s largest coal company of creating a public nuisance. Similar suits which blame major companies for adverse effects caused by their emission of green house gases (GHG) have been seen for some time now, but this particular suit is unique in that it accuses the defendants of conspiracy. The companies have been trying to convince residents that changes to their property and the coastline are ”natural” and not caused by global climate change.
The first story about the death of Mr. Ricky “Mud Puddle” Collins came on Thursday afternoon (3/27) in an AP story Massey Miner Killed in Logan County. The short news clip mentioned a miner employed at Massey Energy’s Freeze Fork Surface Mine in Logan County, who we later learned was Mr. Collins, 43, of Dan’s Branch, WV. The article said he:
“died while working on a trailer at a railroad crossing near Stollings in Logan County Thursday,” but
“MSHA is not investigating the accident because it did not occur on mine property.”
The watchdog group OMB Watch does a terrific job staying on top of all of the proposed rules, executive orders, and other federal government actions that have far-reaching effects but can be easy to miss. Now, they’ve launched a new initiative to educate people about the regulatory process and show them how they can participate in it: the Regulatory Resource Center.
Check out their explanation of how the regulatory process works (including a notice-and-comment rulemaking flowchart); handy glossary of regulatory terms; instructions for finding rules in the Federal Register and commenting on proposed rules; and more. Visit it, bookmark it, and let them know what you think.
by Susan F. Wood, PhD
The FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007 includes a small section addressing direct to consumer (DTC) advertising. The bill doesn’t limit advertising to consumers, nor does it give FDA authority to put a moratorium on advertising while more data on safety or effectiveness is collected during the first months or years that a product is on the market. A moratorium was recommended by the IOM in it’s drug safety report in 2006, but was not adopted by Congress - perhaps due to arguments about first amendment rights, but perhaps due to objections by both the pharmaceutical industry and the advertising industry.
What was included is a small section requiring that all print DTC ads carry “the following statment printed in conspicuous text: ‘You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088′ “
The Department of Labor’s Inspector General (IG) issued a report yesterday about the Utah Crandall Canyon mine, saying:
“MSHA was negligent in carrying out its responsibilities to protect the safety of miners.”
The investigation was carried out in response to a request from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and documented in an 80-page report entitled: “MSHA Could Not Show it Made the Right Decision in Approving the Roof Control Plan at Crandall Canyon Mine.” The August 2007 underground mine disaster killed nine men, including Mr. Gary Jensen a federal mine inspector who worked out of MSHA’s Price, Utah office.
This was one of the first-class quotes from former OSHA Assistant Secretary Jerry Scannell (1989-1993) during today’s hearing on workers’ safety and health before the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. His comment came in response to discussions about OSHA’s and the Department of Labor’s Solicitor’s Office’s practices of reducing penalties, even in cases of serious violations. Mr. Scannell said he often felt pressure from inside and outside the agency to settle inspection and fatality-investigation cases by using ”discount factors” to reduce monetary penalties. He recalled wondering, “What are we, a discount house?” and avoided doing it.
The Senate HELP Committee’s Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety announced that former OSHA Assistant Secretary, Mr. Gerard Scannell, will testify at next week’s hearing on workplace safety. He was the OSHA chief during the George H.W. Bush administration, and a long-time officer with the National Safety Council.
The hearing (previous post here) about serious and repeat violators of worker safety protections will also feature testimony by Mr. Eric Frumin, Director of OHS for Unite!Here, who will likely discuss corporate bad actors, link Cintas (post here). I’m so pleased to read that Senator Murray’s staff invited Mr. Scannell to testify, and that he agreed to do so.
The Palm Beach (Florida) Post is reporting that Ag-Mart has settled a civil suit filed by a migrant farmworker family who alleged their son’s serious birth defects were associated with the company’s improper handling of pesticides. Earlier reporting in March 2005 by the PB Post exposed the working and living conditions of this family and other farmworkers, and birth defects among some of their children.
At the same time this settlement was reported, another Florida newspaper wrote that violations against Ag-Mart for failure to comply with the State’s pesticide use rules had nearly all been dropped by an administrative law judge. Oddly, these violations (e.g., failing to provide protective equipment for employees working with pesticides, allowing workers to harvest crops too soon after chemicals were sprayed, burning pesticide containers) all seem like the type of practices that might have contributed to the workers’ exposure and possible link with the infants’ malformations. This development, coupled with the fact that the Ag-Mart case settlement is protected by a confidentiality agreement, creates serious obstacles for public health prevention.
The Senate HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, chaired by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 entitled “Serious OSHA Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Patterns.” The subcomittee has not yet released a witness list, but I’d expect to hear something about some of the bad actors profiled in the “Dirty Dozen” report, prepared in 2006 by the National COSH.
With the six-month deadline approaching for issuing citations and monetary penalties, OSHA announced today 13 willful and 25 serious violations against RPI Coatings, the employer of five workers who died in early October at the Excel Energy Cabin Creek Station hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, Colorado. The penalty amount proposed by OSHA against RPI Coatings is $845,100.
The deceased workers were part of a contract maintenance crew who were applying a specialized epoxy coating onto the inside of a 3,000 foot-long (and 4 foot-wide) pipe. A fire erupted inside the pipe, starving the atmosphere of oxygen. The five men were Anthony Aguirre, 18, Donald Dejaynes, 43, Gary Foster, 48, Dupree Holt, 37 and James St. Peters, 52 (previous post here).
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Williamson links the housing-market crisis to recent problems with food, drug, and toy safety and suggests that the combination of these problems spells more regulation on the horizon:
A coal miner from eastern Kentucky filed a law suit yesterday requesting a federal court judge to compel MSHA to issue a health standard to prevent miners from developing black lung disease. The Petition for Writ of Mandamus (Howard v. Chao) argues that Congress intended, through the Federal Coal Mine Health & Safety Act of 1969 (amended 1977), MSHA to promulgate regulations to prevent new cases of coal workers pnuemoconiosis, progressive massive fibrosis and other illnesses related to miners’ exposure to respirable coal mine dust. Despite evidence over the last 12 years that the current permissible exposure limit is inadequate to prevent black lung disease, including a NIOSH criteria document which recommended a 1.0 mg/m3 limit, the petitioner argues that MSHA has failed to fulfill its duties under the Mine Act. The Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center filed the petition on behalf of Mr. Scott Howard*—one heck of a brave man for putting his name (not John Doe) on this case. He is a coal miner (has been since 1979) and is directly affected on every shift by an inadequate coal mine dust standard.
It’s national Sunshine Week—an effort “to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.” A great way to celebrate the public’s right-to-know what its government is doing, is by sending a FOIA request to your favorite local, state or federal agency. In that spirit, I faxed a FOIA request to OSHA today.
My request stems from an exchange of comments on work-related motor vehicle fatalities following my March 7 post