Posted with permission from Confined Space, a newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues.
Representatives of the construction industry, as well as general industry have petitioned Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to reopen the silica standard, workplace safeguards that would save over 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis each year. This means that for every day implementation of the standard is delayed, almost two workers will die of cancer, silicosis or kidney disease, and three will contract silicosis, a debilitating disease of the lungs.