New Worker Safety Bill Introduced in House, Protects Whisleblowers, Targets Bad Actors
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle.
Cong. George Miller (D-CA) is a man of tough talk and swift action. Today, along with 15 other House members, he introduced H.R. 5663 a bill to upgrade provisions of our nation's key federal workplace health and safety laws. Every year, tens of thousands of workers are killed or made ill because of on-the-job hazards, and this year the toll of death made headline news. The Deepwater Horizon disaster and the Upper Big Branch mine explosion alone cut short the lives of 40 workers, with their coworkers' and families' lives changed forever.
H.R. 5663 will modernize whistleblower protections for workers who express concerns about safety and health, raise the maximum civil penalty amount that can be proposed by OSHA for serious, willful and repeat violations, and allow for criminal sanctions against employers who knowingly violate safety regulations that contributed to the death of a worker. Deb Koehler-Fergen, whose son Travis Koehler, 26, was killed while working for Boyd Gaming at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas enthusiastically endorsed the bill.
"Employers who put workers lives at risk should be held accountable for their actions, including much stiffer penalties and the possibility of …
OSHA’s pending rule on construction crane and derrick safety cleared OIRA review yesterday.
The cranes rule has been a long, long time in the making and was featured as a case study in our white paper last year on the Costs of Regulatory Delay. It’s good news that this life-saving rule is finally almost set.
Update: Celeste Monforton has more on this at The Pump Handle:
First, OIRA has completed its review of OSHA's final rule on cranes and derricks. The notation on the regs.gov website says "consistent with change," a phrase that has meaning only to those who have the secret decoder ring. Because the internal deliberations between OMB and the affected agency are considered confidential, (a policy dating back to OIRA's creation under President Reagan) we don't know whether the "change" required by OMB are good, bad or indifferent …
Today, the Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will discuss "Investing in Mine Safety: Preventing Another Disaster" and hear testimony from the notorious Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch disaster where 29 miners lost their lives on April 5.
Workers safety and health advocates have posted calls over the past months to “send Blankenship to jail,” perhaps under federal racketeering laws, and the FBI opened an inquiry into potential criminal charges against company officials who may have bribed federal inspectors to keep the mines running despite these repeated violations. The relevant law is in fact remarkably straightforward, and even the evidence amassed in press accounts, by definition much less than the FBI could and should uncover, provides ample support for a strong case against Don Blankenship under the Mine Safety Act itself, which incorporates the “responsible …
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle.
Beginning in December 2006, I’ve written five blog post commenting on the content of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulatory agenda for worker health and safety rulemakings. Most of my posts see links below have criticized the Labor Secretary and senior OSHA and MSHA staff for failing to offer a bold vision for progressive worker protections. Now that the Obama & Solis team have been on board for more than a year, I’m not willing to cut them any slack for being newbies. Regrettably, as with the Bush/Chao agendas, my posts today will question rather than complement the OSHA team (and any bigger fish up the food chain) who are responsible for this plan.
I’ll start with the good news from OSHA’s reg agenda. In the month of July, OSHA projects it will issue two final …
As the Pump Handle noted earlier this week, OSHA submitted its draft final rule on construction cranes and derricks to OMB on Friday of last week. It’s good news that the process is now moving along.
The cranes and derricks rule has been a long saga, and it was one of the case studies in our report last year on the costs of regulatory delay.
By OSHA’s estimates, 89 people are killed and 263 are injured each year in construction crane incidents. The existing safety standards for the use of cranes, derricks, and other heavy machinery at construction sites are now almost 40 years old and are in dire need of updating to account for changes in technology and construction practices. Beginning in the mid-1990s, industry itself began petitioning OSHA for stronger and more comprehensive regulations, and in 2004 a committee of industry, labor, and …
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle.
Last month, the US Dept of Labor (DOL) and MSHA were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. Their proclamations said:
“…this law represents a watershed moment in the improvement of occupational health and safety in the United States. It was the precursor to the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, which created MSHA, and it was the basis of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) of 1970. The Coal Act forever transformed occupational safety and health in the United States.”
Now, I’m reading news story after news story with these same officials asserting the Mine Act is weak and doesn’t provide MSHA the tools it needs to shut down dangerous workplaces. The spin machine is kicking into high gear.
The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reports that federal inspectors issued …
About a year ago in this space, I wrote a piece taking the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to task for its unhinged reaction to the Environmental Protection Agency’s then-nascent efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As an example of the bombast, I included a link to a speech made by Chamber board member Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy, in which he denied climate change, compared those who disagree with him with Osama Bin Laden and called them communists and atheists, accused environmentalists of “taking over the world,” and much more.
Apparently, such outrageous rhetoric doesn’t disqualify someone from being on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. You know what else doesn’t disqualify a coal industry honcho ? Operating a dangerous mine. It was in a Massey mine that 25 coal miners died earlier this week, after a methane explosion – the …
Twenty-five people have been killed in the coal mine disaster in West Virginia.
At ABC News, Matthew Mosk and Asa Eslocker report on the safety history of the Upper Big Branch mine:
The West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 25 workers and left another four unaccounted for in the worst mining disaster since 1984 had amassed scores of citations from mining safety officials, including 57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow a ventilation plan.
The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. runs down what to look for in the coming days and says the disaster could prove a "test of whether the MINER Act reforms went far enough." The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe notes a report from a few days ago by the Labor Department's Office of the Inspector General on inadequate training for …
Imagine opening your medicine cabinet, only to find that the warning and information labels on your over-the-counter medications no longer include dosing information. How would you know how much Benadryl to take or how much aspirin to give to your child? A provision in the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) proposed rule modifying its Hazard Communication (HazCom) Standard threatens to deprive U.S. workers of similar safety information—information they depend upon ever day to protect themselves against the hazardous chemicals that they use in the workplace. CPR Board Member Sidney Shapiro and I have prepared testimony for a public hearing OSHA is holding today on the proposed rule, making the case that the provision is unnecessary and that it would likely leave workers more vulnerable to workplace hazards (full HazCom testimony).
As the name suggests OSHA’s HazCom Standard establishes a system for communicating …
Today the top brass from OSHA opened their doors to the many stakeholders who have something to say about how the agency is doing in its efforts to protect U.S. workers. Of course, they got an earful.
The event marks a new path for OSHA, in that the head of the agency and top career staff took the time to sit face-to-face with occupational health experts, workers, worker representatives, and even the families of victims of workplace accidents, not just the usual cast of characters from the industry lobbying firms.
And it wasn’t just a cattle call. OSHA head David Michaels, Debbie Berkowitz (Chief of Staff), Richard Fairfax (Director of Enforcement), and Dorothy Dougherty (Director of Standards) engaged the speakers in a way that showed they not only cared about what the speakers were saying but are genuinely interested in taking action to protect workers …
