OSHA’s effort to protect temporary workers got some input recently from a coalition of workplace safety groups, worker centers and public health professionals, who presented agency chief Dr. David Michaels with recommendations during a recent forum in Boston devoted to the subject.
Could more inspection power have prevented the tragedy?
October 14, 2013
The fine levied by OSHA against the company whose West, Texas fertilizer storage facility exploded in in April, killing 15 workers, “sends a message,” according to one worker safety coalition – but also highlights how understaffed the agency is.
A petition sent to OSHA and the USDA by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) and the Southern Poverty Law Center calls on OSHA to improve worker safety in poultry and meatpacking plants by issuing new work speed standards.
OSHA’s annual evaluation of state workplace safety agencies found a wide range of problems and shortcomings in the state programs, including inadequate enforcement staffing, low fines, poor investigative procedures of whistleblower complaints, slow response to complaints and failure to verify that employers had corrected violations for which they had been cited.
The increase in grain bin deaths – despite a corresponding increase in official efforts to stop them – shows an “unconscionable” failure on the part of employers, according to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), a coalition dedicated to safe work conditions.
A report focusing on the nearly 150 worker deaths in North Carolina in 2011 demonstrates the effect of lax enforcement and weak fines, according to the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), which issued the document.
Measure has tougher penalties for workplace hazards
April 24, 2013
The reintroduction of a bill that would strengthen the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) is being hailed as a necessary step for protecting U.S. workers by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).
Group: Texas has disregard for workers’ well-being
April 23, 2013
An occupational safety organization says last week’s deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas is the result of that state’s anti-regulatory environment. The explosion at the West Fertilizer Company killed 14 people and injured many more.
An explosion at a flour mill in Statesville, N.C. last weekend that seriously injured a worker highlights the need for a combustible dust standard, says the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health.The blast at the Bartlett Milling Co. occurred while two maintenance workers were repairing a piece of equipment.