Joint comments on OSHA’s NPRM on tracking workplace injuries. Letter to OSHA from CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity and Sid Shapiro and CPR Policy Analyst Katie Tracy opposing provisions that would roll back requirements in the 2016 final rule, Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, September 28, 2018.

Letters to Maryland Gubernatorial Candidates re Worker Safety. Read a letter from CPR's Rena Steinzor and Katie Tracy to Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous calling for a strengthened Maryland Occupational Safety and Health division, September 21, 2018.

Joint Letters to Food Safety Inspection Service re poulty plant line speeds. CPR and 11 other organizations write to oppose requests from four poultry processors (Ozark Mountain Poultry, Peco Poultry, Pilgrim's Pride, Gerber Poultry) for waivers that would allow them to operate their evisceration lines at speeds that pose health and safety risks to workers and consumers. July 31, 2018. 

Joint letter to the Food Safety Inspection Service on proposed swine slaughter rule.

Joint Letter to House and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairs and Ranking Members from Tom McGarity, Sid Shapiro, and Rena Steinzor opposing section of the House Farm Bill (H.R. 2) that would codify exemption of high-risk retail facilities that sell hazardous chemicals to commercial end users from OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard, September 24, 2018.

More than 30,000 workers have died as a result of on-the-job injuries since 2009, many because their employers failed to follow safety procedures -- violations for which OSHA imposed fines. But a report from CPR finds that OSHA is routinely discounting those fines, greatly diminishing any deterrent value.

Read a joint letter from 100+ organizations, including CPR, in support of the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act (HR 2668), directing OSHA to issue a standard on the prevention of excessive heat in the workplace, July 17, 2019.

Comments to NIOSH re carcinogen classification system and recommended exposure limits, applauding effort to review existing standards and offering specific recommendations

Kill a Worker? You're Not a Criminal. Steal a Worker's Pay? You Are One, op-ed by Rena Steinzor

Letter to Department of Labor on Executive Order 13673 Guidance, "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces," on behalf of poultry and meatpacking workers.

Katherine Weatherford's letter to Maryland Delegates Dereck E. Davis and Sally Jameson on Construction Safety bill, HB 977, February 29, 2016.

Worker Deaths Should Lead to Punishment for Companies, Executives, op-ed by Rena Steinzor and Katie Tracy

Preventing Death and Injury on the Job: The Criminal Justice Alternative in State Law, CPR Paper 1602. This manual begins by explaining why local prosecutors should focus more attention on bringing criminal charges against employers—the business entity as well as responsible executives and managers—in appropriate cases involving the death or serious injury of one or more workers. It also offers an introduction to criminal law and criminal procedure to help advocates understand what charges might apply. Then, this manual discusses how to build a successful campaign, and provides an appendix of helpful resources that advocates can utilize and tailor to fit their campaign.

Letter to USDA Food Safety Inspection Service and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, co-signed by CPR Policy Analyst Katherine Tracy, June 16, 2017.

Raise Maximum Fine to Deter Unsafe Working Conditions, op-ed by Martha McCluskey and Matt London

Joint Letter to USDA from Matt Shudtz, National Council of La Raza, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Celeste Montforton, re worker safety data collection.

A Baltimore Sun op-ed by Katie Tracy and Shanna Devine: Amazon Prime: Workers pay a price for fast, free shipping.

A unique advocacy guide highlights the ways workers and worker advocates can help make workplaces safe from toxics.

CPR’s Rena Steinzor, Katie Tracy, and David Flores joined with 19 individuals and organizations calling on Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh to open a criminal investigation into a worksite trench collapse on July 23, 2019 in Fairfax County, Virginia, killing a teenager and injuring an adult male, August 19, 2019.

CPR's May 8, 2019, webinar featuring CPR's Katie Tracy, Joe Santarella of Santarella & Eckert, LLC, and Mike Schade, Director of the Mind the Store Campaign of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.

CPR was one of 30 organizations writing in support of a petition from the AFL-CIO calling for an OSHA emergency temporary standard for infectious disease to address the Coronavirus epidemic. March 13, 2020.

CPR joined with 48 public interest organizations on a letter endorsing passage of the COVID-19 Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2020, a vital bill to require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue an emergency temporary standard to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19.

Worker safety advocates from CPR and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health expressed outrage today at the newly released coronavirus guidance from the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control (CDC), which fails to protect essential workers, is weaker than previous guidance, and is not based on scientific evidence. Reports of essential workers dying on the job from the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the need for additional protections, not less.

CPR joined more than 500 labor, racial, legal, interfaith, and women’s justice organizations and individuals on a letter demanding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention retract its flawed guidance that allows workers exposed to coronavirus to return to work without self-quarantining.

Writing for FairWarning and the Sacramento Bee, Rena Steinzor and Katie Tracy point to recent on-the-job deaths that resulted from employer negligence and call for prosecution of companies, supervisors and executives who cut corners at the expense of their employees life and limb.

Writing for The Huffington Post, Rena Steinzor and Matthew Shudtz call on President Obama to focus more energy on OSHA's obligation to protect workers on the job from a range of safety hazards.

CPR joined more than 225 other worker safety organizations in urging Members of Congress to pass the COVID-19 Every Worker Protection Act, which would require OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect all workers who continue to go to work during the pandemic from exposure to the coronavirus.

In the Baltimore Sun: President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to order meat and poultry plants to continue operating despite COVID-19 outbreaks, exposing Maryland's poultry workers to enormous risks. Poultry processors haven't demonstrated they're able to keep workers safe and healthy, but they know that many of these low-wage workers will be forced to return. To top it all off, one of the president's goals with this order was to provide legal immunity to companies, so that they can't be sued by employees who are infected as a result of unsafe working conditions.

The "re-opening" of the American economy while the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is still circulating puts workers at heightened risk of contracting the deadly virus. In some blue-collar industries, the risk is particularly acute because of the inherent nature of the work itself and of the workplaces in which it is conducted. And the risk, for a variety of reasons, falls disproportionately on people of color and low-income workers. With governors stay-at-home orders and other pandemic safety restrictions, CPR Member Scholars Thomas McGarity, Michael Duff, and Sidney Shapiro examine the federal government's many missed opportunities to stem the spread of the virus in the nation's workplaces, and make recommendations for what needs to happen next to protect employees on the job.

Even as COVID-19 continues to rage across the United States, governments and industries are "reopening" the American economy. As a new report from the Center for Progressive Reform shows, in the absence of sufficient safeguards, this puts workers and the general public at heightened risk of contracting the deadly virus.

Over the last several decades, U.S. workers have been systematically disempowered and silenced. A new report from the Center for Progressive Reform explains that because of this, the nation's workplaces are not nearly as safe or healthy as they need to be, and workers lack the power they deserve to speak up against exploitation and abuse without fear of significant retaliation. Read the news release accompanying CPR's report, OSHA's Next 50 Years: Legislating a Private Right of Action to Empower Workers.

CPR joined unions, public health professionals, advocates, workers, faith leaders, and Maryland residents across the state calling on Governor Hogan to issue an executive order requiring the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) division of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation to adopt an emergency standard to protect workers from the novel coronavirus.

The Center for Progressive Reform is among nine recipients of a national grant by Clean Slate for Worker Power to advance labor law reform. The $47,200 award will help CPR advocate for a private right of action that would allow workers to enforce Maryland health and safety laws and identify complementary policies that provide workers a more formal role in government-led enforcement, such as participation in inspections and enhanced whistleblower protections.

CPR joined more than 85 worker safety organizations in a joint letter to Sens. Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown, expressing support for the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act. The bill directs OSHA to issue a heat stress standard for outdoor and indoor workers.

Workers presently have no right to bring a lawsuit against employers under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) or equivalent state laws when employers fail to provide safe and healthy working conditions. This gap in the law has been especially troubling during the COVID-19 pandemic, as workers across the United States have faced a massive workplace health crisis without any meaningful support from OSHA or most states or territories. Even with an incoming OSHA that is more supportive of workers’ rights and expected to better enforce standards, providing workers a “private right of action” will bolster the agency’s activities. In our March 5 webinar, attendees heard from attorneys who support legislative measures to empower workers by providing them a “private right of action” to enforce the law.